IFFBoston: Death Trike

There are two ways to look at this film. You can see it very simply, or you can attempt to overanalyze it into greatness. I prefer the former, mainly for the reason that the filmmakers were there at the screening. Death Trike is a comic take on the slasher film, except the slasher is a tricycle. And so, for seven minutes, we get to watch the directors friends yell at a tricycle. I might have accepted this if we hadn't been able to see the pole they used to move the trike, or if there had been anything other than watching three people killed by a tricycle.

To overanalyze the film would be to say that the terrible acting and effects are a commentary on the current conditions of horror films and how the conventions need to be changed for the betterment of the genre. To see the film is to note that this was a vaguely humorous concept (that like most vaguely humorous concepts can never work in practice) that was executed poorly. No cliches are challenged, no boundaries are pushed, nothing is altered from a traditional setup except that the killer is a tricycle. And so the film quickly becomes the worst thing a horror movie can be: boring.