He doesn't need much... a little land, a little property, maybe a little wife. We can all learn something from Upstate Man. He's simple, maybe he's a little crazy, but Otis means well. He just wants his little slice of mother earth, like we all do.
You don't usually expect a morality lesson on the wholesomeness of country living in a low budget slasher flick with pervasive sex and nudity, sadistic violence and kinky barnyard erotica.
All the typical tropes of a slasher are present and yet do not make this movie anything you could call typical or predictable. Granted, you know, after the first sex scene there will be more. You know it will all end in murder. You know the jaded and corrupted will become further corrupted, but what you don't know is the strange raw power of grindhouse trash to deliver a moving message of humanity.
The characters are all stereotypes of one sort or another, the dialogue out of place and unfunny, the situation, blatantly staged. And yet, I always find myself getting sucked in, amused by the four friends silly antics; the implied savagery of the mustachioed lumberjack who wants to fuck the jaded and restless divorcee, and of Otis; the strange and lonely man, who talks to his dead brother and fucks around shooting rats on the rich stockbroker man's watch.
What does it all mean? It's like a trick box without a trick. Red herrings galore, this bizarre excursion into the wilderness of upstate New York and into the vicious little heart of darkness, rage and unquenchable lust, is oddly satisfying, meaningful, and yet still rife with gratuitous violence, sex and strange little scenes that make no sense in connection with the main storyline.
This movie will surprise you, it will amuse you(mostly laughing at and not with), though it's more likely to baffle than truly shock, it is definitely sure to entertain you for its duration with it's odd yuppie caricatures and the truly raw savagery of this long and bloody weekend.
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