Charlie's farm is an Aussie slasher, very much in the nature of The Texas chainsaw massacre, Friday the 13th and basically every other horror film that has emulated the deranged killing machine formula.
The plot basically rips off elements of superior efforts such as The Devils Rejects and Hatchet; a group of tourists set off on an adventure to investigate a rural property in the a**e end of Australia (complete with warnings from the locals of "evil" lurking and to stay way) where the title character's redneck family resided in the 80's - killing and raping - until the towns folk took it upon themselves to kill the psychotic mother and father. This leaves the young deformed and handicapped son parent-less and left to fend for himself in the harsh Aussie outback.
In true B-grade horror style, the child grows to the size of a mountain, whilst remaining inherently stupid - yet still far intellectually superior to the dimwitted tourists/backpackers that he subsequently dismembers, disembowels and totally destroys.
The title character Charlie provides the best highlights in this otherwise derivative movie - at 7 foot and 350 odd pounds and the appearance of a Neanderthal troll - actor Nathan Jones certainly conveys a brutish and frightening amount of menace. Horror stalwarts such as Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley provide some level of credibility - yet remain only small players. This unfortunately entails that the focus is largely placed on Tara Reid and 3 other dipstick Australian Z grade actors that ensure that the dragged out early and middle stages of the film are quite tedious and mostly devoid of laughs - cheesy or black.. One could possibly blame the lackluster script for this as well..
Any shortcomings in the plot and acting really is par for the course in the context of B grade slashers - it's the gore and kills that remain as fundamentals, and Charlie's farm is no exception. Actually, the gore FX is top notch, often brutal and definitely as good as many bigger budget productions. Here is the problem with the film - three quarters of the movie is used to build characters and a story that ultimately goes nowhere - the slow nature of the narrative really does make the viewer wait too long for the pay off..And the victimized characters lack any redeeming qualities..It is a relief when big, nasty Charlie finally dispatches of the final one!
All in all, watching the deranged and insane Charlie lumber round with large weapons chasing down f**k-wits like Tara Reid's character is great fun - but this accounts for about 20 minutes of action. The tedious build up bereft of an entertaining script or characters ultimately undermines the savage finale. Australian redneck gore- fest "Storm Warning" is a far superior offering, or even both Wolf creek films.
The plot basically rips off elements of superior efforts such as The Devils Rejects and Hatchet; a group of tourists set off on an adventure to investigate a rural property in the a**e end of Australia (complete with warnings from the locals of "evil" lurking and to stay way) where the title character's redneck family resided in the 80's - killing and raping - until the towns folk took it upon themselves to kill the psychotic mother and father. This leaves the young deformed and handicapped son parent-less and left to fend for himself in the harsh Aussie outback.
In true B-grade horror style, the child grows to the size of a mountain, whilst remaining inherently stupid - yet still far intellectually superior to the dimwitted tourists/backpackers that he subsequently dismembers, disembowels and totally destroys.
The title character Charlie provides the best highlights in this otherwise derivative movie - at 7 foot and 350 odd pounds and the appearance of a Neanderthal troll - actor Nathan Jones certainly conveys a brutish and frightening amount of menace. Horror stalwarts such as Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley provide some level of credibility - yet remain only small players. This unfortunately entails that the focus is largely placed on Tara Reid and 3 other dipstick Australian Z grade actors that ensure that the dragged out early and middle stages of the film are quite tedious and mostly devoid of laughs - cheesy or black.. One could possibly blame the lackluster script for this as well..
Any shortcomings in the plot and acting really is par for the course in the context of B grade slashers - it's the gore and kills that remain as fundamentals, and Charlie's farm is no exception. Actually, the gore FX is top notch, often brutal and definitely as good as many bigger budget productions. Here is the problem with the film - three quarters of the movie is used to build characters and a story that ultimately goes nowhere - the slow nature of the narrative really does make the viewer wait too long for the pay off..And the victimized characters lack any redeeming qualities..It is a relief when big, nasty Charlie finally dispatches of the final one!
All in all, watching the deranged and insane Charlie lumber round with large weapons chasing down f**k-wits like Tara Reid's character is great fun - but this accounts for about 20 minutes of action. The tedious build up bereft of an entertaining script or characters ultimately undermines the savage finale. Australian redneck gore- fest "Storm Warning" is a far superior offering, or even both Wolf creek films.