In Slasher.com, Kristy (Morgan Carter) and Jack (Ben Kaplan) are getting ready for their first date after meeting and chatting online. But they’ve decided to do something wild and daring for their first: they’re going away for a weekend to a cabin in the woods, getting away from the noise and traffic of the city, and spend some quiet time getting to know each other amidst the smell of fresh pine and the pleasant sounds of sparrows and blue jays.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, *SPOILER* a lot. But we’ll talk about the acting, writing, and directing later. What about the events in the movie? 

The cabin they rent is owned by a weird family: Momma (Jewel Shepard), her husband Jesse (R.A. Mihailoff), and their daughter Caitlin (Rebecca Crowley).  Momma has a wild creepy look in her eyes, a painfully slow delivery, and an obsessive connection to a spoon (seriously, one of the exchanges goes like this: “That’s a nice spoon.” “Yes, it is. It’s been in my family for generations.”). Later, we get to watch as she…er…pleasures herself with it. Oooookay.

Kristy and Jack get settled in their cabin, then go out for a nature hike and a skinny dip. They talk about a lot of things, and seem to be getting along quite well (so well that they hop into bed together that first night). Unfortunately, Kaplan and Carter have absolutely zero chemistry onscreen, and it makes their meet-cute a little hard to swallow.

After their hike and swim, Jack and Kristy run into Jesse and Caitlin clearing some brush with a machete. Jesse takes this opportunity to appear menacing and oddly focused on “beating back Mother Nature,” and Caitlin takes this opportunity to rub a doll’s head all over her crotch in a lame attempt to flirt with Jack.  I guess that’s what passes for sexy in the backwoods.

Later that night Momma shows up at the cabin with a couple glasses of delicious liquid refreshment. Drugged liquid refreshment.  The two lovers wake up in the dark basement of the crazy family’s home (I assume it’s the basement since there’s an annoying “water dripping” sound effect that plays incessantly for the next fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.  During this time Momma and the gang taunt and torture the two (well, if “torture” refers to shoving used panties in one’s mouth and being forced to listen to badly-delivered dialogue, than I guess they’re tortured).  When Jack escapes and tries to get help, the film tries to redeem itself by throwing in a trite twist (and then another twist!) (and yet another twist!), but by then it’s too late. Really too late.

Story writer/director Chip Gubera, sadly, relies on stereotypes, tired tropes, and stale horror movie clichés to get his characters from plot point to plot point: a character in the woods walks backwards, not looking, until he bumps right into the guy that’s chasing him.  Zing!  Cell phones don’t work in the woods!  Zing!  Characters you think are dead suddenly spring up to try and kill! Again! Zing!  The guy you think will save them turns out to be part of the evil! Zing!

Ad nauseam.

If I can say one positive thing about this movie, it would be to highlight the music (surprisingly by, again, Chip Gubera). It’s a synth-heavy pounding soundtrack that, frankly, belongs in a better movie. It’s so Carpenter-esque it should have been produced by Debra Hill.  It pushed and prodded in all the right ways, making mediocre scenes feel like there was more to them. I honestly hopes Gubera does more soundtracks, because he has a real ear for what works and what’s effective.

But the rest of this thing is a mess. The editing is out of rhythm and choppy (like, characters say a line, then there is an unnatural pause before the next line. Over and over), the dialogue itself is obvious and overly talky, and the acting (with the exception of R. A. Mihailoff, using his experience as Leatherface to try to bring life to his Jesse character) is lukewarm when it should be intense, and then smashes scenes with a sledgehammer when it should be surgically precise.

The only way this movie could have redeemed itself is if the last scene was the director in a studio office saying “And that’s my idea for the movie,” and the executive says,” naw, we’ll pass, that just sounds stupid.”  Alas, it’s just not that clever or entertaining.  Uncle Mike sez: I watched this so you don’t have to. 

Slasher.com is available on DVD March 7.