Jake Watkins | Through the Shattered Lens

Volker (Gary Daniels) and his gang break into an English manor, hoping to rob the place. Since their last home invasion led to a pregnant woman getting shot in the head (though the actress continued to visibly breathe onscreen even after her character expired), Volker has planned this robbery down to the least little detail. However, it turns out that the family that was supposed to be on a trip is actually home for the holidays! Also, their Hungarian gardener, Peter (Robert Bronzi), is a former soldier who returns to his former ways to protect the family. Armed with his gardening tools, Peter takes out the bad guys, one at a time.

Robert Bronzi is an actor whose career centers around him bearing a passable resemblance to Charles Bronson. He also appeared in Death Kiss and, earlier this week, Brad reviewed him in Escape From Death Block 13. In this movie, he’s not really a gardener just like Charles Bronson wasn’t really a mechanic in the film of the same name. Get it? This is one of the Bronzi films I’ve seen in which he wasn’t dubbed. Peter is from Eastern Europe, just like Bronzi, so Bronzi gets to speak with his own voice. He still doesn’t say much, though. Bronzi actually looks less and less like Charles Bronson every time that I see him. If he ever lost the mustache, his career would end. Even more importantly, Bronzi doesn’t have Bronson’s screen presence. Bronson could accomplish a lot just by narrowing his eyes. Brozni always seems like he’s not sure where the camera is. The movie plods along without much suspense or humor, as if we’re supposed to take a low-budget film with a Charles Bronson imitator seriously.

The Gardener is a film with a plot so thin that I don’t think the real Charles Bronson would have wasted his time with it.

As a horror fan, I always appreciate a good slasher film. As dark and as disturbing as they can be, they’ve also helped me to face down a lot of my own real-life fears. Watching a good slasher film can be cathartic. You may be scared when you’re watching and, if you’re like me, you’ll probably put your hands in front of your eyes during the more graphic kills but, when the end credits roll, you feel proud of yourself for having made it all the way through.

Again, that’s a good slasher film.

A bad slasher film can be, if you’ll excuse the expression, absolute terror.

Mouse of Horrors is not a good slasher film. It’s a film about Chloe (Natasha Tosini) and her friends who, after about 15 minutes of filler, finally go to the “fun fair.” It turns out that the fair is not very fun because it’s home to Dr. Rupert (Chris Lines) and his two sons, one of whom wears a mouse mask and another of whom wears a bear mask. They’re Mickey and Winnie, though they’re never explicitly called that over the course of the film. (The Mouse is played by Lewis Santer while the Bear is played by Stephen Staley). Dr. Rupert needs body parts so he sends his two sons out to collect them. As you may have guessed, this leads to a lot of scenes of spurting blood, hacked-off limbs, and screams. Mickey and Winnie do not speak but Dr. Rupert does. In fact, the old man will not shut up. Even if he wasn’t some old weirdo demanding that his sons hack up random people, Dr. Rupert would be an annoying old crank.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. The Mouse has potential and physically, Lewis Santer does a good job of portraying The Mouse’s jumpy style of movement. The Mouse mask is creepy, or at least it is at first. Eventually, I got bored with looking at the Mouse and, by the time the Bear started fighting with the Mouse, I no longer cared much about looking at either of them. Still, the killer is one of the most important parts of a slasher film and the Mouse had potential. The setting of the carnival also had potential, though most of it went unused.

The rest of the film, though …. ugh! Seriously, this was one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen, including one scene where a day for night scene went totally day for a few shots. The story dragged. (It takes 20 minutes to get them to the fun fair when the film really should have started with them already there.) I was never quite sure where the Mouse was in relation to anyone else in the film, negating any chance of generating suspense. Why was the town suddenly deserted? Why did everyone else at the fun fair suddenly disappear except for Chloe and her friends? Why did the Mouse go the local pub to kill a bartender instead of just staying at the fun fair? Does the Mouse walk around town with his mouse mask on? How does he get away with that? I’ve always been the first to say that enjoying a horror film requires a certain suspension of disbelief but the audience has every right to expect some sort of reward for playing along. This film doesn’t offer that reward.

Get ready for a lot more films like this. Copyrights are expiring and everyone wants to either make a film based on their childhood nightmares or get revenge on their English teacher for making them read a book in high school. This was not the first killer Mickey film and I doubt it will be the last.