They're coming to get you in TRAILER PARK OF TERROR(2008).
© Steven Goldmann
Movie: Trailer Park of Terror
Starring: Nichole Hiltz, Trace Adkins, Priscilla Barnes
Written By: Timothy Dolan
Directed By: Steven Goldmann
Distributor: Trailer Park Partners
NFF: Trailer Park of Terror
By: Stephen LackeyDate: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Film festivals are very odd about hype. It’s amazing how some films get hyped to the hills but by the time the closing credits roll, the movie is mediocre at best and completely terrible at worst. At the Nashville Film Festival a few features were hyped and Trailer Park of Terror was one of them. The film apparently had a strong showing at Slamdance and even got some genre critical love and that started the hype machine rolling. The film is about an excessively stereotypical trailer park in the south where one cute girl gets treated poorly by the inbred inhabitants. One day, they accidentally kill her boyfriend and she makes a deal with the devil to kill them all. Little did she know that her deal would find herself and the inhabitants haunting the trailer park forever. Of course years later, a bus full of walking cliches end up stranded in the trailer park to be tortured by the ghosts.
It’s a near impossible trick to create a film that’s just so campy and horrible that it becomes a classic. That type of film event usually only happens accidentally. One such film - Two Thousand Maniacs - is even referenced at the beginning of Trailer Park of Terror in an attempt to prepare the audience for what the creators must believe is a similar experience. Other influences are ham fisted into the film as well including some imagery that is extremely reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, the funny one. TCM2 was purposefully funny but it was a reaction by Tobe Hooper to being forced into directing a sequel to a film that he felt didn’t need a sequel. In his mind, if he had to revisit the material, he had to do something different with it. Trailer Park of Terror is so desperate to be cool with its’ couple of over the top gore scenes and heavy music that it comes off depressing.
The acting throughout the film is terrible. Most of the actors in the film have dome other work, and been better in other films, so their failure here must be due to poor writing and directing. Nichole Hiltz isn’t terrible here, but that’s just comparing her to the rest of the cast.
There are actually a few bits of music in the film that are pretty good and there’s one scene that’s visually cool looking but overall this film could simply disappear in a five dollar DVD bin of 80’s horror films. There doesn’t even seem to be any passion behind this film from the creators. It feels like the writing and directing are by the numbers, attempting to fit within the framework of a formula that as I mentioned earlier isn’t one that can be created - it has to be found accidentally. Don’t fall victim to the hype around this film, save your Netflix subscription for something better when the film finally hits DVD.
