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Released by: Camp Motion Pictures
Released on: February 11th, 2014.
Director: Billy Garberina
Cast: Raine Browne, Billy Garberina, Devin O'Leary, Jeremy Owen, Joe Zaso
Year: 2011
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The Movie:
Directed by and starring Billy Garberina and written by co-star Devin O'Leary, 2011's I Heart U tells the story of Walt and Liz Fletcher (Garberina and pretty Raine Brown respectively), a married couple of seem to have lost some of the spark that once made their relationship worthwhile. While on the surface this couple appears to be your standard, average suburbanites, Walt has a dark secret that he keeps from Liz - he's a serial killer.
As luck would have it though, Walt's got some competition in the area. He soon learns of a competing serial killer referred to only as 'The Sweetheart Killer' working the same turf he's claimed as his own. When Walt predictably figures out that his new competition is none other than his lovely wife, the two soon find themselves trying to outdo one another - is this just what the marriage counsellor ordered or will Walt and Liz wind up slashing their way straight to the nuthouse?
Shot on location in New Mexico, I Heart U does a remarkably good job of capturing the inanity and pedestrian aspects of married life in the suburbs, the humdrum way of going about your daily business that far too often finds husbands and wives treating their significant others not as lovers but as simple roommates. That the movie is able to effectively mine some clever comedy from the situations that these scenarios present isn't all that surprising, as there have been plenty of comedies made about loveless marriages over the years. Where it does come out of left field though is how it melds that aspect of the story with some ridiculously grisly gore and over the top theatrics without ever losing sight of 'heart' of the main storyline.
Much of the credit for making this movie as fun as it is has to go to the two main stars. Garberina has acted in plenty of low budget movies over the years, popping up in pictures like Feeding The Masses and Psycho Holocaust. Here he plays the straight man, never making wise or breaking character and never needing to bring his character over the top. The movie is all the better for it, as it lets lovely Raine Browne, also a seasoned B-movie veteran thanks to work on pictures like Darkness Surrounds Roberta and Barricade, go a little nuttier with her personality. Both performers create interesting characters, while supporting efforts from Joe Zaso (a frequent co-star of Browne) and Jeremy Owen are also amusing. Fangoria's Mike Gingold plays a cop, as does Eric Bodwell (who popped up in Stiffed, also directed by Gaberina - the casting here is a little incestuous but it works!).
It's nicely paced, well shot and it features some pretty solid gore and makeup effects here and there (though it's hardly a splatter film). Yeah, the low budget comes through plenty of times but the acting is better than average for a feature made without major studio backing and the clever script and fun cast of characters helped make I Heart U a pleasantly gory, gooey, goofy good time (corny but true).
Video/Audio/Extras:
I Heart You is presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen in a fairly erratic looking transfer. While most of the movie looks pretty clean there are shots here and there that show some mild to moderate compression issues, a problem that plagued the first movie as well - though it's not as severe this time around. Once you remove that element the movie looks fine for the micro-budget feature that it is and the colors come across nicely here.
The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is occasionally muddy and falls victim to some issues with improperly balanced levels here and there making certain scenes harder to understand than others. The score sounds good, but it occasionally buries the performers. A couple of minor synch issues pop up here and there too.
The main extra is an audio commentary track with Raine Browne and Billy Garberina that is done with a sense of humor. Billy starts of by noting that they made it half way through the commentary when he goofed up and hadn't hit record, meaning that they had to start it all over again. At any rate, it's a 'stories from the trenches' style track that talks about who did what and why and where they did it. They talk about using crew members in the cast and using a lot of the same people over and over again, the locations, the effects and more. There's no dead air here, they keep the pace going well throughout the movie and it's a fun, informative track.
There's also an amusing and interesting behind the scenes featurette made up of some on set footage and cast and crew snippets - it's worth watching as it offers up some intriguing glimpses of what went into getting this movie made. Aside from that we also get a short film called Deceit and a load of trailers for other Camp Motion Pictures DVD releases. Menus and chapter stops are also included.
The Final Word:
I Heart U is a lot of good low budget fun. A trashy (and sometimes gory) film with a sweet side, a horror comedy that isn't really horrifying but which is legitimately funny it moves at a good pace and is nothing if not entertaining. The DVD release looks and sounds fine and features a few decent extras too.
