Languages: English
Comments: Some Things Should Stay Lost at Sea.
Summary: "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove" is, as the title might suggest, a splatter flick in which the killer is a pirate. Since he died hundreds of years ago and this story is set in the present, Jolly Roger is in point of fact a resurrected pirate. Cutter's Cove has just gone through a hurricane and three teenage couples are having a cookout on the beach. One of the couples, using the beach because getting a room is too much of a bother, finds a giant chest, open it up and discover a skull. Yes, that is right, boys and girls, it is (wait for it) a dead man's chest. Having found what is either (a) an ancient relic of some archeological value or (b) the remains of a recent murder victim, the guy tosses the skull in the ocean to get back to the business in hand. However, the next thing we know the Jolly Roger is back in business and announcing his presence with authority.
The idea behind this movie is not the skull and crossbones known as the Jolly Roger, but rather the old pirate song about "Sixteen men on a dead man's chest...yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." The variation here is that Jolly Roger needs sixteen heads to put IN the aforementioned dead man's chest so he can get his treasure back. His victims would appear to be arbitrary, but there ends up being a logic behind it all (so to speak). This would be helpful for killing Jolly Roger and make Cutter's Cove safe once again for beach parties. Meanwhile, having survived the initial bloodbath, Alex (Tom Nagle) and Jessie (Kristina Korn), are the chief suspects. They are not covered in blood or anything tangible, but the local cop (Tom Downey) does not have any suspects, does not believe their story, and has learned that nobody in town has rented a pirate costume. He is not too stupid as far as cops in horror films go, but when the rules require the zombie killer to take 16 heads, you know he is at least going to get well into double digits.
Overall, director Gary Jones ("Crocodile 2: Death Swamp") and his co-writer, first time scritper Jeff Miller (XVII), go for humor rather than fright. We are encouraged to want to watch these sixteen people die and to enjoy the riffs by Jolly Roger (Rhett Giles), and if this movie is remembered by anybody for anything it will be for Jolly Roger getting a lap dance at a Cutter's Cove club (a zombie getting a lap dance will tend to stick in your memory far longer than it deserves to be, I can tell you that much). All things considered this is a splatter flick in which they just seem to be doing everything by the numbers (e.g., every woman whose naked breasts are seen ends up getting killed). The two kids who are going to survive the bloodletting are more concerned with saving their lives than making out, even if we now live in a world where all explanations come from the Internet rather than creepy looking old folks in town. But a movie that does everything by the numbers should not be taking two steps backwards like this one does to get to this ending. There are several naked women and a lot more blood courtesy of halfway decent special effects. However, ultimately this is an empty little horror film, and I only rounded up because of the aforementioned lap dance (but more for the audacity of the scene than its execution; plus, I feel bad about doing it).