Billy Club (2013)

Posted by anythinghorror on 2015-02-16 · 2 Comments 

Sometimes you hear or read a movie title and think that the filmmakers made said movie just because they thought of a great title. Take the 2013 film, BILLY CLUB. Great title for a horror film, right? It’s both an instrument of pain and could be a person’s name. Writer-directors Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer build a plot around a killer who can’t leave his little league baseball failures in the past. BILLY CLUB. Get it? Let’s find out if the film can live up to the title.

BILLY CLUB is about a group of adults who hold a reunion on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of their little league baseball coach and two of their fellow players. The killer was another player who caused the team to lose the championship. The friends include Bobby (Marshall Caswell), who just got back into town; Alison (Erin Hammond), now a bartender and one of the two girls that played on the little league team; Kyle (Nick Sommer), a douchey kind of guy who still lives his past glories when he was a winner on the little league team; and Danny (Max Williamson), another local who played on the team. It slowly comes out, mostly through flashbacks, that both the coach and the other players were brutally mean to little Billy (Sebastian Weigman) after he lost the game and league championship. They taunted him, verbally belittled him, and physically attacked him. When little Billy finally snapped he killed the coach and two of the players with a baseball bat and then positioned them in grizzly poses on the baseball field. Billy was arrested and sent to a mental hospital where he remained until his escape.

When I saw the title of this film and read the description I was expecting a fun, light-hearted, gory horror movie that used some creative, baseball-themed deaths. We do get some fun kills and Billy’s preferred weapon is a nail-studded baseball bat with a retractable blade, which he utilizes with the upmost efficiency!! The first half of BILLY CLUB is fun and definitely doesn’t take itself seriously. The dialogue is goofy as the friends get reacquainted and reminisce about the glory days. Then in the second half of the film the writers start adding in all these weird subplots that kind of ruin the momentum of the film. One of the characters suddenly has issues with his in-the-closet homosexuality, another character goes on a hallucinogenic-fueled ride through the woods, there’s scenes of young Billy in the mental hospital that drag on too long, and Bobby gets arrested for drunk driving. In these scenes we see Bobby get processed and thrown in jail and none of this has anything to do with the main plot. These little subplot distractions felt like padding more than anything else and they took away from the story that was established in the first half.

Erin Hammondis both a solid actress & pretty damn easy on the eyes!!

All the above subplots took away focus from more interesting story elements. I liked the theme that even though Billy was brutally murdering all the players from the little league team, no one was completely innocent. We all know how mean kids can be and these kids tormented Billy over losing a baseball game until he went snap-o. There’s also times when the characters realized how rough they were on Billy but this was never really explored in detail. There’s also a twist at the end that is pretty pointless. No spoilers here, but if this twist was left out of the film nothing would have changed. Unfortunately this twist is really played up like it was a SIXTH SENSE kinda twist but it actually had the impact of the twist from THE VILLAGE (which is to say it had no impact).

BILLY CLUB isn’t a bad film but it definitely has it’s problems. The acting was overall solid and the cast looked as though they were having fun making the film (and actress Erin Hammond is pretty damn hot). If only the tone from the first half stayed until the final credits this would have been a stronger film. Too many subplots that went nowhere and a silly twist that took far too long to establish took the focus away from the main story at hand – a guy killing people with a nail-studded baseball bat. Most of the gore, unfortunately, was also done off screen. Judging by all the pointless subplots used as padding, maybe BILLY CLUB would have made a better short film. Just sayin’. You could do much worse than BILLY CLUB and it does have it’s fun moments. I’m going to restrain myself from making some lame ass baseball reference here and instead just write that I’m marginally recommending BILLY CLUB.

My Summary:

Directors: Drew Rosas & Nick Sommer (& writers)

Plot: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore: 3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Stay Bloody!!!

Filed under Independent Horror Scene, Movie Reviews, New Horror Releases, New Posting · Tagged with Billy Club, Drew Rosas, Erin Hammond, Marshall Caswell, Max Williamson, Nick Sommer, Sebastian Weigman