The film takes place on the night before Easter and opens with a robbery where a masked gunman mercilessly kills a liquor store clerk. We’re then introduced to a single Mother, Mindy Peters, and her handicapped son, Nicholas, who is obsessed with the holiday – we later find out that his father died on Easter. Mindy has a date with her new boyfriend, Remington, who, unbeknownst to her, is the criminal who committed the robbery and plans on moving in with her despite Nicholas’ objections. When Mindy has to work a double shift and can’t get a babysitter, Remington offers to help but has more sinister plans to party. Unfortunately for him and his friends, a masked killer is on the loose and begins to pick them off one by one.

So what separates Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! from other recent slasher movies? Firstly, it’s not a remake and even though it’s about a masked killer who chooses to kill during a particular time of the year, I think this is more in homage to classic slashers than an attempt to bring something entirely new to the table. I would have liked it to look a little more authentic (like last year’s The House of the Devil) but this may have been impossible due to budgetary constraints or simply because Director Chad Ferrin wants this to be remembered as an unpretentious modern-day slasher.

There are some gory death scenes which include a drill to the head, plastic wrap suffocation and even a broom to the throat (not the brush end). Muskatell manages to walk a fine line in his portrayal of Remington who’s simply vile but strangely likable (the handlebar mustache and chops complement his pear-shaped body and maniacal laugh for comic effect).

I’m a little uncertain about the direction as the photography is dodgy throughout and certain shots don’t appear to be framed properly – if this was for effect, I don’t know if it always worked. I thought the ending was a little weak and felt rushed but it tied things up nicely.

In the end, though, this isn’t looking to break any new ground; it’s a straightforward exploitation film in the style of the ultraviolent slashers from the 70s and 80s, with unwholesome characters, a thin plot and questionable morals (all of which is good).

Cornered is essentially about a group of half a dozen convenience store workers that are trapped in their store/apartment with a killer that is hell-bent on murdering convenience clerks throughout the city of Los Angeles.  One by one they realize that they are locked in the store with this brutal serial killer, and they each have their own personal encounters with him, as short and as bloody as those encounters may be.  The killer does have a motive, but it is weak and hardly justifiable.  You’ll spend most of your time waiting for the kills to begin, and as the story progresses, the kills become more and more frequent.  Can everyone last until dawn when the store is scheduled to open its doors?  Absolutely not.  Will the only likeable character make it too the end of the film?  Probably not.   Will you enjoy Cornered???  I’m guessing…not…

Most of Cornered’s ideas run completely flat.  Our six “innocent” characters each read about the convenience store killer and verbally tell each other how they themselves would kill the killer if they were to ever encounter him.  Well, they each have their own time with him, but the killer finds it humorous to actually slay each character in the ways in which they, jokingly, wanted to originally kill him.  Sounds interesting, but it also makes the action sequences become much too predictable.  This, and many other plot devices will surely keep you scratching your head while you wonder why the writers increasingly throw in and uncover so many underwhelming mysteries.

Cornered contributes nothing new to the genre, but it does give us a welcomed amount of character development.  Yes, the characters are a bit trite and overplayed, but they each carry out themes that relate very well to everyday living, as sleazy as it may be, and eventually their deaths mimic their qualities in the most ironic ways.  Still, it would help to have a killer that had more of a sinister presents.  This guy doesn’t even get enough camera time for you to even notice most of his qualities.   As a result, a few thrilling sequences offer some well placed jump scares, but for a horror film, Cornered offers little else.

Cornered isn’t even a “good try”.  It’s just a cheap and lazy slasher film, and nothing else.  In some regards it is worth a watch for its few decent qualities, but I wouldn’t go too far out of your way to find out what those qualities are.

This search for obscure cinema is the story in last year’s low-budget horror film The Hills Run Red, which does a lot right but essentially misses the mark. Don’t get me wrong, this is an above-average slasher that I really enjoyed – it’s self-aware, the story’s intriguing and Babyface is a great concept for a serial killer (intelligent and shrewd). It even touches on concepts like artistic freedom and the consequences of an artist’s obsession with his subject and chosen medium. But it peaks a little too early and tries to stretch out the climax by relying on violence to further the plot towards the end.

The intro is pretty gory as you watch a boy mutilating himself and transforming into Babyface. It then segues to present day and shows a young man, Tyler, looking up a trailer for a rare movie called The Hills Run Red, which was pulled from theaters for its sadism and graphic depiction of murder. Only a handful of people got a chance to see it and the director, Wilson Wyler Concannon (played by William Sadler), disappeared along with any known prints of the film. His legend eventually sank into obscurity and the movie was forgotten.

Tyler, however, becomes obsessed with finding the lost movie and convinces his girlfriend, Serina, and friend, Lalo, to help him make a documentary about it. They track down Concannon’s daughter, Alexa, who tells them her father died in his house in the woods. She agrees to help them and they set out to find the house and (hopefully) the film itself. Unfortunately for them, the killer in the movie turns out to be real and they realize the movie might be more realistic than they expected.

This sounds like a generic storyline but it’s much better than I’ve described, even if the plot wears a little thin by the half-way mark. To say that I got a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe would be an understatement and I noticed a lot of clichés throughout as well. The plot twist is what makes it worth it though and just when you think this is just another “serial killer in the woods” slasher, it flips on you. And then it does it again.

Ultimately, though, it never reaches its potential. It shows promise right until the last twenty minutes, when you realize it has nothing else to say (though there’s a nice scene in a theater). There are numerous plot holes as well but I suppose that’s expected in a low-budget slasher. The gore isn’t over-the-top, the acting is ok and there are some nice twists (though I didn’t like the conclusion). This is meant to entertain and it does the job. No more, no less.