This week\u2019s low-profile VOD releases travel back to the 1980s for a camp-counselor massacre, a small-town showdown, and a snowbound fight for survival, while in the present, a kangaroo and a bunny incite danger in highly different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ted Bunny<\/em> <\/strong>(VOD February 13):<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to say whether this first movie in the planned \u201cTwisted Serial Killer Universe\u201d from producer Jeff Miller is too tasteless or not tasteless enough. Obviously the offensiveness is the point for a series of movies bringing together pun-based variations on infamous real-life murderers, but director and co-writer Michael Fredianelli takes the premise surprisingly seriously, even showcasing a remarkably affecting performance from genre legend Dee Wallace. She plays a previously unknown survivor of serial killer Ted Bundy, who secretly gave birth to his illegitimate son. Ted Jr. has grown up into a hulking, Leatherface-like simple-minded slayer, complete with creepy bunny mask thanks to his mother\u2019s fixation on rabbits. Most of Ted Bunny<\/em> is just an unremarkable slasher movie, with uninteresting characters, clumsy dialogue, and minimal suspense. Once Wallace exits the story, there\u2019s nothing to keep the audience engaged, other than the prospect of what kind of further cheap transgressions might show up once Ted Bunny teams up with Jeffrey Dollmer. Grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blood Barn<\/em> <\/strong>(Screambox February 17):<\/strong> This loving but haphazard homage to 1980s horror movies has its heart in the right place \u2014 which is somewhere outside the body, oozing with blood. Director and co-writer Gabriel Bernini knows how to emulate the look of low-budget vintage horror, but he doesn\u2019t offer much more than that. The loosely plotted movie draws its most obvious inspirations from The Evil Dead<\/em> and Night of the Demons<\/em>, trapping a group of horny young people in a remote location where they\u2019re beset by vaguely defined supernatural threats. Awkward Josie (Lena Redford) invites her fellow camp counselors to spend a weekend partying on her family\u2019s remote property in what everyone refers to as a barn, even though it has multiple bedrooms and bathrooms and a full kitchen. Barn or house, it\u2019s clearly possessed by the spirits of Josie\u2019s weird ancestors, although Bernini and co-writer Alexandra Jade don\u2019t bother with specifics. Cue the \u201ccharming\u201d low-fi practical effects and stilted performances, which aren\u2019t any less tiresome for being period-accurate. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hellfire<\/em> <\/strong>(VOD February 17):<\/strong> Stephen Lang isn\u2019t famous enough to qualify as a geezer being teased in one of producer Randall Emmett\u2019s notorious\u201cgeezer teasers,\u201d<\/a> which means he actually stars in the entirety of this threadbare thriller. He puts in a genuine effort, too, unlike Harvey Keitel and Dolph Lundgren, who coast through their more traditional Emmett-ian roles as a crime boss and a corrupt sheriff, respectively. Lang\u2019s nameless military-veteran drifter wanders into a small Texas town in 1988, recalling John Rambo as he\u2019s hassled by the local authorities and pushed to his breaking point. He\u2019s more stable and more calculating than Rambo, but he still causes more damage than good as he decides to defend the townspeople from the drug smugglers who rule over them. Reliable DTV action director Isaac Florentine pulls off a couple of decent action sequences, but Lang is no Scott Adkins, and the combat is more rote than dynamic. The bare-bones plot is even less lively, sluggishly limping along to its underwhelming finale. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n