Backwoods Bubba opens with a news report about missing persons and a break-in at a costume shop. An odd combination to be sure, but it makes sense after Michelle (Dilynn Fawn Harvey, Clownado, Hi-Fear) and Lynn (Alyss Winkler, The Bad Man, Space Babes from Outer Space) get kidnapped by a masked man and come to chained up in a cabin with several others. All of them wearing animal costumes.

That masked figure was Bubba (Sammie Cassell, The Haunting of Four Points, Kill Giggles) and he’s brought, Michelle, Lynn, Jill (Julie Anne Prescott, Don’t Fuck in the Woods 2, H.P. Lovecraft’s Witch House), William (Bryan Matthew Ward, Dead Kansas, Martian Massacre) and the others here with a purpose in mind. No, not a furry convention. For Bubba, it’s always hunting season.

Director James B. Thomasson (Terrifying T-Rex, Boobs, Blood, and Mayhem: Volume 1) and co-writer/actress Rebecca Rinehart (Sister Krampus, The Embalmers) based the script on a series of shorts written and directed by Thomasson. It’s a fairly basic slasher plot with Bubba occasionally freeing one of the captives so he can stalk them with his machete. When he’s not doing that he’s doing things like killing off girls from the local escort service, or a group of fishermen unlucky enough to cross his path.

There are at least two versions of Backwoods Bubba, the original version was re-edited for content and pacing. New music and a sort of grindhouse look were added to it as well. I’m not sure what was added or removed although a review on Letterboxd mentions a nude sunbathing scene that isn’t on my DVD. Now if you’re going to cut anything from a slasher shouldn’t it be some of the dialogue and not boobs or blood?

Actually, at times I wondered if I should call Backwoods Bubba a slasher or a slasher parody. It’s listed on IMDB as horror but there are elements of it that I have to hope are meant to be funny. The chains that hold the captives look like they were meant to hold King Kong, not people. In several scenes, it’s beyond obvious that punches don’t connect and weapons are hitting the ground by the victims. To cap it off there are sound effects that will make you think of 1970s kung-fu movies and we occasionally hear them before the blows hit.

If this is meant to be a spoof of low-budget backwood horror then it is successful. I frequently found myself chuckling at those scenes or its homage to Friday the 13th Part 3’s outhouse scene. Thomasson also manages to pull an amusing switch up on the viewer’s expectations of nudity given the film’s cast. If you’ve seen Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires you’ll know where I’m going with this.

It all builds up to a finale that includes a hysterical fight composed of a few punches edited together over and over and a rare death by snow shovel. All we need is Yakkity Sax on the soundtrack and it could be a Benny Hill skit. There’s a fake sticker on the DVD cover that says “Some films are great, but the best ones are trash”. I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call Backwoods Bubba great, but it certainly is trashy, and fun. It’s a really good choice for watching when you just want to have a beer, turn your brain off and relax.

Backwoods Bubba is available on DVD and Blu-ray, you can check the film’s Facebook page for details. It’s also available on Digital platforms including Tubi.

There isn’t a trailer for Backwoods Bubba, but there is a music video and a deleted scene. And if you’re looking for more films like this, FilmTagger can make some suggestions.