USA. 2011.
Crew
Director – Trent Haaga, Screenplay – Adam Minarovich, Producers – Chad Ferrin, Trent Haaga & Jeff Hamilton, Photography – Christian Janss, Music – Matt Olivo, Special Effects – 1313 FX (Supervisor – Tom Devlin), Production Design – Elizabeth Rosenbaum. Production Company – Panfame Films.
Cast
Billy Bakshi [Will Keenan] (Lance Reed), Timothy Muskatell (The Stranger), Tanishaa Mukherjee (Emily Reed), Adam Minarovich (Detective Williams), Tamil J. Rhee (Detective Roebuck), Mark Irvingsen (Ray Fielding), Malaya Manson (Stephanie), Jeff Sisson (Cousin Jeff), Elina Madison (Tammy), Chad Ferrin (Bobby Reed)
Plot
Lance Reed’s car breaks down. He accepts a ride with a stranger only for the stranger to turn and shoot him with a tranquiliser dart. Lance comes around to find that the stranger is demanding he make a choice between killing his imprisoned half-brother Bobby with an axe or having someone shoot his wife Emily on the other end of the phone. Lance chooses to kill his brother before the stranger reveals that it was a set-up – there was no-one on the phone, but also that Bobby and Emily were having an affair. Lance is let go with threats of dire consequences if he says anything. When Lance starts to experience strain after returning home, the stranger leaves Bobby’s body, making Lance a suspect with police, and then shoots Emily. Lance is then imprisoned by the stranger who demands that he recall the terrible thing that Lance did to him. Lance cannot remember where he met the stranger but in recounting some of the things he did as a drug addict, other guilty secrets come out. In turn, the stranger brings parties that Lance has aggrieved over and has them take turns cutting off Lance’s limbs.
Trent Haaga is a name I have added in here on multiple occasions, particularly as an actor, even though he is not one of those faces you instantly recognise in a film. He has appeared in everything from Toxic Avenger sequels to the title character in Full Moon’s Killjoy films, Bonnie & Clyde vs Dracula (2008) and a great many more low budget films. He has scripted a large number of films including Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000), Hell Asylum (2002), Feeding the Masses (2004), Raving Maniacs (2005), Deadgirl (2008), American Maniacs (2012), Heebie Jeebies (2013), Cheap Thrills (2013), The Dead Reborn (2013), It Came from the Desert (2017), Girl on the Third Floor (2019), H4Z4RD (2022) and Mad Heidi (2022). His scripts range between low budget films, films with theatrical release, tv movies and videogames. He has also produced the likes of Dead & Rotting (2002), Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002), Hell Asylum, The Ghouls (2003), Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! (2006) and The Dead Reborn. Haaga has stepped up to direct a film on only two occasions. The first of these was Chop here, followed by the non-genre dark comedy 68 Kill (2017), as well as the Operation Dolph episode of the anthology Deathcember (2019).
I was intrigued by the premise for Chop – “Lance Reed is forced by a psychotic stranger to confront his duplicitous past. Seeking retribution for a crime, the man forces Lance to reveal his innermost secrets by systematically removing his limbs.” This suggest something of a film well into Torture Porn territory, although the limb removing only occurs in the second half of the film. The first half travels in similar direction to Haaga’s script for the subsequent Cheap Thrills where people are placed in uncomfortable situations and forced to make brutal choices – in this case, between Will Keenan killing his brother or having his wife murdered, and then being forced to return home and say nothing about either the dead brother or that he knows the wife was having an affair.
You automatically think that the second half with an imprisoned character systematically having his limbs removed could be a film that heads well into incredibly grim Saw (2004) territory. The surprise in watching Chop is that Trent Haaga contrarily directs everything with a tone of cartoonish absurdity. He is evidently not taking what is going on seriously and pushes the tone and performances towards broad farce. This offsets – in my mind, wrecks – what could be an otherwise incredibly grim and nasty horror film that pushed the envelope. I was expecting something that could have gone as far as Ichi the Killer (2001), but instead the film becomes a cartoonish conte cruel. Moreover, after all the build-up and mystery about the secrets that Will Keenan keeps, the eventual answer proves an incredibly lame let-down.
The film has an interesting cast of names. Behind the pseudonym of Billy Bakshi is Will Keenan, who first appeared in Troma’s Tromeo & Juliet (1996) and assorted other horror roles. Playing the role of the murdered brother is Chad Ferrin, the director of a number of low-budget films such as Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! (2006), Someone’s Knocking at the Door (2009) and Exorcism at 60,000 Feet (2020). Also appearing in a minor role as Keenan’s mother is Camille Keaton, who has gained a cult reputation as a result of I Spit on Your Grave (1978).
Trailer here