Blood Hook (1986)

 I last watched this back in 2009. I rented it on Netflix DVD, a Troma release. I was bored with a capital B. Wow, thirteen years. Anyway, I was very different on this film Friday evening. I still think it is way too long. There is a fun 83 minute quirky Muskie slasher film here. Still, I must admit, I enjoyed my time in Hayward, Wisconsin, as "city youth" mix it up with fishing locals.

I realized I wore those same striped shorts and socks Finner does when jogging exhaustingly behind Bev D when I was a kid in kindergarten. I also realized that Mark Jacobs has serious Nic Cage similarities. He sounds so much like him, not to mention, the guy's tall, lanky, with a face very much like Nic. The stirred-up cicadas leading to the big-ass lure/hook used to pull in victims definitely was like nails down a chalkboard to me. Denny Dobbins using a bar to weigh down his fish in order to increase its weight and so much fishing pole action really does emphasize the sport of choice. I think that sort of does add a certain personality to this slasher that differentiates it from other rural slashers. And there is a tram located next to van Clease's cabin, something I have never seen before.

The "crazy yokel locals" include Wayne Duerst, who has no patience for "loud rock musack", Evelyn Duerst, as the gun nut with a toy painted machine gun and Troma acting theatrics sitting in a lawn chair while leaving empty beer cans all over him as he spouts conspiracy theories, and Leroy Leudke, who has a metal plate that sets him off when loud noise triggers his rage resulting in one big "human fishing" kill (hook - rope put through an obvious prop mouth/head, the body drug into a fishing cabin with subsequent severed limbs and parts ground into bloody mulch). My favorite character is this bad-tempered RV dad always short with people; his death is hilariously staged with the film's budget showing as does the impracticality of how he could be pulled into the water since he's so heavy. Oh, and the "rotted corpses" being pulled to shore by a fishing line rope look like EC Comics zombies.

The film has lots of "severed bloody ear in a handkerchief" so this is that kind of movie. There is a specific scene where van Clease finds bloody buckets of human guts with Evelyn remarking, "There's your friends, man." If you don't like the sound of cicadas, this film might not be for you. That sound had me wanting to explode in a manic state.

This is another one of those many slashers where most of the cast are rarely if ever in another film.

|Devil's Trilogy, man.|