Directed by Steve Wolsh

Starring Lachlan Buchanan, Puja Mohindra and Kane Hodder

A bunch of drunken idiots get in trouble while out drinking and wind up getting attacked by albino cannibals (?) while waiting for help.

Trailer

Review

My love of horror movies isn’t restricted to older films as I’m always looking out for great new films that come out.  I’ll probably do a feature later in the year to spotlight all the great movies that have come out this year (such as Wolf Cop and Housebound which I’ll toss out as easy recommendations right now.) But every week, a slew of new indie titles come out so it’s hard to pick out the diamonds in the rough and the sacks of crap that aren’t worth the time or money you spend on it.  “Muck” unfortunately is in the latter category.

A group of drunken fools emerge from a marshy area covered in mud and worse for wear.  The most talkative one of the bunch is critically wounded so they break into an empty cottage to rest while one of them goes to find help.  While he’s out, the house is besieged by swamp people or something who viciously attack the weary drunkards.  When help arrives they are also attacked so it’s a fight to the death to survive against these turd creatures.

The story is threadbare, things happen and there’s awful dialogue with terrible acting.  The filmmakers felt that their audience won’t remember what happened ten minutes ago with the constant barrage of tit shots and a camera leering at the sight of a woman’s cleavage or ass while hard rock plays in the background.  The film is edited so that a scene you’ve already watched previously has the last few seconds played again to remind us what happened just a few minutes ago and continues that plot thread until the next edit to a previous scene where the movie continues from that point.  It’s a gimmick that the filmmakers chose to go with throughout the whole film which I felt was unnecessary. 

The film’s big promises are showing us “old school” gore effects done without the use of CGI and plenty of titilating shots of women wearing nothing or next to nothing. Yes, the women are hot and I’m not going to say no to boobs but the film is so ugly and brutal in nature that there’s very little excitement to these scenes.  The blood effects are well done and are the best part of the film by far.

There’s not much else to add, honestly, there’s very little that’s exciting about “Muck.”  The cast is full of unlikeable characters which is made worse by the terrible acting.  Horror legend Kane Hodder is cast in just enough scenes to put his name on the box and lend street cred to the movie.  There’s plenty of blood and boobs if that’s all you’re looking for but this movie is a great example of taking a lot more than that to be entertaining.

TL;DR

Story: 3 – It’s a Playboy shoot and music video mixed with a horror movie with terrible results. 

Blood: 7 – Good effects are easily the highlight of the film but aren’t enough to recommend watching.

Nudity: 8 – Lots of topless women in skimpy underwear.  You won’t miss any of this with the camera taking every opportunity possible to leer at the women.  Very creepy.

Overall: 3 –  If you’re a thirteen-year old boy sneaking in this movie when your parents aren’t around, you’ll love it.  Everyone else should avoid.

Trivia

-This is the first film in which Kane Hodder ever appears shirtless.  (Hodder has burn scars over the majority of his body due to a fire stunt gone wrong earlier in his career.)

-Director Steve Wolsh sold almost everything he owned to scrape enough money together to make the movie.  Now I feel bad.

-Intended as a trilogy, next there will be a prequel titled “Muck: Feast of Saint Patrick.”