Sweet Sixteen

Melissa (Aleisa Shirley, Reena from Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone) and her family move into a quiet redneck town where people’s main pastimes are getting drunk and fucking with the Indians (and I don’t mean it in a sexual way either). She starts acting slutty with everyone, but when she’s about to give the goods, she backs away, being a proud cocktease. It’s too bad for the men she tries to seduce, not because they got teased, but because everytime Melissa comes into contact with one of them, they get viciously slaughtered. Could it be a local redneck? Could it be the angry Indians? It’s up to the Sheriff and his sleuth wannabe daughter to solve the mystery.
For some reason this slasher has gone under the radar, although I thought it was pretty good. It has a solid cast of veterans: Patrick Macnee (The Avengers) as a doctor working on a dig who acts pretty suspiciously throughout, Susan Strasberg (The Trip) as a worried mother, and Hollywood tough guy Bo Hopkins as, what else, a Sheriff. But the real treat for me was to watch Dana Kimmell, Jesse in Friday the 13th part III, who is one of my favorite Friday girls, act again since I hadn’t seen her in anything else. Sadly Aleisa Shirley isn’t very good in the lead role, and is as dull as she was in Spacehunter.
But let’s get to the meat of it: the murders. There is a lot of blood, yes, but most of it comes after the crime. When the characters are about to get killed, it cuts in that moment when the character put his “oh shit” face and is about to die. The gore comes with what’s left of the body the day after, where they’re mostly mangled and cut up. I also have to give credit to the writers for keeping me guessing who the killer was up until the third act, where I started to guess who it might be (and was right). The killer’s twist from sweet to psychotic is pretty damn well made, and a testament to the actor who played it (I won’t spoil who). But trust me you won’t expect it. This is a very underrated slasher film that is waiting to be rediscovered by genre fans, so don’t miss it.