Gutterballs

Gutterballs gets the sleazy element of the slasher down, but forgets to give us any characters to root for. The whole thing takes place in a bowling alley the night after a woman was raped by a mob of terrible men and someone begins killing the people responsible (and everyone else unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time).

There's a heavier emphasis on sex and nudity in this one with a surprising amount of male nudity and it includes what must be the most sexually explicit death scene in slasher history. The special effects makeup stands out as well with a few horrifyingly well executed murder scenes. It's just a shame that the rest of the film can't compete thanks to a pretty generic and uninteresting script.

Gutterballs (2008)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A woman is brutally gang raped by four men. The next night those men, the woman and his other friends meet up at the same bowling alley and one by one people begin to get brutally murdered.

GUTTERBALLS is a film I had never heard of before joining a few Facebook groups and it seems this title was popping up all over the place. Writer-director Ryan Nicholson wanted to make a throwback to the 80's slasher film and he certainly accomplished that and a whole lot more. I'm really not sure who to recommend this thing to because it's going to either offend most or it's just going to drive them crazy by annoying them. If you "get" the picture then I think you'll have a good time but viewer discretion is certainly advised before attempting to watch this thing.

This is the type of film you really watch as a dare because, like I said, it's pretty brutal from start to finish. It's certainly not graphic like the recent trend of torture porn because the film is so over-the-top that you can't take it too serious. This includes all the characters who are downright stupid and annoying but I'm pretty sure this was done on purpose. The film is notorious for the death scenes and there's no doubt that there's some original and memorable scenes. If you've seen enough horror movies then you know it's hard to see something original but we get at least five original deaths here. Some are so downright crazy that you really have to see them to believe it. Needless to say, even Lucio Fulci would tip his hat.

While this film will always be remembered and talked about for its gore, I think the strongest thing is the technical aspects. There's no doubt that director Nicholson does an extremely good job at telling the story and there's no question that he can handle a film. I'm not sure what the budget was but I'm sure it was low but the film still has a professional look to it. The most amazing thing is that the film really does look like it was filmed during the early 80's. A lot of filmmakers try to capture that "look" but most fail That's not the case here. There are some flaws with the picture including some of the performances, the annoying characters and I think the film runs too long but there's still no question that GUTTERBALLS is quite an original film in many ways and that makes it worth watching if you can stomach it.

My hat is certainly off to Writer/Director Ryan Nicholson...

How he was able to push this past the censorship board is a statement in itself... And I will admit, I have never seen anything quite like "Gutterballs". A comedic slasher film at heart, the 1970's exploitation homage oozes out of every frame in bold (Red) colors. But, besides the gore, you are watching what most Cinemax late night adult movies will not even show... You see it all!!! This might be there for a reason though, to cover up the fact that there really is NO story, or at least nothing the average 25 year old could find interesting. Never really introducing the characters, the writing just seems to be that of an over-sexed 15 year old boy, filled with horror movie cliché's, boobs and explicit language. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but when the dialog becomes nothing more then F-Bombs, followed by more F-Bombs, then a couple of "Where's my whores?", followed by (you guessed it) another F-Bomb, it gets old real fast... Really bad acting is compensated by tons of graphic gore. In fact, the gore-factor (Almost) out-weighs the porn-factor, but alas we are so stunned by some of the nudity that the gratuitous splatter is almost over-looked. I am NOT knocking this film! In fact, I found it extremely fun and a great way to bring back some great old ideas and try a few new ones. Mr. Nicholson obviously has a talent for knowing what entertains (at least 15 year old boys), and I think with a bit more (creative) writing and character development, he will become a horror force to be reckoned with.

For all the gore lovers, the display pic and the name of the movie will sound like a mouth watering gore fest. But ppl, don't be fooled by that.

The movie does have its share of gore but that's poorly done. The movie guys tried hard to make each and every killing scene look very gory but didn't have that class and touch to make it look like one.

Lots of profanities spoken which did seem out of place in some of the scenes.

Overall, not that good a movie that one would like watching. Can be avoided.

My quick rating - 5,1/10. This is a nice throwback to good old slasher flicks. It has the usual gore and stupid teen age characters. The characters themselves were played over the top and done that way on purpose just to further the nostalgia value. I do have to say that the plot being revenge for a rape thing is fine and has been done before but in this movie, the rape scene is extremely long and quite graphic. It was almost unsettling how long it lasted for and the subject matter didn't help any. This event, which was led up to by your usual two groups of kids not getting along, well, at a bowling alley leads to a killer on the loose. The movie itself does add a bit of twist and tries to keep you guessing who the killer is in usual fashion of presenting the characters in ways of why it could be them. I was entertained by the movie minus the aforementioned rape scene. The kills were not abundant but did not shy away from the splatter of blood. All this carnage leads to a pretty nice ending that I didn't quite see coming which was just a treat as well. If it weren't for the one scene, I would rate this higher so if you don't mind that and enjoy a decent slasher flick, you'll be just fine watching this.