The Nail Gun Massacre

Just on the off-chance that anyone might be actually looking for a review for this hideous, wretched little movie, here it is. This movie was made on a budget that couldn't have realistically exceeded $300.00. Seriously. Hershey's syrup gore, rubber nails, cheap, synthy music at the most inappropriate of times, and so much more. The very beginning of this film treats us to what has to be the world's least realistic rape scene ever. (and I am by no means an advocate for rape, but this was just silly) From there, the Nail Gun killer (portrayed masterfully on the box's hand-drawn cover as a guy with his crotch hiked up to comical proportions), a nasty little guy decked out in what appears to be a biker helmet held together with duck tape, some camoflage, and a nail gun with a big, yellow curly-cord which kinda defeats the purpose of camo if you've got a big yellow cord hanging off your back.. proceeds to "slaughter" some backwoods morons, nails a man in the crotch, (who just moans and groans, sort of like Al Johnson from the band U.S. Maple. I'm pretty sure I'd do more than just a little bit of whining if somebody nailed my equipment point-blank) and goes around saying witty things like, "Nailed ya," or something stupid like that. Oh yeah, he drives around an inconspicuous GOLD Herze, too. You see this same Herze parked at a shop where the soon (but not soon enough, as the film proceeds for another 90 minutes)-to-be-revealed killer works, so I guess the filmmakers wanted the viewer to use their deductive reasoning skills. I kinda wish I'd have used my deductive reasoning skills and not wasted $1.08 on this trash.

Also worth mentioning: the killer's voice (they ran it through a synthesizer to make it sound deep and scary. that, and he laughs a lot. mwa ha ha! kinda like that) the killer's running ability (not suprisingly, the killer's stunt doubles were all women. while watching it I'd figured the person actually running in the killer's costume was a 12 year old boy.) the gratuitous, skanky t&a (lots of that good old fashioned 80's skank, too. huge hair, make-up applied 3 & 4 layers at a time, tan lines.. bliss) and finally, the old man (I don't know who this old coot was or where director Terry "T.L." Lofton found him, but god love him he was the best thing in the movie.) There is so much more to this horrible movie that I can't spoil (or can't remember because I've blocked it out of my mind) for you so it's definitely recommended if you're looking for a bad time.

I read on the "trivia" page at IMDB that the producers demanded more nudity for the first cut of "Nail Gun Massacre". They had the right idea. It was only the nudity that kept me watching.

"But it's a slasher," I hear you say. "What about the violence? What about the KILLS?"

They're pretty lame, it has to be said. Yeah, a bunch of people get killed, unrealistically, with a nail gun. It left me wondering why the killer didn't just use a regular gun instead. I think a nailgun would be a pretty inefficient murder weapon. Though perhaps not the nailgun in this movie, which kills perhaps as efficiently as a real gun, and makes sounds like one when it fires - though never actually looks to be firing anything. There's a sound effect and then the movie cuts to the nail protuding out of someone's flesh.

The plot, eh... I dunno. A woman is apparently raped at the beginning of the movie, and then someone in army fatigues and a motorbike helmet that seems to contain some kind of voice distortion device goes around killing people with a nail gun. He should have lent his device to the other actors. Their dialogue is often inaudible, so badly was it recorded.

Often the killer's victims are surprised while having sex, which in at least one scene is surprisingly graphic. Slashers are pretty much expected to have flashes of nudity, but actually only rarely do they show simulated sex. This one also has full-frontal male nudity, as well as female.

And then it's over, totally forgettably. It was probably supposed to be a surprise when the mask came off, but I didn't even recognize the actor underneath. Had he been in the movie before? Who knows? Who cares?

Think that Halloween's the best slasher movie? Well you may well be wrong, because finally I've found an obscure number that can rival definitive flicks such as Friday the 13th or Rosemary's Killer on pure enjoyment value. I kid ye not, when it comes to entertainment, Nail Gun Massacre offers it by the bucket load! What, you think I'm joking? Just let me assure you that this truly is a classic. but sadly, for all the wrong reasons!

In the opening a female is viciously raped by a group of construction workers. In the weeks that follow, all the abusers begin meeting grissly ends at the hands of a helmeted killer that's armed with a gas supplied nail gun. So has the victim taken it upon herself to make her own justice, or is someone else doing it for her?

Wow what a movie! This is arguably, no forget arguably, this *is* the cheesiest of all things slasher and that is one hell of a challenging accolade! There's so much to tell you about this movie that even if I attempted to write every unintentional laugh that I had down on this review, I could almost guarantee that you'd find yourself one or two that I'd missed! The only trouble with a feature as 'enjoyable' as this is, well, where do I start? As the zany ineptness is the most striking attribute, lets start there, shall we?

Firstly there are no 'actors' in this movie. Not even one cast member shows even the slightest sign of having any sort of talent. What on earth was the idea here? Walk around one day asking folks in the street if they'd like to be in a movie? But my favourite budding thespian (!) would have to be the sweet little old shop-keeping lady who cannot use the cash register she's working on and must've been on a weekend break from the local OAP home when they filmed this! Cringe whilst she blurts out in farcical monologue fashion, dialogue such as: `I remember when you could sit outside without worrying about the mosquitoes or the killers!' What? And then for no apparent reason in the same expressionless tone she goofs: `I bet you aint never seen butterflies, wild butterflies in these parts?' repeating words as if she's just that minute finished reading through the script and is already forgetting her lines! To make the scene even more hilarious, every one whom she's talking to COMPLETELY ignores her! If anything could have blossomed after the production of this lowest of lowbrow slashers, then it'd have to be a relationship between that cashier and the wonderfully hammy old guy from the town, who gives another unforgettable performance! I won't begin to try and describe how comical he actually is, but believe me when I tell you that those two would have been a match made in heaven! The 'acting' here is sooooo bad that the characters even have difficulty playing dead! One young girl blinks when she's trying to keep her eyes wide open and another is seen breathing when she's meant to be deceased. The best of the bunch is when the assassin shoots a guy and he falls conveniently over a barbecue. When it begins to topple under his weight, he pushes himself back to stabilise the stand so it doesn't fall over! I wouldn't have thought that a dead guy would really care where he landed, would you! Classic!

The Sheriff - whom you'll notice talks to himself - is a giggle too. He drives just a normal unmarked car and has no uniform, just a plastic looking badge stuck on a brown shirt! And the doctor doesn't wear any distinguishing garb either, but thankfully this is justified when the copper asks him: `When are you going to start dressing like a doctor?' to which he cheerily replies `I got fed up with wearing white!' Hmmm, sure it had nothing to do with a lack of funding Doc? The gruesome twosome can't be very good carers for the community anyway, because they leave a mutilated body UNCOVERED in fall view of the public beside a shop in the middle of town, telling someone that 'an ambulance will pick it up later!'

Aside from directing, Terry Lofton also did the special effects for this movie. Well actually, he wrote the screenplay, did some stunts, produced and executively produced and even acted in a small part. Does anyone get the feeling that this is an independent feature? Anyway back to the effects that include rubber nails that we never see enter the victims. In one bit, a guy gets shot in the back whilst he's holding a chainsaw. He looses control of the tool and next thing we know we're treated to a shot of a plastic looking hand lying on the floor splashed in blood. Meanwhile the arm that it was severed from is helpfully tucked behind a tree so we don't get to see the stump spurting, lucky for the producers, huh! This really has got to be the cheapest film made anywhere, ever. Why else would the maniac not have a tinted visor, but instead have insulating tape blacking it out? Unbelievable! The sound in the movie is atrocious, the score must've been made on a Casio keyboard and kicks in at the most unwelcome of times and when it's playing you can't hear the dialogue properly because the medley's been recorded much louder than the actors! They also ran the killer's voice through a synthesiser to make it sound deep and creepy, but half of the time, we can't make out what he is saying!

As for plus points: You get to have a stab at guessing the mystery of 'who's the killer' even though it's pathetically easy. I can't say why because I wouldn't want to spoil it for you, and it does add a little spice to the plot. But sadly even the 'plot' is ludicrous. Suspicion points us towards an old bag called Mrs Bailey, but we never get to meet her. Well I don't think we did, but it's impossible to tell, because characters only appear for 2 minutes tops and then as soon as they're killed new victims are introduced without any rhyme or reason! Sorry, I was meant to be describing the good bits.err let me see. Well, there were also loads of naked young lassies - which look like they were auditioning to be porn stars - that satisfy most viewers. And there's the cheaply effective gore that always brightens things up! What I really did enjoy was the corny black humoured one-liners from the assassin that are genuinely pretty funny. When the guy mentioned earlier chops his hand off, the psycho quips `Don't fall to pieces.over me!' And when he nails a hitch hiker to the road he cracks `All you hitch hikers are the same. Stuck on the road!' Maybe the reason he's psychotic is because he never got too fulfill his role in life and become a comedian!

What ingredients generally make a movie good? Well I suppose you have to enjoy watching it and it has to be entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Nail gun massacre and was 'entertained' from start to finish. It may not be award-winning excellence, but it's got to be the funniest 90 minutes I've had since I watched The Naked Gun for the first time. To make it even better, all the laughs here were shockingly unintentional! Put it this way, it would've been impossible for me to list every humourous moment, there are so many to choose from! It certainly isn't effective as any sort of horror movie, with plot holes that would drown an armada, but worth its weight in gold in the comedy stakes. Enjoy!

I have a special place in my heart for films such as this one, that place deep within me that embraces the horrible, terrible stupidity of low budget gore. If you share my love then, you will love Nail Gun Massacre, one of the only films made in Puerto Rico I have ever seen outside of sick pornography and made-for-TV movies. Most of the time the dialogue is barely audible, stifled by the inappropriate soundtrack or from the sound man (if there even was one) being too far from the characters. Luckily this movie does not rely on such paltry elements such as plot and writing. The plot (?) involves a rape of a local woman by construction workers and a mysterious killer seeking revenge with, you guessed it, a nail gun. As a special treat, the movie has a surprise ending of the true identity of the killer. If you can follow the events, you can probably pick out who could possibly be committing these murders from the three characters that are not busy getting nailed to the highway. Watch this movie if you don't really care about anything except the occasional crotch nailing and are willing to hit the fast forward button.

Man, what would we do without ultra low budget Slasher flicks? "The Nail Gun Massacre" sounds as an obvious spoof to the great legendary "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" but no, Nail Gun tries too hard to be taken seriously. Sadly, with a budget of about $100, AWFUL acting, and poor direction you can't take it seriously. I watched this long time ago on USA NETWORK and I think I was lucky because many people say that it's pretty hard to find it nowadays.

Watch it for what it is, and you will at least watch it's complete running time.. If you're fan of cheap gore f/x and poor killing scenes you might enjoy it. But beware, the movie is very boring and there are no highlights except the opening scene.