With HazMat, writer/director/producer Lou Simon not only proves that women can make slasher films, too, but also that they can be as terrible as men’s.

Dave (Todd Bruno) is the host of a TV prank show titled Scary Antics. Since it’s on the bubble, he aims to amp things up; ergo, the setups grow meaner. The latest involves some “friends” setting up Jacob (Norbert Velez) at a supposedly haunted warehouse … that also is the site of his own father’s murder. Hilarious, right, bro?

Pretty quickly after entering, Jacob cannot separate reality from stupid prank shows and snaps. He then … well, let’s let one of the more annoying characters tell us via her unbelievably calm phone call for help: “There is a crazy man with an ax. He’s already killed two people and he’s coming after us.”

Misreading of dialogue plagues the script’s pages; the tech guy who speaks as if he has rocks in his mouth reads the panicked “Oh, no!” as the morphine-sedated “Oh, no.” As per usual in microbudgeted horror, the act of killing has been given more attention than performances or plot, both of which are atrocious here. Too bad, because on looks alone, Jacob’s HazMat suit screams “franchise character.” Let’s hope it never gets the chance. —Rod Lott