When I saw the cover for this movie, I thought that perhaps it might be a fun, gory horror- comedy in the vein of some recent Aussie films. I was wrong. Gory, yes. Fun, no.
GUTTERBALLS is a movie that tries to emulate those bad 80's straight-to-video slasher films, and does so with some success, but ultimately fails. Yes, I get that the director is trying to be "hardcore", balls out, take no prisoners, and probably Tarantino, with his use of graphic oral sex, male and female genitalia and gore, and if he'd just stuck to the gore, he might have succeeded.
Was it amateurishly shot and acted? Yes. But it's spoofing 80's horror flicks, so that wasn't a problem for me. I hated three specific things:
1. The rape scene. I've read other reviews here that mention its brutality, its length, but no one mentioned that it was shot in a titillating way, sexually exploiting the victim's nude body. This was a rape scene that is intended to be arousing, to make guys laugh and nudge each other instead of be horrified. Shame on the director.
2. The use of the F word. I'm no prude, but when every other word is the F word, then you know that either untalented actors are improvising their dialogue, or the writer is either untalented or lazy or both.
3. As a gay man, it made me sick to hear the other F word, "faggot" being screamed out so much. The movie is really homophobic as again, either improvising actors or a lazy, untalented writer or an insensitive director let this hate word be slung around with such frequency. And the tranny, after being murdered by a bowling pin forced down her throat (yuk yuk) has the ultimate indignity of having her male sex organ mutilated into the beginnings of a female sex organ. I felt like I was being gay-bashed on my couch watching this movie.
I love horror films, thoughtful or dopey, gory or dry, but there seemed to be little thought put into this, as though the director made a film for 12-year-old adults.
GUTTERBALLS is a movie that tries to emulate those bad 80's straight-to-video slasher films, and does so with some success, but ultimately fails. Yes, I get that the director is trying to be "hardcore", balls out, take no prisoners, and probably Tarantino, with his use of graphic oral sex, male and female genitalia and gore, and if he'd just stuck to the gore, he might have succeeded.
Was it amateurishly shot and acted? Yes. But it's spoofing 80's horror flicks, so that wasn't a problem for me. I hated three specific things:
1. The rape scene. I've read other reviews here that mention its brutality, its length, but no one mentioned that it was shot in a titillating way, sexually exploiting the victim's nude body. This was a rape scene that is intended to be arousing, to make guys laugh and nudge each other instead of be horrified. Shame on the director.
2. The use of the F word. I'm no prude, but when every other word is the F word, then you know that either untalented actors are improvising their dialogue, or the writer is either untalented or lazy or both.
3. As a gay man, it made me sick to hear the other F word, "faggot" being screamed out so much. The movie is really homophobic as again, either improvising actors or a lazy, untalented writer or an insensitive director let this hate word be slung around with such frequency. And the tranny, after being murdered by a bowling pin forced down her throat (yuk yuk) has the ultimate indignity of having her male sex organ mutilated into the beginnings of a female sex organ. I felt like I was being gay-bashed on my couch watching this movie.
I love horror films, thoughtful or dopey, gory or dry, but there seemed to be little thought put into this, as though the director made a film for 12-year-old adults.