Staunton Hill (2009)

Staunton Hill

Release Date: 2009

Rating: * 1/2

By John Engell August 22, 2012

Like father like son. Well... not always. More like “my (insert relation) is a famous filmmaker so I can be one too.” Thus is the case with Cameron (son of legend George) Romero who decided to follow in his dear
dad’s footsteps and make movies. They are big shoes Cameron fails to fill with his 2009 direct-to-dvd dud “Staunton Hill.”

The film isn’t all bad although it is clearly inspired by Tobe Hooper’s oft-imitated “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Set around the same time as that landmark, a group of young pretty people are hitchhiking to a rally in the nation’s capital, before they accept a ride from an overzealous stranger whose truck breaks down. He then takes the group on a cross-country detour to the isolated farmhouse of the Staunton’s, who unbeknownst to them, are intermediaries in the sale of black market body parts. The matriarch of the household, played by Kathy Lamkin of the “TCM” remake, who more or less reprises that role here, has her mentally-handicapped son Buddy (Leatherface minus the mask and mechanical saw) harvest the requested organs from the outlanders for a Dr. Ostergard. The good doctor has circumvented the medicinal world’s waiting list by performing his own seedy back alley surgeries, which we get glimpses of with several cut scenes.

Romero spends the first 45 minutes of his film on its cardboard characters, who before getting stalked and slashed, do a lot of talking and walking around the barn, but don’t develop much depth. When we finally do get moving “Staunton Hill” is marginally interesting, but is ultimately an exercise in unoriginality. Romero must have believed his composition was as thought-provoking as say “The Sixth Sense,” since he insists on spelling things out to us with numerous annoying and unnecessary flashbacks (Otherwise we would have never known that the shady stranger who innocently led the group to the farm was somehow in on it).

The best parts of “Staunton Hill”? Decent cinematography, a cameo from "The Funhouse’s" Cooper Huckabee, and its awesome Anchor Bay cover art complete with ringing endorsement from George A. Romero himself.