“Well it’s set way back in the middle of a field,

Just a funky old shack and I gotta get back.”

-The B-52’s “Love Shack”

There are about a million different places to eat near my house. I just google mapped it, and that number is 100 percent accurate. Within a ten mile radius of my house there are: burger places, gastro pubs, Coney islands, Mediterreanean food, BBQ, Soul Food, Chinese, Mexican, Sushi, Cajun, Egyptian, Peruvian, and probably a bunch of other places that I am forgetting. I love a lot of the restaurants on that list. Just thinking about the Mediterreanean joint down the road is making me crave it, and I am writing this at six in the morning. My main point is that I am hungry, but my secondary point is that when I step outside my comfort zone, I usually end up liking it. If I’m being completely honest though, if you were to pin me down and ask me what I want to do for dinner, 95 percent of the time I’m going to say Buffalo Wild Wings.

There are about a million different horror movies on all of the existing streaming services. I just checked and that number is 100 percent accurate. I currently have access to HBO, Showtime, Starz, Hulu, Crackle, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Shudder. I also have a Moviepass. I need to cull the herd that is my subscription services now that I look at them listed like that. It’s overwhelming the amount of choices that horror fans are presented with in 2018. Also, there are so many horror movies that I feel like I need to watch, because doing so would make me feel better about some of the holes in my fandom. I still would like to like to fill in some of the gaps that I have in Italian horror, slashers, and even the “Video Nasties”. There are also quite a few Hammer Horror films that I would like to watch. I love Asian Horror as well, and recently have had a yearning to revisit the J-Horror boom of the 00’s. But, if you want me to be completely honest; if it’s late at night and I’m scrolling through the various streaming service options, 95 percent of the time I’m going to land on a goofy splatterfest– and if that splatterfest is set in a cabin, then even better!

DEAD SHACK is the movie that fit that particular bill a couple of nights ago. DEAD SHACK made the festival rounds last year, and I hadn’t really heard much about it before it dropped on Shudder in February. The movie follows a family  on their way to a rental home somewhere in the Canadian woods for vacation. The group is made up of Roger, the father, his lush of a girlfriend, Lisa, his two children, Colin and Summer, and their friend, Jason. The vacationers arrive at the cabin where the kids immediately get bored — and tired of Roger and Lisa’s drunk antics– so they set out to explore their surroundings. While out exploring they witness an attractive woman (Laruen Holly) lure two frat-boy types back to her shack in the woods for what they believe to be some harmless group sex action. Things don’t go as planned– for the frat-boys at least– as they are fed upon by a group of cannibals, or zombies, or something (I’m not really sure what they are actually) that tear the frat-guys apart before the boys can have their fun.

That’s the set up for DEAD SHACK. It’s nothing revolutionary, but right up my alley– a nice order of 6 boneless Hot BBQ wings to sate my hunger for the evening. The movie is pretty good for what it is too. It’s a Canadian production, and feels in-line with some more recent Canadian horror like JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER, or the television show TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL. TODD is probably the closer comparison point for DEAD SHACK, as they share a similar irreverent, and immature, sense of humor. There are dick jokes–particularly early on– in DEAD SHACK. I like dick jokes quite a bit, so I was fine with this. Dicks are funny to me. Sorry. I wish I was more advanced too, but it is what it is. But if dick jokes aren’t your thing, then this movie, and TODD, probably aren’t for you. If you do like them though, they are totally for you, and if you haven’t checked TODD out yet, get on that. Particularly if you are a fan of stuff like early Kevin Smith, and ARMY OF DARKNESS. It’s a blast.

On a story level, the obvious comparison for DEAD SHACK is something like the first two EVIL DEADS, but tonally it’s probably more in-line with ARMY OF DARKNESS, or even ASH VS EVIL DEAD.  There’s plenty of gore, and more “horror” moments than something like ARMY, but there is a ton of comedy as well. Maybe too much, but most of it is consistent and casual, as opposed to being loud and in your face, so it worked for me. Donavan Stinson (who plays the father) is probably the stand out of the film, and carries most of the humor throughout. He’s got good timing and a smartass delivery that fits well with the style of “stoner” comedy found in the film. I thought Valerie Tian, the actress that plays his heavy-drinking girlfriend also did a nice job, but her character is a bit problematic, as she falls into the “Asian Trophy Girlfriend/Wife” trope. She does the best that she can with a character that wears thin. The movie itself flirts with wearing thin, especially halfway through the film, when all of the characters begin to verge on becoming shrill, but the actors are amiable enough to carry it through to the finish line.

The humorous tone of DEAD SHACK also relents a bit in the final act, and it gets a little mean spirited, especially when compared to the rest of the film. This is late-night stuff aimed at teenagers whose parents are out of town. The type of movie you would go to the video store to rent as the b-movie follow-up to the “bigger” movie you watched as the main event. DEAD SHACK is the “fun” one, so the brutality of certain moments in the final act feels a little off. Thankfully, DEAD SHACK is only 80 minutes long, so it never really slows down to a point where you think about anything too much. The movie’s brevity, and hang-out vibe, help to cover a lot of its flaws.

On the Bdubs flavor scale, this is probably a medium sauce, and not a Mango Habernero or Blazin’. It gets the job done when you have a craving, but you won’t be up all night thinking about it. Honestly, I’ve exhausted this Buffalo Wild Wings metaphor by this point, and they aren’t paying me, so I’m going to quit.  DEAD SHACK does what it needs to do. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s all I wanted.