Honey Britches (1971) User Reviews

Please, Massacre me before I turn into a Demented Farmer!

[Coventry · 2/10 · 9 March 2010]

There are certain movies you just HAVE TO watch if only for their titles alone. With such a title you automatically tend to think "how bad can it possibly be … right?" Of course, only a few minutes into the film and you can't but realize how awful it is and all of a sudden the title doesn't sound that funny anymore. A few minutes … that's how long it takes in order to be exposed to a world of horrible acting performances by randomly selected yokels, incomprehensible dialog and no plot development whatsoever. During the intro we have John Carradine (him again … the more bad B-movies I discover, the more I encounter his fatigue face) murmuring something about being the devil and thus He who decides whether a person goes to hell or not. Apparently this sequence, and a couple of other ones featuring Carradine, where edited into the film by Fred Olen Ray afterwards! Okay, now I understand how Olen Ray has over 110 movies on his repertoire as a director and Carradine over 340 as an actor! Anyway, after the Judge of Hell's bizarre uttering, we switch towards a remote countryside setting. We have a party of four, people that couldn't possibly look less connected to each other, wandering through the woods and finding shelter in a secluded farm house. Apparently they are fugitive jewel thieves, but these people honestly look way too dumb to commit any sort of theft, let alone jewelery. You would then subsequently expect for the "Demented Death Farm Massacre" to ensue, but no … First there's a lot of arguing about the difference between stealing a jeep and picking up what other people threw away (seriously, who "throws away" a jeep?) and other totally random and nonsensical gibberish. The fattest and ugliest redneck I've ever seen is married to a beautiful young girl with impressive cleavage. It is later explained that her father owed the fat bastard $200 and they settled it with a marriage. That's hillbilly logic for you! Every dialog is drawn out five or six times more than necessary and the "action" sequences are shot in slow-motion. They literally do everything here in order to reach a normal playtime. The absolute most shameless attempt to fill up the running time is an extremely long monologue of a guy talking to God. Seriously, FOUR full minutes of staring at a dumb yokel talking to the sky! There's so much talking in this movie, it's crazy. Either the screenplay contained approximately 7,000 pages or these rednecks were just instructed to improvise whatever the wanted. Naturally, there's also a chase through the woods guided by the obligatory banjo music and incompetent cinematography. In the end, the only "demented" thing about this movie is that there are idiots like myself who watch it. The "Death Farm" is just a shed in somebody's garden and the only farming tool used in the "Massacre" is a pitchfork. Lame.

Barely watchable, but has it's moments

[HEFILM · 3/10 · 5 June 2006]

Moments mostly of bad film-making. It is, to me anyway, clearly not a horror film that got messed with some in the editing to try to make it more horrifying--with little success. Though none of the performances are really much good, some have a regional theater style fascination. You'll hope for real nudity, but your hope with remain only a hope by and large. The failed camp nature of the thing is somehow less painful than in other purely Fred Olen Ray movies, so maybe he didn't have that much to do with this one.

Total crapola post production sound job leads to more laughs and they try real hard to use sounds that don't match the picture, it's like they only have one FX CD just had to make it work for everything--though there is very little in the way of polish on any level. The first, and one of the only, night scenes in the movie is almost entirely out of focus and grainy.

It's sort of going for a 2000 Maniacs feel I suppose only less well made--yes that's what I said.

John Carradine??? I love that guy!!

[Tromafreak · 4/10 · 28 February 2010]

Enough sarcasm. I suppose it sucks that Carradine is dead and all, and I happen to know for a fact it sucks his boy David is dead, but inserted footage of John Carradine rambling is not what made this movie good. In fact, it was pretty much everything else. That's right, I said it. Demented Death Farm Massacre is a good movie. It's about time somebody said it. By the looks of most of the other reviews, this movie is quite under-appreciated. Well, I appreciate you, Death Farm.

Good? Yes, but certainly not great, as most anyone will figure out within the first minute. A whole lot of awkward acting/dialog makes up this one. Most of the awkwardness is brought to you by two bickering couples, who just recently stole some diamonds. The plan is to hide out in Nowhere, Florida, and move in on some unsuspecting hicks, and use their house for a hideout. A hot little bumpkin chick offers the thieves some shelter, and you guessed it, Southern hospitality. Let's hope her loud-mouth, religious fanatic, moonshine-selling husband is as hospitable. Ol' Harlan turns out to be easygoing enough, that is, until one of the jewel thieves sets his sights on his lady. That, he cannot overlook. In fact, it might be time to dust off the ol' pitchfork. And why the hell not? O'l Harlan just bought her off her pa last week.

Alright, well, maybe "good" was a bit of a stretch. Demented Death Farm Massacre is actually quite terrible, I'll admit that, but I stand by my claim of entertainment value. Oh, it's there. Even if it's just mostly some outlandish fat hick yelling at women, or there's always the acting... or the lack there of. If schlock ain't your cup of tea, then you probably won't find anything this particular Hixploitation epic has to offer to be even remotely appealing. Sounds to me like someone's wasting their time. This surprisingly worthy addition to my collection can be found on the first of seven "Toxie's Triple Terror" set, all of which contain three movies. I was equally shocked as I was delighted to discover that the other two movies on this set, Curse Of The Cannibal Confederates, and Deadly Daphne's Revenge, were every bit as good as this one... well, not exactly good. You know what I mean. 7/10

The three minutes of John Carradine almost made this bearable.

[reptilicus · 26 July 2004]

Old drive-in movies never really die. Some of them just get new footage added and re-released and we are expected to think they are new! Way back in 1972 this movie first saw release as a soft core film about backwoods moonshiners against big city jewel thieves. I might be a forgotten film now if Fred Olen Ray had not grabbed it, spliced in 3 minutes, more or less, of John Carradine at random points (sort of like the way Edward D. Wood Jr inserted Bela Lugosi into GLEN OR GLENDA? back in 1952) and re-released it with a new title.

I actually tried to like this film, and if you approach it not expecting too much you might not be disappointed . . .well, not TOO disappointed anyway.

A moonshiner (George Ellis) deep in the North Carolina woods is too busy making and distributing his product and listening to a fire and brimstone preacher on the radio that he fails to even notice his lovely young wife (Trudy Moore). They have been married 4 whole days and he has yet to consummate the union. Well along come some crooks who have stolen over $1 million in diamonds. Their stolen Jeep breaks down near the farm so they take advantage of the offered hospitality. One of them, a young fellow named Rick (Mike Coolik) takes "advantage" to a new level when he sets eyes on the busty, barefoot country gal and he soon forgets all about his airhead girlfriend (Pepper Thurston) who came along with him.

Now fooling around with the moonshiners wife is one thing, after all he only married her because her pa owed him a lot o' money and couldn't pay off, but when these durn city slickers decide to lay low on his farm and take over his 'shine business that's jest a-going' too dang fir y'all!This is when the title massacre begins. Carnage includes hit and run,death by pitchfork (and I used to think only Andy Milligan did that!), bear trap, bludgeoning and gun.

Now about John Carradine, how does he fit into this? John introduces himself as "The Judge of Hell" though in most of his scenes he quotes from The Bible, something I would hardly expect a magistrate from The Other Place to do. He introduces the movie as one of the cases that came before him and outlines the sins each character commits. Watching him almost made this no-budget drive-in entry worth the time. I did say "almost"!

This movie has recently resurfaced on DVD. I found it in a bargain bin, look for it in one near you. Viddy well brothers and sisters, viddy well.

This movie reeks of excrement.

[tinchimp · 1/10 · 25 November 2002]

I bought this movie, as in paid over 10 English pounds for a film called Demented Death Farm Massacre: The Movie. I got Honey Britches. Okay, let that sum the disappointment in one line? The blurb sounded a total undiscovered gem, with the desperate Jewel Thieves hiding out with a clan of psychotic rednecks - ends in a brutal battle for survival.. Sounded almost like a wild combo of Dusk till Dawn and the Chainsaw massacre! The phrase polishing a turd springs to mind. Unfortunately, in the instance of buying videos a turd can be polished very nicely and sold under a groovy title to unsuspecting horror fans. To say the blurb is misleading would be an understatement. Lame people can be jewel thieves too.. just as psychotic rednecks can be goofy rather than aggressive... ARRRRGHGGGHHHHH

LAME LOSER JEWEL THIEVES VS GOOFY JERK OFF RETARD FARMERS WHO DON'T KNOW A CHAINSAW FROM A MICROWAVE!!!!

For the record, this movie was released in the UK as Demented Death Farm Massacre The Movie. Why, I have no idea.

If you too ended up seeing this, please accept my commiserations... If you are reading up on this, please heed my warnings and avoid like the plague.. this doesn't have a 1.7 mark for nothing!!! (Probably worse than that coz its about to get a 1 from me!!!)

Why did I ever bother renting this?

[unbend_5440 · 1/10 · 6 July 2001]

I rented this movie a few months ago. My brother, his friend and I were on a cheesy horror flick kick, and we thought this movie would be funny. We were very wrong. It was a waste of my money and a waste of my time. After barely 10 minutes we were already falling asleep and losing all interest. It got so bad that we eventually decided to fast forward through the whole movie, and see if there were any interesting scenes. Not once did I take my finger off that fast forward button. A day later I actually attempted to watch the full movie. After watching it all the way through I realized one thing. It was 100 times more interesting when we were fast forwarding it. Don't be fooled into renting this low budget crapfest called Honey Britches. You don't want to make the same mistake I did.

Demented Death Farm Massacre is sow sow

[drdeathforpresident · 5/10 · 7 March 2013]

Four jewel thieves(Karen, Kirk, Phillip, Susan) steal a jeep and end up in Hillbilly Country. They abandon the jeep on the side of the road, walk through the woods which seems like eons until they spot a small farm house in the middle of nowhere. They hide out there till the heat cools down. A dim - witted wife (Reba Sue Craven) and her religious alcoholic old man (Harlan P. Craven)live there and boy they are boring. Harlan gets drunk on his own moonshine and religiously listens to radio sermons. Reba is emotional wrecked and she just wants to get laid but drunk hubby is not giving her any loving. Kirk, who doesn't have an off button, eventually nails Reba. Kirk's girlfriend gets wind of this and she gets into a scuffle with Reba. Reba kills his girlfriend with a planter (I could be wrong; memory doesn't serve me well on this. I do apologize.)FAST FORWARD: Kirk wants in on Harlan's moonshine business so Harlan stabs him repeatedly in the neck with a pitchfork. Harlan and his doofus partner, Tobe, freak out and leave in the stolen jeep. Phillip gives chase. The boys run out of gas and hide out in the woods. Phillip hunts them down like the animals they are and only Tobe dies thanks to a bear trap that Harlan put there last year. Harlan, drunk off his ass and holding on to a makeshift walking stick gets down on his knees and prays to god to get him out of this. Phillip eventually catches up to Harlan. Harlan beats the life out of Phillip with the walking stick. Harlan hobbles back home happy he survived the life and death situation. All is lost however when Reba gets greedy and off screen shoots and kills Harlan. I guess diamonds are a girl's best friend. John Carradine spews out quotes from the bible in between scenes. There is no gore unless you count the red paint on the actor's faces. PG - 13 at best.

Z-Grade Hick Trash

[Rainey-Dawn · 1/10 · 18 April 2016]

Honey Britches aka Demented Death Farm Massacre. This is nothing more than z-grade hick trash - yes it really is a hicksploitation film. The beginning was a little bit funny - I even spewed my drink on my clothing I laughed that hard - but it went down hill from there.

There are some very pretty women prancing around in underwear and 2-piece bathing suits, guys speaking with their dirty thoughts (minus one who calls them Jezebel while eyeballing them), lot of bad acting and exaggerated hick accents.

Thin, thin plot. Bad, bad acting. Very few laughs. And a very tired looking John Carradine who was only in the film briefly. I started fast-forwarding and skimming through this trash film about half way through it to get to the "good stuff" which is not good at all.

1/10

Crime, Thriller, Horror, Comedy Semi-Mess from Troma!

[radioactivesound · 5/10 · 9 October 2022]

A picked up Troma movie, shot for the drive-ins, with some editing and interjections by Fred Olen Ray, what could go wrong, LOL.....

I actually enjoyed a lot of this semi-mess of a movie made for a time long gone of the drive-in circuit.

The history of this movie may be more interesting to some than the movie itself.

Take a crime / thriller drive-in circuit movie, most likely poorly released and marketed on it's first go-around or two, add some footage of a well-known aging star you shot hoping you could re-use it, edit some synth semi-horror music in over the county / hillbilly music in a few spots and you have a horror movie called Demented Death Farm Massacre... The Movie.

There are a few moments of goofy comedy in the movie also.

Ashley Brooks was fun to look at and did a pretty good job in her role for the most part also.

Are there some weak points in the film, plot, acting, etc? Yes, but a lot of the weirdness and other points in the film that are a bit unique help it out too.

The twist and turns that start to come pretty quickly after about 45 min. Or so in and have the movie end up with an unlikely survivor at the end I happened to enjoy, maybe others didn't quite look at it that way though.

Worth a look if you like Troma, general weirdness in movies, and a trip back in the wayback machine every once in a while, to the era of drive-in cheapie movies.....

Troma up to their usual nonsense

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 5 June 2016]

A classic exploitation title for a film with almost no exploitation features in it, this tame affair is hugely disappointing on every level. A low budget, cheap effects and amateur acting are all to be expected in films such as these, but the lack of action in the film - which doesn't pick up until the last twenty minutes - is intensely disappointing. This was my first exposure to a Troma film and it left me pretty deflated, but at least the trailer for A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL looks cool.

So, the film has little happening except characters talking to each other a lot, and slapping each other and shouting. Big deal. There are also some incredibly racist attitudes towards the 'redneck' Bible-thumping farmers, which are intended as comedy but I'm not sure. The trouble with the film is the lack of any exploitative features. No nudity, swearing, violence, anything to get excited about. When the murders finally arrive the camera shies away from them, and all we get is a little bit of fake blood. At least some effort could have been taken with them, bad effects are better than no effects! This may be because this was actually filmed FIFTEEN YEARS before being released by Troma!

The only thing the film has going for it are some humorous performances from the two male leads. The first, that of the farmer Harlan, is pretty funny, and he's a weird guy - he hates his wife but lusts after local prostitutes, he's apparently dim-witted but violent when he wants to be. He also looks a lot like Perry Mason but with a big bushy beard. The other performance is from a bald man with a distinct (and slightly overdone - but hey!) British accent, the cool, calm and collected ringleader. The main comedy highlight here is that he looks the spitting image of Sir Clive Sinclair, renowned Spectrum founder of the 1980s and something of a cult icon for those of us interested in those old ZX computers. In fact I think it was Clive in a rare acting role - but this information needs to be verified.

Also on hand, and obviously to trade on his image as a horror icon, is John Carradine, whose scenes are filmed separately from the rest. Carradine brings the Biblical references to the film and presents it in a series of chapters about man's greed and evil leading to death and destruction. Poor John is looking pretty old here, it was one of his last films and he's obviously reading from an autocue, it's quite sad to see the type of films he was reduced to - although it has to be said some of his earlier efforts weren't much better! Altogether this was something of a missed opportunity, it has the right atmosphere but just not enough violence or action to make it entertaining. Preferably avoid if you can.

Demented Death Farm Massacre

[Drive-In-Freak · 6/10 · 4 October 2004]

Another almost unknown '70s "B" cl-ass-sick from Florida.Shot in Dade City for about $5.37.John Carradine has been cut into the film for narration and has nothing to do with the plot at all,a lot like 'the Smoker' in "Blood Freak".It's fun to watch him flub a line or two.What's wrong? Can't read the cue card? Oh well.leave it in.No use in wasting film...Must have been put in later by Troma(?) as he's not in the final credits,which is done with filmed chalk on boards...wow.. guess they didn't want to have to pay a lab!

Cheezy catsup almost-but-not-quite gore,moonshine,cleavage,and bad so called hillbilly dialog are what's in store here.For fans of the "B"/ exploitation/southern drive-in,and hillbilly type films only.Then again,if that wasn't your thing then you wouldn't have known to look up a film called "Demented Death Farm Massacre/Honey Britches " in the first place,right?

I found it to be a fun little film to watch.I could have done without the 'everybody slap the females around for no reason' shots.I don't mind if 'ya wana cut em up into little pieces (sorry, folks none of that here. If that's what your after.) but,let's not be cruel and make it look like normal behavior... please.

Pick one up.Esp. if you can find the $14 "Toxie's Triple Terror vol #1" DVD set with "Curse of the Cannibal Confederates" a.k.a. "Curse of the Screaming Dead"(don't let that scare you away if you don't like it.) "Death Farm..." is a much better film,then again that's not too hard to do..lol, and "Deadly Daphanie's Revenge"(makes a fine coaster)

6.75/10 on the drive-in freak-o-meter....check it out...8)

Pretty Bland Film Has a Couple Highlights

[Michael_Elliott · 8 April 2011]

Demented Death Farm Massacre (1971/86)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This is yet another low-budget drive-in flick where it's history is a lot more interesting than the actual film. In 1972 a movie called SHANTYTOWN HONEYMOON was made but found very limited distribution so it was forgotten until director Fred Olen Ray bought it and tried to sell it to the video market. No one wanted it unless Ray could get a "star" to appear so he hired John Carradine for a day and filmed the added scenes of him pretty much telling us the story of what happened. It turned out that Carradine filmed these scenes in an hour and since Ray hired him for a full day of work, the low-budget filmmaker decided to take advantage of his star by having him act out other scenes, which would eventually be used in films such as STAR SLAMMER, EVIL SPAWN and JACK-O, which would actually be released nearly seven years after the death of Carradine.

Four jewel thieves make a daring robbery but along the way of their escape they must get rid of their vehicle and take off on foot. They come across a redneck man (George Ellis) and his younger, sexy white trash wife (Ashley Brooks) and take them hostage but the rednecks have their own idea of how things are going to go. Those wanting to see the original film will have a pretty simple time doing so because the newly shot Ray/Carradine footage doesn't last over a couple minutes. We see Carradine at the very start for under a minute and then he pops up briefly throughout the film for about another minute total. Those just watching this for Carradine will probably feel cheated. The "real" movie here isn't that bad and in fact it contains some rather campy, fun moments but sadly even at 80-minutes this thing runs way too long. I'll admit that I found plenty of the redneck humor to be fun and a large part of this is due to the performances by Brooks and Ellis as the redneck couple. Ellis is the old, bearded man who is constantly preaching about sins while at the same time paying a black woman for sex and selling moonshine. I found Ellis to be pretty good at screaming off these Bible quotes and it made me laugh several times. Brooks is certainly easy on the eyes in her little redneck dress and her silly accent just really makes you love her. The four actors playing the thieves all give bad performances but thankfully they're all so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh. I really loved it when they tried to get dramatic or "scary" because of the way they'd carry on was just downright hilarious at times. There are a couple quick nude shots as well as some minor gore including one pitchfork sequence. Fans of the horror genre might get a chuckle out of those scenes but it's those looking for low-budget hicksploitation that are going to be the ones finding this most appealing. The biggest problem with the film is its extended running time plus there are way too many moments where the film stops dead in its tracks as it seems the screenplay just wants to talk and talk and talk without the dialogue ever moving the story along.

Trashy hicksploitation.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 6/10 · 17 July 2010]

After a group of jewel thieves pull off a daring robbery,their getaway car runs out of fuel in the middle of the countryside.They wander into a backwoods farm hoping to hide out for the time being.However when the farmer returns home only to find the thieves taking over the house he hatches a deadly plan.This 1971 hicksploitation flick was originally made by Donn Davidson and released as "Honey Britches".Fred Olen Ray purchased the rights to "Honey Britches",shot some pointless footage with John Carradine and then sold the film to Troma.There is a bit of gore including fairly nasty pitchfork murder plus some nudity and hilarious rednecks.6 out of 10.

Demented Death Farm Massacre (1985)

[stevencraigvankooten · 14 April 2007]

Contains no skin, a lil' gore. This review pertains to the Fred Olen Ray version released by Troma. A band of robbers try to make their getaway in the backwoods only to come upon a hillbilly couple that inspires them to commit heinous acts and experience a hick style revenge. - - - Apparently, Fred cut in some new scenes to Donn Davison's less than stellar "Honey Britches" and what we get from that is a tepid waste of 80+ minutes. What could've been a decent reclusive slasher is turned into a bottom barrel drama that is half hearted on its sleaze and descends into awful fits of comedy. Truly terrible in almost every respect, the slivers of smut and a nice pitch fork to the neck are the only things that keep this one from getting a bomb. I may respect Fred Olen Ray and all, but when he comes up with turd sandwiches like these... I'm not so sure.

1/2 out of 4

Well, they got the "demented" part right

[doctorgonzo23 · 20 August 2007]

I am usually a big fan of movies like this one, however I felt that this film failed to deliver on several levels. Firstly, and it might just be my copy, the sound (especially the dialog) was awful. I was sure I could hear a generator running in several places; probably to keep the lights/other equipment going. The characters were horrible. I can't even complain about clichés and stereotypes as these particular characters were far too one dimensional for even those embarrassing labels. It is fun to listen to the "actors" flub their lines and awkwardly phrase even the most dry dialog. Worst of all however, was the complete lack of nudity/gore. There were some tantalizing glimpses that held some promise, but it was disappointing in the end. The one exception is a murder by pitchfork, but it was short and ultimately underwhelming. Best left alone even for fans of the genre. There are so many more worthy pieces out there that deliver the goods. All in all, I found myself bored and reaching for the fast forward button.

"Every Time You Start Guzzlin', You Start Spoutin'!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 14 July 2021]

In HONEY BRITCHES, four bickering travelers wind up at a farm, where they encounter a pair of female rustics. Soon, the hillbilly males return, and backwoods insanity commences.

This movie scrapes the bottom of the barrel, crashes through it, only to emerge in a cesspit on the other side of the Earth!

Meant primarily to showcase the cleavage and mountainous hairstyles of the women involved, all else, including plot, dialogue, acting, etc., has been ignored.

There is an obligatory rape scene, followed by a "catfight", and death. The remaining 95% of this "film" is filler. Outhouse filler to be exact. Sitting through it is an agonizing experience, like wearing cactus pants!

Even the finale is awful!...