The Greenskeeper is one of those films that you know will be bad before watching. Still, when nothing else is on, the film makes for entertainment to help pass a rainy day. The version I watched was included in a pack of 15 horror movies that I picked up from Wal-mart. IMDb lists the run time as 90 minutes, while the version I saw was only 82. Perhaps there is a European release that contains the extra 8 minutes? The movie was shot at 2 different country clubs in Georgia: Bridgemill Country Club (Canton, GA), and Whitewater Country Club (Fayetteville, GA). Whitewater definitely looks like an old Georgia plantation house from the Civil War era. All the exterior shots that establish the location as the fictional Summerisle Country Club in the movie use footage of Whitewater filmed during the day or at night. I imagine that most the outdoor scenes involving the pool, tennis courts, and golf course were shot at Bridgemill. I could be wrong though. I have worked as a waiter/banquet server at a country club for almost 3 years. Everything in the film makes fun of different classes, including rich vs poor, straight vs gay, and white vs minority, which is something I've seen personally. There are always stereotypes and impressions that you have about many different people when working in an industry like this, and the film does a good job of showing this, even if it does poke fun at all the drama you'd find at a country club. This includes: Latin American sisters working together to earn enough money to support their family back home, snobby yuppie members arguing over whether or not Bert and Ernie are gay, and the spoiled rich girl complaining "Daddy said I could only get the Beamer. I hate being poor," to which her friend remarks: "Yeah Beamers are so last century," just to name a few. I don't want to say that this film is so bad it's good, because it made more than a decent effort to actually have a good story (it's more than just a greenskeeper killing rich kids having sex at a country club). The special effects were impressive, featuring a sprinkler and a lot of fake blood, and the costumes and sets were very accurate for the setting. It wouldn't win any awards, and has probably never aired on television, but The Greenskeeper is without a doubt, a very watchable and entertaining movie. It's got a few suspenseful scenes, reminiscent of Wes Craven's 1984 classic Invitation to Hell, more than a few laugh out loud funny parts, similar to Caddyshack, and the plot borrowed heavily from the 1981 "summer camp slasher" flick The Burning.
Review of The Greenskeeper
