Easter Bloody Easter is the feature length directorial debut of Diane Foster. This comedic horror has came at the perfect time, seeing as it is Easter weekend when I have sat down to review this. There could have been an attempt to make this a pure horror, but the ridiculous premise is lent into, leading to fun scenes of blatant puppets attacking people rather than any attempt at realism.
There have been a series of strange animal attacks around the small rural Texan town that Jeanie (Foster) resides in, and after her husband Lance goes missing, Jeanie becomes convinced that the two events are linked. Local kook, Sam (Zach Kanner) is convinced the killings are the work of a legendary creature known as a jackalope (Jamie B. Cline), and with his assistance, soon Jeanie and her best friend Carol (Kelly Grant) are on the hunt for the creature, something that is a human that has the ability to transform into a giant killer rabbit.
There were parts of Easter Bloody Easter that I did find interesting, both around the characters themselves as well as the antagonist creature. The main method of attack comes from rabbits under the creature's control who have turned into murderous versions of themselves, reminding me a lot of the deadly rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There is no real attempt to make these attacks look convincing, one moment there will be an actual rabbit on screen, then suddenly it would have turned into a red eyed puppet ready to attack. This culminates in a wild mass killing scene that helped give this comedy horror a surprisingly high body count. Say what you want about the silly looking killers, but leads to some funny final words from victims, such as one who simply states "Fu*k Easter!" before she dies, and another (who has two killer rabbits attached to her chest) shouting "My t*ts! My t*ts!" before perishing. The humour was present throughout, mainly with how characters interact with each other, but it wasn't the sole focus of the movie, which also tries to keep things moving along at an urgent enough pace.
Jeanie and Carol were fine as the protagonists, I didn't really like them, but they were inoffensive. At first it seemed strange that we are meant to feel bad for Jeanie worried about her missing husband, I thought we should have actually seen him prior to his disappearance. This did make sense in a plot based way later on in the movie. There were a large cast of characters, with plenty of stand-out ones, my favourite being the dozy good natured and very much put-upon husband of self important local Mary Lou (Allison Lobel - Paralysis); Eugene (Miles Cooper - The Prey: Legend of Karnoctus). I found this actor very funny to watch.
Much of the mystery of the film comes from the protagonists attempting to discover the identity of the creature, and this wasn't that exciting. Despite some red herrings I pretty much guessed who it would turn out to be straight away. It was a fun enough pick, but the finale in which the heroes battle the giant rabbit felt a bit low on excitement, with it being dispatched fairly swiftly. I was constantly being reminded of Bunny the Killer Thing, a film who carried out the idea of a giant killer rabbit better mainly due to a better looking costume for the creature. Here, it was obviously someone in a giant bunny suit rather than something that looked real.
I didn't have a bad time watching Easter Bloody Easter, but I also didn't think it really did much to stand out. There were some fun moments mixed in with bizarre Easter themed dance montages and low level community drama, and I appreciated the body count was a lot higher than anticipated, but this wasn't that big on surprises. It makes for a perfectly fine, if unoriginal feeling horror that is worth a watch, but isn't essential viewing. Easter Bloody Easter came to Cable VOD and Digital HD from Gravitas Ventures on March 26th.
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