Obviously, Halloween gets plenty of horror movies with Christmas doing surprisingly well, too. There’s the Leprechaun franchise for St. Patrick’s Day, My Bloody Valentine for Valentine’s Day, Uncle Sam for the Fourth of July, and now we have a real Thanksgiving horror movie. Though there are Easter-themed horror movies, they’re few and far between. And that’s probably a good thing. By and large, these movies are terrible. But the new holiday-themed horror-comedy, Easter Bloody Easter actually has a handful of positive reviews. Do we finally have an Easter horror movie worth celebrating?
Synopsis
It’s Easter in a small Texas town, but Jeanie Cooper isn’t in the mood for the local festivities. Her husband, Lance, has seemingly left her … until the town sheriff finds his abandoned truck cover in blood and fur. Along with her best friend, Carol, Jeanie sets out to find her missing husband. Instead, the friends discover a monstrous Jackalope and its own army of killer bunny rabbits. Unless they can stop the devilish creature, it’s going to be a ‘Bloody Easter’.
Easter Bloody Easter Doesn’t Fill Its Basket With Nearly Enough Campy Fun
It’s a movie about a killer Jackalope and tiny killer rabbits. So Easter Bloody Easter need only satisfy one basic requirement – it should be over-the-top silly and bloody. From first-time writer and director Diane Foster, and co-writer Allison Lobel, this horror-comedy sort of hits that mark. Rather than use lazy CGI, Foster’s killer Jackalope is literally a man dressed in a furry killer rabbit suit. And the killer bunnies are tiny plush rabbits with glowing red eyes. There’s a handful of funny, over-the-top moments like when the Jackalope disembowels a man dressed as the actual Easter bunny. Watching the Jackalope deposit its carnage in a demented Easter basket is good for a couple of laughs. Certainly, the spirit is willing in this horror-comedy.
An immediate problem with the horror-comedy is its sheer length. No movie about killer bunnies should be leaning this closely to two hours.
Too bad Easter Bloody Easter never feels as silly and goofy as its premise requires. An immediate problem with the horror-comedy is its sheer length. No movie about killer bunnies should be leaning this closely to two hours. Not surprisingly then, Foster can’t fill that runtime with enough campy fun to keep you in the mood. Stupid works for this sort of movie; long and intermittently dull is inexcusable. Even when Foster does deliver killer rabbit attacks, it’s never quite that manic or wild. Things pick up in the third act with an Easter morning egg hunt that devolves into chaos. Yet it feels like too little, too late.
Easter Bloody Easter Too Intermittently Fun and Silly to Nail Its Premise
Easter Bloody Easter also runs into some story-telling problems. Even a silly, campy movie about a giant killer Jackalope needs some story. Specifically, Foster and Lobel dangle some unnecessary subplots throughout the movie. There’s Jeanine’s missing husband and maybe some infidelity, an dutiful but ignored husband to the town gossip, and another character turns up halfway through the movie though it’s never clear why. What mythology and rules we get about the Jackalope from the local town conspiracy theorist are murky. Much of the story just distracts from why we’re watching the movie in the first place.
…Foster and Lobel dangle some unnecessary subplots throughout the movie.
While there are some funny bits here and there, Easter Bloody Easter leans on very broad humor that misses more than it lands. It’s funny when one character can’t make a three-point turn to escape the Easter egg hunt massacre. And it’s kind of funny when the Jackalope shits bloody Easter eggs. Foster and Lobel – who also star in the movie – along with Kelly Grant are consistently fun to watch. Other characters feel like a joke strained past its expiry date.
Easter Bloody Easter Either Too Dumb, Or Not Dumb Enough
You could argue that a movie like Easter Bloody Easter is review-proof. A movie about a giant Jackalope and an army of tiny killer bunnies attacking a town on Easter should be campy. But campy should be fun and this killer Jackalope isn’t nearly as fun as one might expect. Yes, there’s silly humor and gore but it’s thinly spread across an unnecessarily long hour and 43 minutes. Foster and Lobel popular their horror-comedy with too many distracting story detours, fuzzy mythology, and humor that often borders on broad. Things improve by the final act – and there’s some genuine love put into the movie – but it’s too late to save Easter Bloody Easter for most audiences.