By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Brian Raetz, Lindsey Nicole and Celina Beach
Directed by Glenn Douglas Packard
Written by Darryl F. Gariglio and Glenn Douglas Packard
Uncork’d Entertainment
PITCHFORK may be the only slasher film you’ll ever see with a full-on barn dance sequence, in which the main characters as well as a bunch of rural-Michigan locals hoof it like Broadway veterans. This is because debuting director Glenn Douglas Packard has a background as an Emmy-winning choreographer—which might also explain why the rest of PITCHFORK is the same old song and dance.
Packard, who scripted with Darryl F. Gariglio, takes a separate credit for creating the story and characters, which suggests misplaced pride in the assorted clichés he’s thrown together. Following the traditional prologue murder, we’re introduced to our young protagonist Hunter (Brian Raetz), headed into the countryside to break the news to his father that he’s gay, with a hippie-van-full of friends along for support. Hunter’s motivating goal is pretty much forgotten after the movie’s first 10 minutes, and anyway, Dad seems quite rightly less concerned about his son’s sexual orientation than he is about Hunter bringing this irritating group of stereotypes to his doorstep—or as he puts it, “It looks like the Breakfast Club just puked on my lawn.”
That’s not the only outdated reference sprinkled into the dialogue (someone else says, “What you talkin’ about, Willis?”—look it up, kids) as the young folks dance and drink and hook up and assorted sexual jealousies raise their ugly heads (sample exchange: “You just fucked my boyfriend!” “So just like that, you’re going to throw our friendship out the window?”). Pretty soon, the party’s over, the guests leave and the eponymous hick psychopath starts taking off after Hunter’s friends and family. The latter also include his sister, who looks to be about 13 but still needs Dad to check for monsters in her closet and under her bed, and his mom, who hears a scary noise coming from upstairs and responds by going down into the dimly lit basement.
Pitchfork (Daniel Wilkinson) himself, with an animal-head mask and the titular implement razor-wired to an arm-stump, is at least a bit of a change from the usual hulking maniac, being lithe, shirtless and fast-moving—indeed, in a few scenes, he’s apparently able to teleport. Would that the same could be said for the film’s pacing, which is rather pokey past the half-hour mark since Packard has pretty much run out of story at that point, a couple of unsurprising twists notwithstanding. Instead, it ticks off the typical ingredients—a gratuitously sleazy torture scene here, the introduction of a weirdo family there—as if by rote, and gore fans might be disappointed that while lots of blood is splattered around, the points of impact are almost always hidden or just off camera.
The movie does boast some attractive photography by Rey Gutierrez, though we’re getting close to the point where aerial drone shots have become the new cliché of independent horror films. And this visual appeal can’t distract enough from PITCHFORK’s silliness (as in one moment when Hunter makes a stand against Pitchfork), continuity glitches (Hunter’s sis is kidnapped out of her bed, but the maniac evidently lets her change clothes before imprisoning her) and weak stabs at character development in the midst of the mayhem (“I can run! Trust me, I’ve been running from things my whole life!”).
By the time it gets to its basement-abuse finale, PITCHFORK has veered from tediously familiar to offensive—not so much for its pointless cruelty, but for the assumption that that’s all it takes to get off the genre audience. According to the IMDb, PITCHFORK has won seven awards at four different film festivals. It makes you wonder what the competition must have been like.
