Hearkening back to old-school (i.e. 1980s) horror, with Raimi's The Evil Dead a particular touchstone, Muck is a difficult film to warm to, with wildly uneven performances, plotting for which the word 'random' was invented and an uncertain tone. It starts interestingly by wrong-footing the viewer as we join the characters at what feels like the end of a previous movie (and indeed the internet suggests this may be the middle part of a trilogy, with the next/second film being the prequel), but even at this point the cardboard characters who are not particularly likeable and unconvincing dialogue are distancing for the viewer. There are a couple of reasonable gore gags, and the design of the attackers creates a good look, but these are not enough to sustain the movie. Whether deliberate or not, the presentation of the female characters is consistently and routinely exploitative from beginning to end, which is just one aspect of the film that begs the question: is this a knowing send-up (in which case it only succeeds occasionally to a limited degree) or is it just a cheap throwback slasher?
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