June 19, 2023
BLU-RAY REVIEW:
By the Horns;
Horror Comedy;
$30.00 Blu-ray;
Rated ‘R’ for graphic language and violence.
Stars Manon Pages, Carter Simoneaux, Austin Naulty, Zack Lee, Austin Frosch.
Imagine the spiel the top brass at MGM might have pitched a career-snagged John Brahm: “We own the rights to a well-intentioned teen actioner called Hot Rods to Hell that we want you to direct. Rather than another moralistic permutation on a teen-scare PSA, we want a picture so howlingly bad it’s scholarly. We’ll star Dana Andrews, a career-drinker so pickled by now, he’ll need a board up the back of his shirt to keep from slumping over the steering wheel. He’ll go up against some of the wholesomest, tidily-dressed young ruffians ever to disgrace the silver screen. What do you say?” Camp isn’t made, it’s whelped. The reason HRTH is funnier than most intentional comedies of its day stems from the studio believing they actually had a searing message about teenage delinquency to cash in on. Anyone who purposely sets out to make a bad movie should hereby be sentenced to a career manufacturing third-shift infomercials. The genius of Killer Kites stops at the title, which the filmmakers no doubt first came up with and then fashioned a film around.
The premise strings audiences along like a poorly constructed bob on a kite tail, a clothesline on which nothing hangs. Sixty years after a killer kite devised by the Nazis was first discovered in Berlin, it wound up in the will of Abby’s (Manon Pages) grandmother. Unbeknownst to Abby, the title tissue-paper-and-sticks-toy grandma bequeathed her was a bloodthirsty reich kite. The introductory disclaimer is comparable to a student scrawling “It’s not my best work” across the top of a exam before handing it to the teacher. Morgan Gonzales, an attorney representing By the Horns Productions, warned viewers that what they were about to see, “may be the stupidest and/or lowest-quality film ever made.” (To hear Gonzales speak, it sounds like bragging.) One must know the rules before breaking them, but that didn’t stop “filmmakers” Paul Dale and Austin Frosch from rubbing viewers’ faces in 71 minutes of unredeemed incompetence that leaves the more discerning among us (i.e. viewers with IQs above room temperature) feeling kicked in the teeth, not tickled in the ribs. What little snickers there are come from lighting that doesn’t match from shot to shot and characters who stare directly into the camera, not a myriad of “Kuntz Yeast” jokes topped by reels of stoner humor that all the Bubba Kush in the world wouldn’t make funny.
A smug sense of superiority permeates every pixel as if to say, “Look how much better we are than the material we present.” Like parents fawning over baby’s first bowel movement, fanboys find themselves rejoicing over the forced awfulness of the non-existent production values and overall artless, chemistry-free character development with a triumphant, “That’s the point!” Competent filmmakers don’t have to lower themselves by passing off low grade junk like this off as legitimate parody. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is Buster Keaton compared to this cinematic variation on slop pool. If the goal was to show the lack of artistic interest that went into producing an amateurishly awful film, for all the legitimate laughs this turkey yields, they might just as well have left the lens cap on.
Bonus features include the director’s commentary, deleted scenes, and a reel of bloopers — all of which play under the closing credits — to what is essentially one long 72-minute blooper.