A young woman wakes up in a wasteland of burned out trees, with some fires still crackling, then wonders where she is - and why she is chained to a body. It has a syringe in its back, and keys on its person, so just as the woman realises it is still alive, she also knows she must get those keys and unlock the shackles. This she does - almost, as the body looms into life, a hulking beast of a man who sports a close fitting mask wrapped in loops of barbed wire, and she screams... but this is all orchestrated by a master criminal the FBI have named The Voyeur (Richard Tyson), whose sick mind unleashes Havoc (JD Angstadt), the maniac with the sharp objects who kills young women at The Voyeur's command, all so he can film the results and make snuff movies out of them...
If you had not been keeping up with jack of all trades Rene Perez, who writes, directs, edits, photographs and scores all of his films as practically a one-man show if it were not for the actors he employed, then Cry Havoc was technically the third in his Friday the 13th-inspired run of slasher flick throwbacks featuring his signature character Havoc. He was a Jason Vorhees type, existing merely to chop bits off his victims and not needing any more personality than that, but by now Perez had an additional signature character to play with: Charles Bronson. No, not the actual Charlies Bronson, he was long passed from this world, but the next best thing, a lookalike star named for the purposes of the movies Robert Bronzi, who could be easily dubbed by a Chuck soundalike to better emulate him.
These two were a lot more entertaining than The Voyeur who brought them together, for he was a throwback himself, alas one to the nineteen-nineties heyday of the sort of supposed genius serial killer who spent as much time explaining their motivation as they did carrying out their crimes. This one is offered just that chance for a reporter (just like in a typical thirties programmer) is investigating him for her TV show and has managed to get him to agree to an interview, so after a whole rigmarole where she travels to a remote location (actually Perez's favourite Californian woodland), the film grinds to a halt as we get to hear The Voyeur's motivation and reasoning, when what you're really here for are the exploitation items, not a madman who loves the sound of his own voice too much.
Predictably, the reporter (Emily Sweet) is drugged with knockout gas and left to the devices of Havoc - somehow she did not see this coming, what with being demanded by The Voyeur's enablers to hand over her phone and tablet, so that all contact with the outside world is lost. But whither Bronzi? He disappears for long stretches of the running time, but makes up for it in the last act where the chit-chat is dispensed with and the blood runs free, as Havoc slices and dices his way through innocent female victims and not-so-innocent militia members who make up his boss's private army: he’s indiscriminate that way. But has he met his match with Bronzi? Equally predictably from a man who knows the value of a sequel franchise, the way is left open to answer that question in a further instalment, thus leaving the audience hanging, somewhat frustratingly, but for cheap, old fashioned thrills (well, if the eighties is old fashioned) Cry Havoc was unvarnished, no-frills horror action with a measure of cheek and chutzpah.
