Pink Eye is an Efficient Micro-Budget Horror Creation

Release: Premier January 8, 2008
Directed by: James Tucker
Written by: Joshua Nelson

Starring:
Melissa Bacelar as Delilah
Joshua Nelson as Brandon
Joshua James as Edgar
Emma Hinz as Daisy
Bridget Megan Clark as Holly

Savage Rose Pictures and Lost Angeles Films have teamed up before, notably on the project Eat Your Heart Out starring the ravishing Melissa Bacelar. The projects coming from this team keep getting better in terms of gore, story and effective use of limited resources.

Pink Eye is the story of an insane asylum where ghastly drug experiments are conducted. There are other things going on in this nut house as well that include orderlies wearing shrunken-head masks while they rape the female patients - Remember those machines that would dry out a carved apple to make a prunie little head with a face on it? You could get them from the huge Sears catalogue when I was a kid – and I think director James Tucker got one for Christmas one year and based the mask on the memory.

The visual of the prune-face mask becomes relevant when one of the crazies, Edgar, escapes and dons the mask before embarking on a murderous and pillaging rampage that ends in an abduction of Delilah (Bacelar) and the quest for her rescue by boyfriend Brandon (Joshua Nelson).

There are several notables to Pink Eye, and most of them are amplified considerably by the fact that the budget for this one was extremely low. First is the gore. I already knew after watching Eat Your Heart Out that there was a love of over– the– top gore inherent in this filmmaking team, but a few scenes in Pink Eye took this to a new level. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a young woman graphically rip her eyeballs out because she thinks there are ants behind them…AWESOME!!

The acting is very good, especially the performances of boyfriend Joshua Nelson and the two child actors Emma Hinz and Bridget Megan Clark. My only complaint is that there wasn’t enough Melissa Bacelar. She is set up as the romantic interest and child caregiver early on, but ultimately her part is pretty minor until the end. I would have liked to have her character developed more so that the impact of her abduction packs a bit more punch. Still, the scenes of Melissa tied up and screaming while surrounded by mutilated bodies just about makes up for it. I could have done without a few of the ancillary characters, especially the stoner dude…he was fine, but ultimately pointless. Less stoner dude, more Melissa…that’s what I say, but my crush on Melissa Bacelar is well documented so who am I?

The villain in Pink Eye is a complete drama queen, which I like. A skin disease that makes him a monster, the vicious way that he rips rats apart, the shrunken apple head mask and the James Earl Jones voice work together to create a credible monster worthy of nightmares.

Tons of punch on a shoestring budget is the beauty of Pink Eye. This independent horror creation proves that tons of money and big studios cannot eclipse real moviemaking passion. Questions or comments about Pink Eye? Contact us!

Update: I spoke with Melissa Bacelar today and voiced my concerns regarding her lack of screen time. She told me that the filming location was so cold that the cameras were freezing, requiring that many of her outdoor scenes be cut. I reminded her that “cold girls in tube tops make good cinema” according to Kaufman of Troma, but unfortunately there was nary a tube top in the house.

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