Director: Jane Clark
MPAA Rating: NR
Having a title like Crazy Bitches, Jane Clark’s horror-comedy had surprisingly few of said bitches.
A more apt title might have been “Normal Bitches” or perhaps “Stereotypical Bitches,” but to call them crazy implies that they do something out of the norm. Sadly, that doesn’t really happen, and we’re left with what amounts to a by-the-numbers slasher film that brings little originality to the genre.
The film starts off as formulaic as possible, almost as if it’s trying to see how generic it can be by introducing the cast of seven nearly indistinguishable women who, along with their gay buddy, head to a remote cabin for a girls’ week. As it turns out, this cabin was once the location of a series of brutal murders years ago, when another group of girls staying at the cabin were slain. Guess what? It starts happening again and the girls begin getting picked off one by one.
If you’re familiar with Wes Craven’s Scream, you’ll find a lot of similarities here, except Crazy Bitches removes the intentional humor and cleverness and replaces it with annoying stereotypical characters, devoid of any interesting qualities; a plot that brings nothing new to the table; and plenty of humor, though none of it intentional.
As the girls start to go missing, we begin seeing various suspects appear, like the creepy farmhand, the promiscuous farmhand, and the random hot guy (potentially also a farmhand) walking his dog. This completely unnecessary scene with the dog walker is particularly bizarre, as his dog brings him a human femur with what appears to be torn clothing still attached to the bone, and neither he nor the girls realize what it is. Then this character inexplicably disappears, never to return.
The hook with Crazy Bitches is that the killer’s weapon is the particular item that represents what makes each of the victims the vainest. For example, one girl is in love with her high heels, so she gets a heel to the head. This actually might be an interesting way to dispatch people if it were explored a bit more than it was. To kill someone based on their vanity leaves open the possibility of a plethora of creative kills, but these were mostly boring.
The generic plot is accompanied by some incredibly generic performances by a cast I would only describe as a group of people who you would expect to see playing a corpse on this week’s CSI. I’ll give writer/director Clark points for introducing “non-traditional” scream queens, but none of the characters are interesting or likable, and it’s difficult to even tell some of them apart from one another. Thus, it’s nearly impossible to become attached to any of them or feel any emotion when someone is killed.
It’s probable that Clark was attempting satire with this film, poking fun at the superficiality of some people while also shining a light on how those people treat others, but it just doesn’t work on any level.
There is one scene where the gay friend, perhaps ironically named BJ, repeatedly punches one of the girls in the face for no real reason other than he thinks there’s a possibility she could be the killer. In addition to being completely ridiculous and virtually coming out of nowhere, this sequence mirrors how I felt while watching this film – getting randomly punched in the face over and over for no reason.
