The Horror Show
Billy Club
by Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer
America’s greatest pastime, besides horror movies of course, is baseball. On some level, I think it’s a sport all Americans can relate to. Even I can relate to baseball, fun fact for the day, I used to play little league baseball. I feel like my connection to baseball is one of the reasons I chose to review Billy Club, a baseball-themed horror movie and surprisingly not a cop-themed one. I also probably chose the movie because my name is in the title, not really though, I’m not that vain. I walked in expecting this movie to strike out but I was pleasantly surprised.
Billy Haskins, the worst player on his little league team, lost the big game. He struck out trying to hit a ball that was going to hit him. If he took one for the team, then they would’ve won. He is then tormented by his coach and teammates for the loss. His team took things too far when they tied him up and stuck him in a dunk tank. With his hands behind his back, he was unable to swim and died for a few moments before being rescued. From that moment on, he was out for revenge. He managed to kill two of his teammates and his coach before getting caught and sent to a mental institution. Fifteen years later, in 1996 (still not sure why the movie is set in 1996 but whatever), four of the little league team members reunite to commemorate their fallen comrades and their coach by paying their respects. However, little do they know is that Billy Haskins is now on the loose and taking out the surviving members of his baseball team.
This movie was a solid fun time. First of all, a movie slasher is only as good as his weapon. Billy Club doesn’t just have a typical baseball bat with nails through it, it also has a retractable knife blade built into the tip of the bat. That’s a cool unique weapon that has character. Secondly, he has some pretty brutal kills. There was a badass baseball bat shoved down a guy’s throat. My personal favorite was a simple face-smashing, but the gore was on a whole other level. My girlfriend looked up from the computer for a moment during that scene and totally freaked out, it was awesome. The killer in any slasher virtually makes the movie, and Billy Haskin is truly a villain worth his own movie. I even love his baseball catcher getup, you can tell this dude is totally tormented by baseball. That kind of makes him like batman, he becomes what he fears. Except, he’s also a serial killer instead of the hero his city needs.
The biggest reason I enjoyed this movie was because it was loaded with tons of character development. The first half of the movie essentially serves the purpose of characterizing and exploring the relationships between the four main characters. The movie also explores each character’s backstory with Billy through the use of flashbacks. The movie doesn’t do the typical for-no-reason-flashback. Each character experiences something in the present which triggers a flash back to Billy. I also liked that the movie doesn’t show all the flash backs at the same time. It gradually creates a sort of slow burn. The characters (mostly Kyle) learn things about themselves (himself) that they didn’t know or were certain of at the beginning of the movie.
I think my biggest issue with the whole movie was the red herring police officer character. The movie attempts to foreshadow that he has some connection with Billy, potentially working with him. It’s revealed to not be the case when he’s shown to be an Ahab-like cop tracking down Billy for some reason. This character’s sole purpose was to be that of a red herring. I would say his total screen time was probably about 10 minutes, if that. I know red herrings are meant to mislead the viewer but still, the movie would have been no different without this character. That’s just a pet peeve of mine, I do believe that every single element to a movie should have some sort of impact on the story. It’s a minor flaw though.
I want to give away some spoilers here because I feel like talking about the ending.
Billy is let out of the asylum because he is subject to an experimental procedure to rehabilitate insane people into society. Billy, however, did not become magically sane because of the treatment, it taught him how to be discreet and hide his psychotic tendencies. The guy he kills at the start of the film is the real Bobby, and Billy assumes his identity for the rest of the movie. This led to a plot twist that I honestly didn’t see coming. Well, kind of. I did realize Billy was Bobby but only when it was too late. After Bobby disappeared and just before Alison unmasks Billy, I realized that we haven’t seen Bobby in a while and that he has to be behind the mask. The movie does a good job of misdirecting the viewer into not thinking that Billy is Bobby. The movie lets us know that Billy Haskins is the killer. The viewer then assumes everyone is who they say they are. Movies with a completely anonymous masked killer are usually the ones where the killer is secretly one of the characters the viewer has already been introduced to. Billy Club effectively plays on the viewer’s assumptions and delivers a swift punch to the face, catching us off guard. The movie also does something unique, I’ve never seen a slasher kill themselves before. I mean, I assume he’s dead, but we never see a body. His death is pretty awesome too, death by automatic pitching machine, that’s insane. It’s also symbolic because, you know, he’s finally taking that hit that he didn’t as a kid. I’m a huge fan of symbolism, so another plus.
Now would I have called this movie Billy Club? No, but I get it, the slasher’s name is Billy and he carries a bat, which is a club. Although, a billy club is actually a police officer’s baton, so I would have used that title for a killer-cop movie. I would have called this movie something like “slugger” or “strike out.” Alas, I did not get the chance to name this movie. Billy Club was directed by Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer, two guys I’ve never heard of before. However, their film Blood Junkie looks interesting and I might actually check it out. These guys have a decent amount of horror experience so it’s no surprise that Billy Club was actually good. It has won several “best of” awards which it clearly deserves. I’m not used to reviewing award winning films so I don’t know what to say other than, “Good Job.” I’m also looking forward to anything else these guys decide to come out with, and hopefully it’ll be the grand slam that Billy Club was.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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