Attack of the Killer Squirrel (1982)

Attack of the Killer Squirrel (1982) - Canada

Directed by: John Hargreaves

ABOUT THE FILM:

From the colorful and beautiful country of Canada comes a tacky film from Tacky Film Productions. This film was made in the early 1980s by a director named John Hargreaves and a cast of at least three other people.

The movie is about, surprise surprise, a ferocious little rodent that flies its way through the forest, attacking a group of friends. As they make their escape, one of their friends is decapitated by the killer squirrel. But no worries, because he is able to reattach and detach his head at will. The police are then involved and they set out on a hunt for this furry threat.

REVIEW:

I had been interested in seeing this film for a few years ever since I first saw an image of the VHS cover on Facebook, posted by Canada-based B-movie enthusiast Hamilton Trash Cinema.

Due to high demand, Hamilton Trash Cinema uploaded several VHS rips of different movies to his channel, and this thing managed to finally surface.

Whereas this film is very inept, it does show potential and manages to be a charming, harmless amateur film. One problem I had with the film was the dialogue and the dubbing. This short was shot on Super-8 film, with the dialogue later re-recorded onto the film strip. Whereas the dialogue does help transition from scene to scene, it is sometimes difficult to keep up because the actors will speak over each other, which does get annoying.

Another problem I had is the camera work. I understand they were working with practically nothing, but even for a home-movie this thing is ugly. Shot on washed out Super-8 film, the image is often very blurry and fuzzy. There are several shots with the camera out of focus, notably with opening and closing credits. It doesn't help that the credits were written on paper in what appears to be magic marker.

The story, while cheesy and chock full of unusual but amusing characters, is short and is fun. Whereas this film doesn't contain any blood or gore, it does play up a lot of the horror type elements for laughs, which ultimately works for a film whose villain is a killer squirrel. Of course, other films that revolve around nature turning on humankind can be played up in a serious manner, but most would find it hard to take a concept about a killer squirrel seriously. And of course, the acting, in terms of body language and dubbing, is terrible, but the actors were clearly just having fun making a movie.

This is the type of thing that a bundle of friends would make just to entertain themselves, without distribution or profits in mind. While the film is very high on the cheese meter, it's very entertaining and is worth at least one watch if you've got 25 minutes to kill.

RELEASES:

-The only known copy is an old VHS with a heavily worn and water-damaged cover.