Hillbilly Horror Show Volume 4 (2015) - Review

My fellow podcast host Mike has been telling me about Hillbilly Horror Show for a while but this is the first chance I’ve had to finally check it out. The format of the series is pretty familiar. A trio of hosts (Bo Keister, Scott Geiter & Rachel Faulkner) introduce a variety of genre related content. However, Hillbilly Horror Show isn’t exactly your typical horror host series. Rather than another retread of the tired formula of a host emulating some classic horror movie character while we are treated to yet another viewing of Night of the Living Dead we get something more in line with Joe Bob Briggs. Our three hosts are caricatures of southern trailer trash who have discovered a giant bag of short horror films and decide to sit down and watch them while taking part in various comedic situations.

Here lies the immediately noticeable difference from most of the horror host series out there. They are showcasing the best in short horror films. Most of these are newer films that many of us may have never had the opportunity to watch. It was refreshing to see these guys take a format that has grown pretty old at this point and attempt to make it different by moving away from public domain riffing into providing some quality content. It also helped that I found the skits to be pretty funny.

Volume 4 consists of 5 shorts films. The first is “Strange Thing” in which a young couple find a mysterious door in their home and decide to walk through it. This one was pretty surreal but fun and featured some cool special effects. Next up is “Til Death”. A group of friends who wish to return to the bachelor life run into some problems when they attempt to dispose of their wives. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The humor is a bit on the dark side but there’s still a light tone to it that had me laughing throughout. The third film is “Foodie”. I can’t stand foodies so I am always on board for some skewering of how ridiculous and annoying they can be. The story itself is focused around a group of foodies who hold a secret dinner with some unique entrée’s. You’ll know where it’s going immediately but it’s the characters that make this one worth a watch. The fourth film is “The Hourglass Figure” and focuses on a housewife who discovers an hourglass that allows her to have one extra hour in her day. The problem is that overuse of the item can have some dire consequences. This was another entry that pretty successfully mixed in comedy with the darker moments. The fifth and final film was a super short entry called “Collision” in which the Earth is on a collision course with another planet. This one was actually really cool and completely different from the previous four and had a runtime of only a couple of minutes.

Overall I can now say I am a fan of Hillbilly Horror Show and am looking forward to checking out some of the other volumes. I really enjoyed the format and can appreciate that the content offers up something different from most of the other “horror host” series out there.

Once again you can rent volume four at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/9883/87394315

Score: 4/5