All Rise...

Appellate Judge Patrick Bromley's not getting stuck in this muck.

The Charge

The lucky ones are already dead.

The Case

Writer/director Steve Wolsh's Muck is one of the worst horror films ever made by professionals with cameras. It is exactly the kind of movie that gives horror a bad name, giving those who complain about the genre every bit of ammo they need to attack it. Well, except for the gore. This movie can't even get that right.

The movie begins in medias res, with a group of attractive young Abercrombie & Fitch models on the run from something that attacked them. They escape to a house, where they bicker and strip and strip and bicker. One of them, Noah (Bryce Draper), goes into town to make a phone call and spends what seems like a few hours chatting up girls and ordering drinks. Eventually the house is attacked by a bunch of bald albino guys (one of which is genre legend Kane Hodder playing a character named "Grawsome Crutal," in case you needed more reason to never stop throwing up in your mouth), who kill several of the nondescript characters. Noah calls in reinforcements in the form of his cousin Troit (Lachlan Buchanan, Behaving Badly), the biggest douchebag bro in the history of horror. He shows up with two more centerfold types—and in this case, one of the girls really is Playboy centerfold Jaclyn Swedberg—to be the new worst character in the movie and help his unlikable friends survive the night.

Muck seems to pride itself on being a throwback to '80s horror; the copy written on the Blu-ray jacket boasts "old-school gore effects and brutal stunts without any CGI or apologies." I have some thoughts. 1) By "old school gore effects," do they mean spilling some blood on the floor? Because that's about as graphic as this one gets. Most of the deaths in this slasher movie occur off camera, because it's cheaper and easier to do that than to design and execute practical kill sequences. 2) There are no brutal stunts. Anywhere. 3) What Muck is trying to do was already done by Adam Green in Hatchet—young people being hunted in a swamp, old-school vibe, practical effects. The difference is that Hatchet knew how to make its moments count. The gore is incredible, the humor actually funny, the killer—played by Kane Hodder, no less—a legitimate new icon. 4) No apologies? Someone definitely owes me an apology. A lot of them, actually.

There is no end to the list of complaints I could register about Muck. It is as sexist and misogynistic a horror movie as I can recall; every single female character (save one) is photographed in leering slow motion, usually in a state of advanced undress. A side character literally stops the movie at one point just so she can try on various pieces of lingerie. During a chase scene, director Wolsh cuts away to a close up of one actresses' cleavage for no other reason than, you know, boobies. The photography is so dark that it's difficult to make out anything happening on screen, which could be argued as a favor if it wasn't the result of incompetence. Plus, the attractiveness of the cast—both male and female—is literally the only thing the movie has going for it. The editing is equally disastrous; Muck seems to be in a constant state of dissolve. It's cut in such a way so as to be visually incoherent. Its geography makes no sense; its plotting less so. Its characters are the least likable people to ever inhabit a horror movie—shrill and bickering, constantly making stupid, inappropriate comments no matter how much danger they may find themselves. The women are shrieking pin-ups, the men date rapists. There is not one thing in this movie that works. Not one.

Muck arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Anchor Bay, who do a job with the technical aspects of this terrible movie. The 1080p HD, AVC-encoded transfer is spotless, presenting the best possible version of the digitally-shot film. It's not the fault of the transfer that most of the movie is obscured by darkness and bad editing. The lossless 5.1 audio track is lively, too, with good separation effects and atmosphere while still keeping the badly written dialogue audible in the front center channel. There are no bonus features. Let's consider it a blessing.

The even worse news is that Muck is supposedly part of a "trilogy." According to IMDb, production has already begun on Muck: Feast of Saint Patrick (this movie takes place on St. Patrick's Day), which will be a prequel in which we get to see the events that led to where Muck drops us in its opening. I don't know if this is hubris on the part of the filmmakers and producers or if there really is a market for three Muck movies, but I find either answer depressing.

There are so, so many good independent horror movies being made right now. See any of those. Life is too short for this bottom of the barrel slime. You know…the muck.

The Verdict

Muck yourself.

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