If you ever wondered what would happen if a high school art project, a bong, and a VHS copy of One Million Years B.C. had a love child and left it to be raised by Lloyd Kaufman — well, congratulations, you’ve just described B.C. Butcher, a movie so proudly incompetent it should come with a warning label and a mop.
Welcome to the Stone Age of Cinema
Directed by Kansas Bowling, who was seventeen at the time (and, in all fairness, shows more effort than half of Hollywood), B.C. Butcher bills itself as “the first prehistoric slasher film.” Which is technically true — much like how Sharknado is technically about sharks.
The setup? A group of cavewomen — all of whom look suspiciously like extras from a Coachella afterparty — murder one of their own for committing the unforgivable sin of sleeping with the wrong man. They dump her body in the wilderness, where she’s found by a lovesick, lumpy caveman monster known only as “The Butcher.” Naturally, he falls in love with the corpse (romantic!), and decides to avenge her death by murdering the tribe one by one.
In any other hands, this could’ve been stupid fun — Cavewoman Massacre meets Plan 9 from Outer Space. But because it’s produced by Lloyd Kaufman, the patron saint of cinematic diarrhea, we instead get a movie that feels like it was written, shot, and edited by a fossilized raccoon.
The Plot — Or, The Lack Thereof
Calling B.C. Butcher a plot is like calling a cave painting an instruction manual. Things happen, sure — but there’s no sense, reason, or pacing. Characters wander in and out of scenes like lost time travelers, dialogue consists mostly of grunting and “retro” slang, and the kills are so lazily staged they make The Flintstones look like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
At one point, the movie literally stops to play a full music video by a punk band called The Ugly Kids. No, really. The prehistoric mayhem just halts so a 1980s-style music video can happen — because apparently nothing screams “Jurassic authenticity” like a garage band filmed on Betamax.
Imagine watching Jurassic Park, and right before the T-Rex attack, Steven Spielberg cuts to a ska concert. That’s the level of artistic decision-making we’re dealing with.
The Performances: Rocks Have More Range
Let’s start with the tribe of cavewomen. They’re supposed to be fierce, primal, and dangerous — but instead they look like they wandered off the set of a low-rent Halloween party.
Leilani Fideler as Neandra, the tribe leader, does her best to sound authoritative, but every line delivery feels like she’s reading cue cards carved into driftwood. Natasha Halevi (as Anaconda) and Devyn Leah (as Bamba) try to inject some personality, but it’s hard to emote when you’re wearing fur bikinis that look like they were stolen from a Spirit Halloween clearance bin.
Then there’s Kato Kaelin, yes, that Kato Kaelin — O.J. Simpson’s infamous houseguest turned minor celebrity. He plays Rex, the cave-stud whose wandering loincloth sets off the whole chain of events. Kato’s acting is exactly what you’d expect from a man whose main claim to fame is “being home at the wrong time.”
He looks bewildered in every scene, like he showed up thinking this was a dating show and decided to just roll with it.
Kadeem Hardison narrates the whole thing for reasons unknown, presumably because he lost a bet. His voice-over is pure monotone, as if he’s trying to distance himself spiritually from the movie he’s being paid to describe.
And then, of course, there’s the Butcher himself — a man in a poorly fitting monster mask who alternates between moaning, waving a club, and looking deeply embarrassed. He’s less a terrifying killer and more a guy who forgot the choreography to his high school mascot routine.
The Aesthetic: Flintstones on Bath Salts
The movie’s look is… well, generous people might call it “DIY.” Less generous people might call it “looks like it was filmed on a toaster.”
The sets are just patches of desert with the occasional bush and foam rock. The costumes appear to have been assembled from the fur section of Jo-Ann Fabrics. And the lighting changes so drastically from shot to shot you’d think they filmed this across three different geological eras.
But the best part? The special effects. Every kill looks like someone’s very first attempt at stage blood. There’s more ketchup than carnage. When characters are bludgeoned, the camera cuts away so abruptly you’d think the film reel itself was ashamed.
Even the editing feels prehistoric. Shots linger for seconds too long, conversations have no rhythm, and the audio quality fluctuates between “forgot to hit record” and “recorded inside a cave with a potato.”
Lloyd Kaufman: The Caveman King of Crap
It’s impossible to talk about B.C. Butcher without mentioning Lloyd Kaufman, the founder of Troma Entertainment and the spiritual godfather of this cinematic train wreck. Kaufman has built his empire on a simple philosophy: if you can’t make it good, at least make it gross.
He’s the same man responsible for The Toxic Avenger, Tromeo and Juliet, and roughly 400 other movies that make Sharknado look like Citizen Kane. His brand of “camp” is an acquired taste — like licking a battery — and his influence here is unmistakable.
From the gratuitous zooms to the random nudity to the intentionally bad dialogue, B.C. Butcher reeks of Troma’s house style: juvenile, anarchic, and convinced that being bad on purpose is the same as being funny.
It’s not. It’s just bad.
The Tone: Half Comedy, Half Concussion
The movie desperately wants to be a parody — a tongue-in-cheek tribute to B-movies of yore. The problem is, parody requires timing, awareness, and, ideally, jokes. B.C. Butcher has none of these things.
The humor is a mix of caveman puns, fake blood, and actors mugging at the camera like they’re auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. When it’s not trying to be funny, it’s trying to be shocking, but the only thing shocking is how boring it is.
Even the monster-in-love-with-a-corpse subplot, which should be unsettling, comes off as weirdly wholesome — like a Hallmark Channel remake of Frankenstein.
The Music Video Interlude: A Crime Against Continuity
Let’s talk again about that music video, because it deserves its own fossil record. In the middle of the movie, without warning, a punk band appears to perform a song about God knows what. It’s loud, pointless, and feels like watching a cutscene from a video game made by people who hate you.
It serves no narrative purpose, contributes nothing to the tone, and exists solely to pad the runtime — which is alreadyonly 52 minutes. When you have to add filler to a movie shorter than an episode of Succession, you know you’re in trouble.
The Legacy (Pun Intended)
To be fair, there’s a certain scrappy charm to the fact that B.C. Butcher even exists. Kansas Bowling was a teenager making her first film, and that’s impressive. Unfortunately, her debut was shepherded by Troma — a company that treats filmmaking the way cavemen treated fire: dangerous, messy, and mostly accidental.
With a different producer, B.C. Butcher might have been a cult gem — a goofy, creative passion project. Under Kaufman’s greasy thumb, it’s just another self-congratulatory trash heap marketed as “so bad it’s good.”
Spoiler alert: it’s mostly just bad.
Final Verdict: 2/10 — Extinct on Arrival
B.C. Butcher wants to be the Evil Dead of prehistoric slashers. Instead, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a mammoth turd preserved in amber.
The acting is atrocious, the pacing nonexistent, and the humor flatter than a saber-toothed pancake. It’s not even “fun bad” — it’s painful bad.
Unless you’re a diehard Troma masochist or you lost a bet, there’s no reason to subject yourself to this fossilized fiasco. The only real horror here is realizing Lloyd Kaufman is still making movies.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Kansas Bowling has nowhere to go but up. But as for B.C. Butcher?
Let’s just say it belongs right where it started — buried in the Stone Age, and preferably under six feet of permafrost.
