100 BLOODY ACRES (2012)

Studio:       Doppelganger Releasing
Director:    Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Writer:       Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Producer:  Julie Ryan, Kate Croser
Stars:     Damon Herriman, Angus Sampson, Anna McGahan, Oliver Ackland, Jamie Kristian, John Jarratt

Review Score: 

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Summary:

The Morgan Brothers fertilizer business booms after the duo discovers that dead bodies make the ideal secret ingredient. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Reg and Lindsay run the Morgan Brothers organic blood and bone fertilizer business. While on the road for a delivery, Reg sees an accident scene where a van driver is slumped over the wheel. Reg collects the body and puts it in the back of his cube truck.

Sophie and Wesley make out in a nearby field where they see a makeshift shrine for “The Salvo Six,” six accident victims whose bodies mysteriously disappeared. On their way to the Stockport Music Festival, Sophie and Wesley return to their stalled car and reunite with Sophie’s boyfriend James. Wesley tries unsuccessfully to stop an old woman driving by with her dog.

James is nearly run over when he tries to flag down Reg’s truck, but Reg stops when he sees Sophie. Smitten with Sophie, Reg reluctantly decides to give the three friends a lift. Reg hides the body underneath bags of fertilizer and has James and Wes ride in the cube while Sophie rides up front with Reg. Reg tells Sophie about the new radio ad for his business. He and Sophie bond over a mutual affection for old country music.

In the back, Wes drops acid. James shows Wes a ring and tells him of the plan to propose to Sophie during John Butler’s performance at the festival. The men then discover the body.

With James and Wes pounding on the sides, Sophie convinces Reg to pull over and to see what they need. While Sophie remains in the cab, Reg pretends to open the back doors and give them air.

At the Morgan brothers’ farm, Lindsay tends to his prize-winning pumpkins. Lindsay takes a phone call from potato farmer Charlie Wick, who is upset that Reg’s fertilizer delivery is late. Reg pulls the truck into the farm and tries to get Sophie inside the barn, although she is concerned about the noises coming from the cube. Lindsay walks up and asks what is going on. Reg quickly grabs Sophie and locks her inside the barn.

Reg tells his brother that he found another dead body, although Lindsay is upset about having to deal with the live ones. While Reg is armed with a shotgun, Lindsay uses a cattle prod on James. Distracted by hearing their commercial on the radio, James is able to tackle Lindsay. Reg fires a shotgun blast that frightens Wes while Lindsay recovers and shocks James again.

Inside the barn, the brothers duct tape James to a post and tie the other two to a couch. Outside, Lindsay chokes his brother for creating the situation before they pull the body out of the truck. Meanwhile, Wes pulls a knife from his pocket, but drops it when the phone rings with another message from Charlie Wick.

The Morgans bring the body into the barn and chain it up for grinding. Sophie kicks the knife to James, who uses his foot to flip it towards Wes. The blade lands in Wes’ thigh. Lindsay starts the grinder when Reg realizes that the man is still alive. Reg tries to rescue him while Lindsay forces the man into the grinder. Lindsay is pleased with the resulting potassium content of the mixture.

James is chained up next. Wes manages to cut himself loose and he escapes in the truck. Lindsay chases after him in a car. Sophie tries to convince Reg that he has a good heart and that he needs to break away from Lindsay’s domineering influence. She also gets Reg to kiss her. Reg snaps out of the seduction and inadvertently reveals Sophie’s infidelity with Wes, which is a surprise to James. Reg retreats to his trailer to masturbate.

Wes drives to Fairyland Village amusement park. Lindsay follows Wes with a shotgun, but Wes manages to knock Lindsay unconscious. Still on his acid trip, Wes then cavorts all over the theme park. Lindsay recovers and eventually knocks out Wes.

Still fuming, Reg takes an axe to his brother’s oversized pumpkins. Even though he is gagged with duct tape, James still finds a way to argue with Sophie about their relationship. Lindsay is pulled over by the town’s police office, Burke. After a lengthy back-and-forth, Burke hears Wes screaming from the trunk and forces Lindsay to open it. Lindsay shoots Burke with the shotgun.

Reg apologizes to Sophie for his earlier behavior and pledges to improve the situation when his brother returns. Still hanging from the chains, James falls in a barrel of blood. Reg removes his gag and James begins berating Sophie for sleeping with Wes.

Lindsay beats Reg when he returns and discovers the damaged pumpkins. The brothers then open the trunk and Wes starts shooting wildly with Burke’s gun. Reg is grazed in his arm before Lindsay takes an axe and chops off Wes’ fingers.

The old woman seen earlier, Nancy, pulls into the driveway. Lindsay stuffs his brother in the trunk with Wes. Nancy’s dog finds Wes’ hand, but Lindsay pulls it from the dog’s mouth before leaving to entertain Nancy inside the house.

Wes and Reg break out of the trunk and free Sophie and James. James tackles Wes because of Sophie, but Wes is still tripping from the acid and finds it funny. Reg goes to the house in search of Lindsay’s keys and sees his brother performing oral sex on Nancy. He eventually retrieves the keys.

Nancy’s dog retrieves the severed hand again and Wes follows it into the house. This alerts Nancy and Lindsay. Lindsay shoots Wes. Meanwhile, Sophie and James flee. Lindsay shoots Nancy when she moves to phone the police. Lindsay then tries to shoot his brother, but the gun is out of bullets.

Reg runs back to the barn in search of Sophie. Sophie decides to return when she hears Reg’s cries while James continues running away. After a fight, Lindsay chains up his brother for grinding. Sophie arrives with a shotgun. Reg is then able to grab his brother from behind and force him into the grinder.

After the credits, James is run over in the road by Charlie Wick, who is driving furiously towards the Morgan Brothers farm in search of the delivery that never arrived.

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Review:

Some country folk like to scrape up tire-treaded roadkill and use the skins to make cheap furs and feed the meat to their overall clad families.  Or at least that is the impression that Cletus the slack-jawed yokel gives on “The Simpsons” anyway.  On the other side of the globe in Australia, the Morgan Brothers peel people off the pavement and grind the corpses into a secret ingredient for their unique blood and bone fertilizer.  They are not serial killers mind you.  They are just a grave robbing variety of farmer content to scoop up the remains of car crash victims and hope that no one notices.  Until Reg Morgan makes the mistake of offering a lift to three stranded motorists on their way to a John Butler concert.  Once the unsuspecting trio finds out what the Morgan boys are really doing to make their potassium-rich product, Reg and his brother Lindsay are stuck in a pickle with no easy way out.

“100 Bloody Acres” is more horrific comedy than comedic horror.  Believe it or not, there is a difference between the two.  “Comedic horror” is somewhere along the line towards “Re-Animator,” where sly flourishes of black comedy accent what could otherwise only be classified as straight horror.  “100 Bloody Acres” is closer in step to a film like “Shaun of the Dead,” where the comedy comes from the ever-increasing absurdity of a situation spiraling uncontrollably further into unbelievable lunacy.  The premise is approached in such a way that the script has to be treated as a comedy first, instead of the other way around.

The Morgan Brothers orchard is the type of place that exists between identifiable reality and demented cinematic fantasy.  To explain it another way, it is the kind of environment where watching a torso somewhat accidentally being ground into mulch is a source of laughter instead of a cause for terror.  In the instances where “100 Bloody Acres” uses gore for laughs, it usually comes in the form of purposefully excessive blood sprays drenching just about every character in copious amounts of crimson.

The film’s big strength is its quality cast.  Damon Herriman is on the money as Reg, the likeable dimwit half of the Morgan Brothers.  Fans of the TV series “Justified” will remember him from a somewhat similar, albeit more trigger happy, role as dimwit redneck Dewey Crowe.  Angus Sampson, familiar to genre moviegoers as the tall dark partner of Leigh Whannell’s paranormal investigator in the “Insidious” films, makes good use of his lumbering frame and thick beard as the intimidating brother Lindsay.

While the brothers balance inklings of homicide with fraternal affection, Anna McGahan mixes a seductive blend of charming cutie and two-timing temptress as Sophie.  Jamie Kristian’s Wesley spends the majority of the 90 minutes enjoying an acid trip, which affords his character plenty of opportunities for inappropriate observations, commentary, and actions as things progress from bad to worse.  Oliver Ackland has the least impact as James, but that is due to the characterization and not his performance.  By design, James has the thankless destiny of existing to be a sad sack dullard when he is not rendered speechless because of a duct tape gag.

With a different cast, “100 Bloody Acres” would have been a different, and inferior, movie.  Sure, that broad statement applies to every film.  But here, the ensemble is quirky enough and has the right mixture of personalities to make the material fresher than it has any right to be.  Little in the script is unfamiliar territory for horror or for comedy.  Everyone has seen the numbskull bullied by a domineering partner and forced to break from his shell.  The hostage honey that turns on the sex appeal so she can turn the tables on her captor is also nothing new.  Neither are scenes of runaway body parts or apprehensive lawmen creeping towards suspicious car trunks.

Most of the gags have been seen many times over, which is where points are docked for originality.  Sometimes, the humor is not regular enough to distract from the groans that ride along with the predictable plot turns and tired story devices.  Luckily for “100 Bloody Acres,” its heart is in the right place as a goofy splatterfest and the cast is having enough fun with the setup that it takes an effort to resist enjoying it right along with them.

NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.

Review Score:  65

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