Movie Review: Butcher the Bakers (2017)
Butcher The Bakers is a comedy/horror film from Hometown Hero Productions, and director Tyler Amm. It was co-written by Tyler Amm and Virginia Campbell. It starts off with the story being centered around a bakery called “The Ottawa Bakery” and the two guys who are running it, Martin (Ryan Matthew Ziegler) and Sam (Sean Walsh). Unbeknownst to them, there is a much more serious situation developing around them because a grim reaper and previous Romanian knight from the days of the crusades named Dragomir or “Drag” (Mike Behrens) has been fired and is now mortal. But Drag is now out killing people and collecting souls.
His former boss Lance The Commissary (Alex Dittmer) who has just fired him just happens to be sitting outside the bakery at closing time and recruits Martin and Sam to help him kill the now mortal former grim reaper believing they are stout of heart. Martin and Sam agree to help Lance kill Drag for a bunch of gold in return. Drag recruits some other baddies to help him kill people and collect souls, which he plans on using to create a portal to the nether dimension. Martin and Sam meet up with Dani (Devon Ford) and Pat (Lisa Wojcik) who are also looking to put an end to Drag, and they have to figure out a way to defeat him and save the souls that he has collected before it’s too late.
There were a lot of really great things about this film. The sound and score were on-point, the cinematography was great, the acting was fantastic for most of the actors not even having a lot of prior experience, and to top it off, it was a really well-written comedy/horror. There was a pretty good mix of practical and digital effects, and the digital effects looked great for the most part. There were even a couple of surprising moments at how good they were. The practical effects were really great as well, and there was definitely a lot of gore to go around. There is also a pretty sweet montage of killing from Drag and crew, and Drag even does a “Rock Bottom” wrestling move on some guy. This was satisfying because when first seeing Drag, he definitely looked like he could be a WWE wrestler and reminded us of “The Undertaker” a bit. It was fitting.
With an estimated total budget of around $15,000, the film had a Kickstarter to raise the last $1500 so that they could complete the film without rushing it when it was just shy from being 94% done, and managed to raise $2757 to help pay for some finishing touches on practical effects, and other needs for production costs. The cast and crew were not paid, and it definitely shows how a team of people who are passionate about making a quality film can come together and do just that with a very small budget.
Overall, Butcher The Bakers is an inventive, inspiring, silly, gory, and extremely fun comedy/horror film that covers just about everything you could ask for. It has blood, lots of guts, jokes, demons, bowling, nachos, a touching bond with a severed limb, and much more. The film is just an enjoyable very well-rounded indie production from a team of people who were dedicated to making a good product, and we definitely recommend this if you are in the mood for a good comedy/horror. We hope to see more projects from Hometown Hero Productions and team in the future. The film is out today on Vudu, iTunes, Google Play, Microsoft Xbox, Vubiquity, Dish, and Tivo.
Hometown Hero Productions: http://hometownherofilms.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HometownHeroFilm/
