Easter Lockdown 2020 continues. Easter Sunday is upon us, and we have to ask ourselves, are our children safe around the Easter bunny? I don't mean because of the pandemic either. Do we really know what is going on under that mask of his? His beady eyes, darting to-and-fro, always looking, watching, waiting. What do we truly know about the Easter Bunny? Let's look at the facts. Totally True Fact #1 – Jesus and The Easter Bunny share this holiday. But Jesus was killed for his beliefs, but the Easter Bunny wasn't? A Fact of Truth #2 – Jesus died for our sins, and the Easter Bunny brings us chocolate and candy. Are these things related? Does this mean that the only way to have our sins forgiven is to eat sugary bunny-shaped sweets and chocolate eggs filled with creamy tasty sugar paste? Fact #3 – Type 2 Diabetes is on the rise in our world! That's not so much an Easter thing, but something you as the reader should be aware of. Although, the copious amounts of candy probably don't help. Fact # 4 that is completely true – There are 3,000 Easter-related deaths every year, according to the man sitting outside my window at night talking to himself. And finally Fact # 5 – The Easter Bunny is a murderer!!!!! DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN!! Well, at least according to today's movie Easter Bunny Bloodbath. The movie starts out in the late sixties, where a pair of children are trading Easter candy when the girl smacks her brother for not being a good sport about the whole thing. The pair are then visited by the Easter Bunny himself, who immediately uses a cleaver to kill the older sister for being mean. Jump forward to the late eighties, and we are reunited with the young boy Peter, who is now an adult, but no longer white. Don't worry, the movie knows this is weird and has a pop-up to tell you they are fully aware of these shenanigans. Peter has inherited his old house, and now he, his pregnant girlfriend and all their buddies come to live there or at least spend the weekend. Little do they know that the evil Easter Bunny from Peter's past may still be lurking somewhere that totally isn't Peter's psyche. As Pete...sorry the Easter Bunny slowly murders the friends, Peter's pregnant girlfriend must do whatever she can to survive. Easter Bunny Bloodbath felt more like a drama than a slasher for the most part. We spend a lot of time delving into the lives of Peter and his friends, which while amusing at times, began to feel a bit like filler by the halfway point. There is a lesbian couple who like to have sex and argue, and may only be there to contribute a shower scene to the film. Then we have Steve and Justine, who have decided this Easter Weekend is the perfect time for their first sexual encounter with each other. See, Steve is the sensitive and romantic type who also likes to do raps and pull pranks. One of the more entertaining scenes sees MC Steven rap for us and I admit his deft skills saw him rhyme most of the words. But I think his real calling is as a storyteller. After he finishes his Easter rap, he has the gang all huddle around him so he can tell a super insensitive story about the Easter Bunny murdering a young girl as a way to prank and scare Peter, who had his sister murdered by the Easter Bunny. Oh, Steve. I mean, come on Peter, it's been twenty years since you witnessed the grisly murder of your sister at the hands of a childhood icon. Some people just can't let go of things. The movie isn't all raps and hilarious pranks, there is a morbid sense of humor that shows its face now and then. Which can be a bit offputting in its own way. These moments aren't shocking per se, but sometimes feel a bit out of place in a movie that feels like a drama about people in their early twenties for a lot of the time. The whole thing culminates in a pretty grisly ending, which may use a very unrealistic doll as a prop, but in concept is super dark compared to the rest of the film. I am not sure such a dark ending fit the slow pace and somewhat lighter eighties, shot on video slasher vibe. That doesn't make it a bad ending, just wondering if it was meant to come off that dark. So, while Easter Bunny Bloodbath didn't always keep me on the edge of my seat, there was some love shown to the shot-on-video era of the eighties that spawned many a movie like this one. There is the odd scene that entertains in the best type of bad movie way, but overall it felt a bit bogged down by trips to the beach and slip and slides in the backyard. Still, everyone involved looked like they were having fun making this one though, so kudos to that. Because in the end, going out to make a horror movie with all your friends is the best part. Friendship powers unite! There is only one more day left in Easter Lockdown 2020, and then we are back to the regular lockdown from before. No facts this time as I peppered the beginning of this review with totally true and undeniable facts, and I don't want to scare you away with all my truths.
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