Other than the torso hooked on a chain, something serious is swinging deep in the woods in the brilliant Canadian rural cannibal horror flick Butchers – Book Two: Raghorn, written and directed by Adrian Langley from a story by Langley and Kolin Casagrande. The poster features a stump with a meat cleaver covered in dried blood stuck in it. That’s all I knew going in, as I have not seen the first installment. The backwoods horror notion of the image is confirmed within the opening few minutes.
Rowena (Alyssa Ingram) is running through the woods half-naked and bloody. We then meet the people-eating good ol’ boy Clyde (Nick Biskupek) and his hulking mutant brother Crusher (Michael Swatton). Brian (Dave Coleman) pulls into the gas station down the road from the forest. Next to him is Rico (Miguel Cortez), with Josh (Sam Huntsman) and Sarah (Hollie Kennedy) sitting in the back. While they are getting gas, Brian gets a tad jumpy when he sees Sheriff Hill (Mark Templin) pull in to shoot the s**t with Wilbur (Dan Molson). He gets downright panicky when he sees Sheriff Hill talk to Josh and Sarah as they head back to the car. As they drive off into the woods, Brian freaks out and reminds everyone not to say their names out loud. Then something horrible happens between the trees. Then things get worse.
Butchers – Book Two: Raghorn was the complete opposite of what I was anticipating; thank god for that. I don’t usually pitch my tent in backwoods horror, as such movies all riff off the core narrative established in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Imagine my surprise when that was openly referenced. Then I spotted the iconic road sign from the Wrong Turn franchise hanging on a wall. That is when I knew Langley masterfully crafted some innovation with the off-the-grid flesh-eating concept.
“…meet the people-eating good ol’ boy Clyde and his hulking mutant brother Crusher…”
It also explains why Brian De Palma’s famed framing through windows and screens of characters is on full display. Langley’s use of this screen-within-the-screen adds multiple levels to the composition, each sicker than the next. The way the mutant brother is shot is genius, with his face always obscured with focus tricks or angles. In theory, it may sound distracting, but in practice, it makes Crusher all the more menacing. He’s constantly lurching up in the corner of your eye.
Despite all these high-end moves from well-thought-out suspense classics, the director never loses track of the pedal to the metal horror at play. The practical effects are perfection, tangible and grotesque. It is the best time you will have vomiting without the help of booze or peyote. The gore is used strategically: sometimes, the camera comes in close for shocking guts galore. At other points, soft focus lets the audience imagine the worst. The scene where someone’s dick gets chopped off is the effects centerpiece and contains the most graphic splatter. It is one of the most gloriously explicit castrations in cinema’s cavalcade of junk lopping. If you wanted to see what was happening beneath the suds in I Spit On Your Grave, here you go.
But the greatest pleasure in the movie is all the wonderful twists Langley puts into the story. A lot of moments are surprisingly clever, which is not the norm for inbred cannibal pictures. There are lots of noir elements that are used to enhance the plot structure. These darker concerns go a long way to make the victims’ plight more engaging instead of just partying while waiting for the body count. As Clyde says in the film, a bag over a woman’s head adds a sense of mystery.
Butchers – Book Two: Raghorn shows that you can’t judge this book by its cover. This is some high-brow filmmaking for a bloody low-brow good time. The story is original, as far as man-eater flicks go, and the director has borrowed from the best.
For more information, visit the official Butchers – Book Two: Raghorn site.
"…masterfully crafted..."
