Plot: Thorn (Richard Daniel Thomas Holloran) might be a maniacal murderer, but he is also a man of tradition. Every four years on Leap Day, Thorn visits a small town and unleashes a spree of violence, killing as many high school students as he can sink his blade into. This results in a lot of death and destruction, but four years ago, Thorn was unable to hunt down all of his intended victims. Jessica (Jade Wallis) seemed to be his main target, but she and several other students were able to evade his blood soaked blade. Now it is time once again for Thorn to return and the survivors have a plan, with the intent to draw out Thorn and take him out, thus ending this tradition of violence and bloodshed. The plan is to use Jessica as bait, incapacitate Thorn, then shred him to ribbons and ensure he is dead. But can these students manage to take down a killing machine like Thorn and even if they could capture him, is there even a way to kill this monster?

Entertainment Value: Thorn is an indie slasher that is pretty straightforward in most ways, but throws in a couple twists here and there. The pace is slow at times and suffers when the focus is on the high school social dynamics, but picks up whenever our killer is on the loose. The narrative is simple, with a madman hunting down teens, but it does weave in some bits of lore that are welcome, even if they don’t make all that much sense, at least to me. In any case, Thorn at least tries to add in some fresh touches, but at heart, it is a straight ahead slasher. Even with a cool mask, Thorn wasn’t a memorable villain however. I did like the mysterious aura around him, but we’ve seen that before with countless killers in the genre. The cast is passable, with Jade Wallis in a fun role and Thorn has all the menace you’d expect, while some of the high school kids offer a humorous moment or two. So watchable performances, but no one stands out or sticks with you once the movie ends. The movie is able to distract from the low rent roots with some nice visual tricks as well, which was nice. In the end, Thorn is a pretty basic indie slasher, but that’s enough to recommend a look for genre fans.

An ever so brief and partially obscured bare ass is all we get here, though one girl’s ass is almost always peeking out of her short shorts. This is a slasher flick and as such, we have a nice amount of bloodshed on showcase. This includes a severed hand, lopped off leg, face smash, and a very splashy neck wound. The neck slash is the gem of the gore here and it gushes crimson, even if it the alignment is a little off. The movie also has more blade based fun, such as double impalement on the massive machete, and a nice blade through the mouth trick. There’s some gun based blood as well, but it is CGI and looks rather lackluster. But I was glad to see Thorn splash some blood around, as a proper slasher should. The dialogue is mostly forgettable, but we do have some mean girl talk and slut shaming, so that’s something. The mean girls have the best lines, but they’re still rather sparse. In terms of craziness, Thorn follows the usual slasher elements for the most part, but a goofy twist earns a point.

Nudity: 0/10

Blood: 5/10

Dialogue: 1/10

Overall: 1/10

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