Howdy horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to another rootin’ tootin’ edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, a column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random cowpies the city folk at horroryearbook decide to throw my way.

Y’all best put on your shitkickers! It’s time to take a twisted trip back to old west with Lee Vervoort’s GUN TOWN. The town in question is a backwoods tourist attraction that promises travelers a taste of the wild west. Back in 1979, an unfortunate accident involving alcohol causes the proprietor and sheriff of Gun Town – Frank Bailey, to snap and kill one of the tourists. Frank is later declared insane and serves 30 years in a mental institution. Things go from bad to worse for Frank when a fire breaks out at the asylum and leaves his face and body horribly burned.

After being released, Frank returns to Gun Town sporting a Michael Meyers mask and is more than a little pissed off at the world. This is bad news for a pack of random idiots on vacation who stumble into Gun Town while looking for a missing friend. At first the kids think the town and the weird rednecks that inhabit it are harmless fun. They find out the hard way that sheriff Frank is not playing around, and that his pistol is loaded with live rounds – not blanks.

The sheriff blasts a few of the kids and then stalks after the rest. The ladies receive special treatment from the sheriff with his patent plastic wrap strangulation. One of Frank’s kinfolk kidnaps the token comic relief nerd and locks him up in a pen for moonlight sodomy. Those who attempt to run away are shot in the back by Frank or waylayed by the rest of the blood crazy Baileys. This leaves a young girl alone with two choices…DRAW OR DIE!

GUN TOWN is the directorial debut from Lee Vervoort, who also wrote the film and stars in it. For a first time director at the helm of a very low budget horror film, I think he did a very good job. The film has decent production value, tight editing, effective scoring, and a good looking cast. The best thing I can say about the cast really is that they are good looking. None of them are great actors, but that’s not something fans of homemade horror flicks will have a problem with. None of them were bad enough to completely ruin the movie, although the comic relief nerd tries his hardest.

Lee plays the role of the masked sheriff and does a fantastic job. The mask is creepy looking, and Lee’s body movements and contortions occasionally give the blank face of the mask some emotion. The character is really far out there. A silent killer who plays dress up as a sheriff, has a wife and various annoying children, and has a fetish for suffocating women with plastic wrap. I have to admit, I didn’t really get that part of the movie. The killer repeatedly kills women with plastic wrap. I thought a noose would have been more appropriate for the old west theme.

That leads me to my biggest complaint about GUN TOWN. There’s not enough fucking GUNS in it! With a title like GUN TOWN I was expecting to see a couple dozen kids get their heads blown off. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. The body count is fairly meager, and only a couple people get shot. The effects are hit & miss. There were a couple ridiculous looking fake limbs that should have been left on the shelf at Spencer’s Gifts, not brought to the set. My only other complaint about the film was that the young characters were all annoying imbeciles and that the opening stretch of the film was boring.

That said, the film is still worth a watch. The minute the kids get to Gun Town things get interesting. Right away the music changes and takes a sinister tone. Little details like that go a long way. The combination of a western themed tourist trap and a masked slasher is unique, and I have to give Lee credit for doing something original instead of rehashing the same old slasher storylines. The Bailey family is a cool creation. You can see the familiarity with the Sawyer and Firefly clans. Hell, someone should really give Lee some more money and let him do a couple sequels! I’d like to see the concept taken further with a bigger cast, and more importantly…a bigger body count!

GUN TOWN is currently available on dvd from L.A.V. Pictures. You can check out the official website – www.guntownthemovie.com for more info. Brain Hammer approved!

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!