Albino Farm (2008)
Studio: MTI Home Video
DVD Release Date: September 22, 2009
Directed By: Joe Anderson, Sean McEwen
Cast: Tammin Sursok, Chris Jericho, Richard Christy, Duane Whitaker, Bianca Barnett
Review By: Marc Patterson

I was recently talking with actress Bianca Barnett, who by the way portrays the most sexy looking mutant you’ll every lay eyes on, prior to watching Albino Farm and she jokingly asked me to be nice and not as scathing in my review as other critics had been. While it was all in jest I had to wonder how awful the film would really be. I mean I didn’t need her to tell me that other folks hadn’t exactly been kind to the film. Believe me… I’ve heard the criticism. You can imagine my surprise when I watched this film and found that 1. Yes… it’s bad, but 2. It’s bad in that enjoyable kind of way.

Albino Farm isn’t a film about a psycho farm full of insane pale skinned psychopaths. ‘Albino Farm’ actually just turns out to be a nickname given to a gated community of hideously mutated humans (think The Hills Have Eyes) who prey upon anyone brave, (or stupid) enough to sneak through their gates. Oh, and when I say gated community I’m not talking about 90210. More like an overgrown rusted gate deep in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. Break out your fiddle Pa. I feel a ho-down coming on.

A group of college kids are cruising around the Ozarks researching local history and legends for their coursework. When they narrowly miss hitting a crazy looking guy who seems to be picking at some roadkill their SUV gets a flat. No cell signal, no spare, no problem. They’ll just ride the rim to the gas station two miles up the road and seek deliverance from their predicament. (Get it? “Deliverance”?) Well, the overly clichéd gas station attendant helps them out, but not before sending them on a wild goose chase for a place called The Albino Farm. At this point you know where the story is going. In store for the kids are religious revivalists, a creepy kid that hangs on street corners after dark and Chris Jericho. Except here Chris Jericho isn’t whipping out his signature Walls of Jericho finishing move, more like portraying a jacked up version of Malachai from The Children of the Corn, delivering the kids directly into the hands of the mutants.

It wouldn’t be fair for me to call Albino Farm anything else but a ridiculous romp of a slasher flick, because that’s exactly what it is. But its one I shockingly liked, in spite of its heavily clichéd cast and overly formulated plot. It’s light enough for a weeknight viewing where you just want to unplug and enjoy some carnage, and it’s not heady, (so check any presumptions of sub-text at the door).

The acting was also surprisingly solid. Our four generic college kids brought a believable level of banter to a dull script and weren’t as appalling to watch as many of the run-of-the-mill slasher flicks out there. There weren’t any memorable performances, but there weren’t too many that made me want to gouge my eyes out either. Now as a WWE fan I enjoyed seeing Chris Jericho in a role that was outside his typical safety zone, but it didn’t pay off as he was sadly not much of an on-screen performer, at least not to the level of what we could or should expect from him. But I don’t really blame him. Look at what he had to work with. You can’t really direct a WWE wrestler in a box, ironically enough.

Special effects are where this film shined. Jason Barnett is a talented artist and provides us with some pretty wild looking monsters on a budget. His monstrous creations were the one saving grace of true horror for the film, which otherwise didn’t do as much as raise my heart rate. Certainly Pig Bitch (the previously mentioned sexy mutant portrayed by Bianca Barnett) will get quite a bit of attention as any college frat boys worst wet dream, but there were some other quite hideous looking creatures on display as well, and the film really would have turned out much for the worse if it weren’t injected with a bit of life from this department.

Simply put, Albino Farm was a refreshing surprise. It’s not unique, or anything truly special, but obvious effort was put into making this more than a trashy finished product. If you find mutated hillbillies carving up college kids to be where you get your kicks, then Albino Farm is worth the rental.

Brutal As Hell Rating: 3 out of 5