‘Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge’ Review – A 90-minute Scorecard of Horror Movie References
Created by Aaron B. Koontz and Cameron Burns, the Scare Package films present audiences with an anthology of horror-comedy outings, each one dripping with references to cult classics and full-on satire of the entire genre.
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In the original film, Koontz and Burns introduced the framing device of ‘Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium’, a video cassette rental store whose owner, Chad Buckley, spends most of his time dodging his most loyal (and annoying customer) Sam (Byron Brown) and attempting to train his new hire, Hawn (Hawn Tran).
However, Chad’s work adventures merely serve as the wrap-around story for six other gloriously gory and ridiculously funny segments, the highlight of which is Chris McInroy’s “One Time in The Woods,” wherein Kirk Johnson plays a man desperately seeking help as he transforms into a monstrous pile of inhuman fleshy bits and green goo.
It’s as hilarious as it is disgusting, but the practical special effects are extraordinary.
Now, two years later, Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge picks up where the first left off, this time employing Chad’s funeral following his dramatic death at the hands of the Devil Lake Impaler (AEW’s Dustin Rhodes).
But rather than allowing his service to proceed as normal, as a parting gift, Chad posthumously reveals that, using his encyclopedic and annoyingly thorough obsession with horror movies, he has rigged up a series of deadly death traps that all of his guests must endure if they want to make it home alive.
Meanwhile, the ‘final girl’ from the first film, Jessie (Zoe Graham), begins to have nightmares about the Devil Lake Impaler killing her – even though he’s supposed to have blown-up along with Chad.
Like the original, Scare Package II’s entertainment value depends on how well one knows the horror genre as a whole, as its segments take common horror tropes and either mock them or allow them to evolve into something else entirely.
However, while Scare Package II still has the comedy element, this time around it seems to play second victim to the sheer amount of horror films the sequel references throughout its brisk hour-and-a-half runtime.
Not including the Saw-inspired wrap around story of ‘Rad Chad’s Revenge’, the film finds time to pay homage to at least 20 other horror films, with four or five films even being referenced in one segment. Even more bizarrely is that these throwbacks seem to just be scenes lifted from their original film and recreated here.
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As for its short films, Scare Package II’s best segment is Jed Shepherd’s ‘Special Edition,’ wherein a laserdisc player controls the actions of a faceless killer who possesses glowing, molten-lava-like skin and blades for hands.
One of the reasons this particular short is the crowning achievement of Scare Package II is that it’s the most original part of the film, utilizing laserdisc and VCR functions such as fast forward and eject in really creative ways that results in some truly insane kills.
Also of note is ‘The Night He Came Back Again! Part VI: The Night She Came Back’, as helmed returning director Anthony Cousins.
This film put a unique spin on the concept of cinematic serial killers being indestructible, taking it to a completely different level than you’ve seen before.
Lifting story elements from the likes of Friday the 13th and Halloween with a little bit of Scream sprinkled in, ‘The Night He Came Back Again’ is the one horror segment in Scare Package II besides the overall wraparound story that has any sort of continuity.
I also felt that ‘Welcome to the 90s’, which sees the seemingly safe final girls slaughtered one-by-one as the brainless cheerleader character enlightens them and saves the day, bore more than a passing similarity to the first film’s ‘Girl’s Night Out of Body’, wherein three girls end up getting the best of a serial stalker who attempts to murder them.
Scare Package is decently entertaining as a franchise, feeling akin to what the Scary Movie films might have become had they stayed R-Rated, leaned even heavier on the horror genre’s back catalog of films to draw their references from, and made use of a good measure of practical gore effects.
But when it comes to Scare Package II, it’s main downside is that while it goes bigger in comparison to the first film, it does so by attempting to cram so much into so little.
The film’s humor feels like it mostly goes for low-hanging fruit, relying more on the accomplishment that they’re obnoxiously meta rather than being legitimately funny.
It’s not something that totally ruins the sequel or torpedoes the potential for a Scare Package III, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to ignore that Scare Package II suffers from ‘Part Two Syndrome’.
Ultimately, even if constant throwbacks, green acidic barf in slow-motion, and skin disgustingly hanging aren’t enough to pique your interest, Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge is worth the watch solely for its exhaustive portrayal of the world’s most loyal horror aficionado.
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