I’ve written about The Violence Movie a few times here at Bloody Disgusting. Now I’ve finally gotten around to watching the DVD release that came out earlier this year and boy am I happy to have done that. I love The Violence Movie and its sequel, The Violence Movie 2, and am so pleased to own both of them in one wonderful DVD package.

In 1988, two horror loving brothers, Eric D. Wilkinson and David E. Wilkinson (I hope the D stands for David and the E for Eric), got their hands on a home camcorder and decided to take a stab at making their very own horror movie. The result was a 14-minute horror short that largely borrows from Friday the 13th. A man, simply credited as The Killer (David E. Wilkinson), escapes from prison and ends up at home of Joey (Joseph Shaughnessy). Joey and the Killer fight. That’s the whole movie. The plot is basically a killer on the loose fighting his next potential victim. Simple and straight to the point.

It’s low budget and completely absurd. The quality is exactly what you’d expect from a late 80’s VHS camera, which is a nice way of saying it’s basically shit. None of that matters though because it’s just horror fans having fun and that passion and love for the genre, slashers specifically, shines through.

The Violence Movie 2 is to The Violence Movie what Evil Dead II is to Evil Dead. With the sequel, shot about a year later after the first film, the brothers had a slightly better camera and decided to improve on the first movie. I can confidently say the results are about a billion times better.

This time Joey wakes up from a nightmare that suggests the events from the first film were all just a terrible dream. As he gets ready for the day he flips on the television where he sees a local new anchor, played by Eric who is rocking a hockey hall of fame worthy mullet, with a breaking news announcement about a killer that has just escaped from prison. Using his nightmare as a premonition of sorts, Joey prepares to square off with The Killer once again.

The fight between Joey and The Killer is a lot more exciting this go around. Partly because the picture quality is better but also because the brothers appear to have improved their special effects work between the two films. They also take some pretty big risks with some exciting stunt work. This is a fight on the roof of a two-story house that literally gave me anxiety. These were just teenagers screwing around with a camera! They should not have been fighting on that roof. If that doesn’t do it for you moments later The Killer is dragged by Joey’s car which looks to be going about 30 miles an hour. That’s pretty crazy when you think about it.

The Violence Movie 2 does re-hash a lot of the first film in the nightmare and flashback sequences. So while this movie has a longer runtime than the first, it’s not entirely new footage. With that said when you consider the facts — a couple of teenagers with no budget trying to make their own version of their favorite horror movie — it’s a pretty clever way to create a longer film.

While the two films total in at about 35 minutes, the DVD contains plenty more to keep you entertained. Both films contained commentary tracks with the brothers looking at back at all the mayhem they created. Given the short runtime of both shorts, I’d just recommend watching these all back-to-back. It’s cool to hear them talk about how it all came together and their memories of it. There’s also deleted scenes and outtakes. Some really good stuff with Eric, who served as director, yelling at his cast to keep them on track. There are some clips from what could have been a third film in the series. If I’m being honest though, these clips kind of bum me out because I would have loved this to have been a trilogy.

My favorite bonus feature is a segment on the brothers doing re-shoots in 2003, 15 years after they first filmed it! I like this because it’s very uplifting to see that a decade and a half later they still had the same love and passion as when they were just kids making a movie in their backyard.

The icing on the cake is that both films feature an original score from legendary composer Harry Manfredini. When they made the first film that “borrowed” his score, but many, many years later Eric reached out to him about it and he happily supplied them with something original. Pretty freaking cool!

I think horror fans, especially those that have an appreciation and lover for slashers, should pick this DVD up. Yeah, the two shorts are sill and no real plots and it’s fairly clear that the brothers weren’t entirely sure what they were doing, but none of that matters. They wanted to make their own movie and they did and it rules.

The Violence Movie and The Violence Movie 2 are both available now on one DVD set from MVD Entertainment Group.