Psycho Holocaust

"Six innocent people. Three brutal killers. One night of madness and mayhem, you will never forget..."

Psycho Holocaust is a horror flick directed by Krist Rufty. The film follows a group of young adults that take a trip to a secluded area to have some time to themselves to break away from the reality of city life. Before the group even has time to get settled in a masked killer and his crazy group of acquaintances start picking them off. Obviously this is a plot that every horror fan has bumped into a least once. The group of villains torture their victims mentally and physically. A man is sodomized with a bottle and a pregnant woman is used as a canvas for a little blood finger painting session. While all this is happening the leader of the bunch is taking video and ordering his minions around to do his bidding.

Even though the movie has a very crisp picture it reminds me of some of the old school shot on video flicks. Though at heart Psycho Holocaust is a crazy cult/slasher film later on it turns into somewhat of a torture porn movie (a term that I despise). The main thing that made Psycho Holocaust enjoyable is the fact that there is still a little cheese sprinkled in even though the film is fairly mean spirited. Containing everything from rapes to decapitations this is certainly not a film for those with weak stomachs, these scenes of brutality look realistic for the most part and it is clear that Rufty doesn't feel the need to shy away from violence.

The acting in this surprised me. I was expecting the actors to all be below average but to my surprise most of them were actually pretty damn good. The cast is lead by a familiar face to low budget horror fans, Raine Brown. Many may know her from Barricade, Plasterhead, and Sculpture along with numerous others. Most of the actors are very convincing in their deaths (with a few exceptions). All around there isn't much of anything to complain about here.

The only problem is the sound quality. At times it is nearly impossible to hear some of the dialogue. This isn't a problem for most of the film but during the scene where the two girls are talking by the water the background noise simply overpowers what is being said. Another that adds to Psycho Holocaust's charm is the soundtrack. Whoever was behind the music in this went very old school with it and it definitely added a great deal to the atmosphere.

Overall Psycho Holocaust is everything a low budget horror flick should be. The movie was shot in six days and considering the short shoot it came out great. This is up there with the other excellent low budget horror films like Stockholm Syndrome and Chaos. The violence is unflinching and although it isn't anything groundbreaking it does what it does very well. The political aspects that are thrown in could've fell flat but luckily in this films case the concept worked. It is clear when watching that all the individuals that took part in this film worked their asses off to make it the best it could be. Highly recommended to all fans of horror, even if you aren't into the low budget flicks you should find something to enjoy here.