Jackhammer

The Jackhammer Massacre (a.k.a. Jackhammer – 2004) C-89 min. D: Joe Castro. Aaron Gaffey, Kyle Yaskin, Bart Burson, Nadia Angelini, Evan Owen, Rob Rotten, Rachel Rotten, Desi O'Brian. A direct-to-DVD revenge/slasher movie details a successful businessman's fall into insanity and growing love for his jackhammer, thanks to drugs. The first slasher movie in memory to blame its killer's antics on drugs...for a while, it even works too (with some nasty & gory special effects). It's nice to see a direct-to-DVD slasher gorefest. Unfortunately, the film's horrendous acting (worse than anything the 80s slasher films had to offer, which is really sad) and laughable last 20 minutes lead to its downfall. There is no excuse for the filmmakers to have been satisfied with the amount of bad acting in this movie (though the lead, Aaron Gaffey, isn't half bad). RATING: 3 out of 10. Rated R for graphic violence and gore, grisly images, drug use, sexuality, adult themes, and profanity.

Yes, people, the summary above is true. If you took a crap and it came out disc shaped and you put it in your DVD player, you'd have The Jackhammer Massacre. I'm not kidding in the least, bruh. This movie is one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever seen, and I like a lot of crap movies. I don't like to bash movies because it makes me look like an idiot who probably couldn't make a better movie if my life depended on it, but I could film myself sleeping for two hours and it'd be more entertaining (and plausible) than this turd.

Let me start off by commenting on the acting by giving a witty analogy: If someone told you to eat a burger filled with cat turds and then act as if you enjoy it, you'd eat it, and try to act like you enjoy it. Of course, you're acting would be horrible, but in comparison to this, it'd be more believable than anything you'd see in here. The movie is about a junkie, so naturally, the guy should be able to look like a junkie. Instead, it looks like the director messed up his clothes and told him to act like he drank about a dozen cups of coffee. Because that's what it looks like, it looks like the main actor is perked on coffee.

The story. Let me tell you something witty and funny. The writer of this movie probably wrote this movie on a typewriter. If he did, which I like to believe, I commonly refer to the typewriters which bad movies are written from to be TRIPEwriters, HA-HA! Okay, back to the story. The story is about a man, named Jack (I smell irony and witty writing with that name!), who has a good job, a cool car, and lots of money. But, underneath the high paying job and cool car, Jack has an addiction…an addiction to DRUGS! One day, he and his buddy go to a rundown part of town to get high (this also happens literally five minutes into the movie; I guess these movie makers never heard of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!). They do get high, but Jack's friend overdoses and dies. Jack, being a narcissistic idiot, lets him die on the road. Then suddenly, from that one bad experience, he loses everything. Mind you, we never see him lose everything, we just assume that he has because again, he's wearing dirty clothes. But whatever. Now, after his downfall, he works as a security guard in a garage, and is still a junkie. He owes some bad people some money, so here's what they do: They go to him, kick the ever loving s*** out of him, and pull out a syringe of some kind of drug that's supposed to kill him. Now, even though this stuff if supposed to kill him (and was probably supposed to kill everyone they shot it into), one of the thugs says that he's heard some 'bad' stuff about the drug, that it can make you really strong. Yes, this makes sense. A drug that's been made to kill people has supposedly made people strong, even though it's made to kill them. How did the people who were injected even alive to exhibit these super powers if the drug's made to kill them? Exactly. Because this movie sucks. Jack is injected, he gets ridiculously powerful, and starts to kill everyone with a jackhammer. I smell an Oscar! Oh, wait, no, I smell a crap story, my bad.

Someone who likes this movie can argue, "Well, this movie is supposed to show the horror of drugs, are you stupid, LOL(!)" I would have to agree with this statement. As much as I hate this movie, I do agree that it shows what comes from drug use. It's obvious that the people who made this were on some kind of drugs, and made this piece of misery. Now kids, if you're reading, when you do drugs, you make stupid movies like this, so don't do drugs!

That's my two awesome cents on this movie. This movie's stupid, boring, and stupid. For a movie that's supposed to discourage drug use, it sure does make you wanna take something afterwards to forget that you ever saw it.

Score: 1 out of 10.

Wait, I take that back.

0 out of 10.

JACKHAMMER aka Jackhammer Massacre , Director's Cut. Written and Directed by Joe Castro. Starring Aaron Gaffey, Rachel & Rob Rotten and Joe Haggerty. This is an amazing ride, It has stuff YOU have never seen in Horror, Before ! The acting was all believable, The story very unique. There were tributes to Laserblast, Leaving Las Vegas and American Werewolf in London. Special effects were something like Davids, Cronenberg and Lynch. Let's discuss the relationship of a man and his Jackhammer. The tool looks real and makes hamburger helper out of a lot of victim's body parts. While watching it,Got a weird sensation of Déjà vu and it's because of Charles Band handling of Laserblast. This movie showed you don't pick on someone with Issues or Aliens will make Him KICK UR ARSE ! Some scenes,should be spoiler warnings; The dueling Land Of The Giants hypodermic appendages/ screw driver brain surgery/ and never unplug your extension cord, Too funny. Joe Castro and Steven Escobar should be given more money to make the film there effects can imagine, But JACKHAMMER is a good start. Oh,yeah, Great Anti-Drug message too, In case the MPAA is reading this, LOL.

The Jackhammer Massacre (aka Jackhammer) follows the exploits of Jack the Junkie. Always high and looking to score Jack takes a leap off the deep end when a friend OD's. The first thirty minutes are basically him conning to get a score, boring. Back and forth he sways with the ethereal wind until one of his suppliers comes calling g for his cash. Oddly enough even as a full-time junkie Jack can find a job as a security guard at a warehouse with construction weapons, err tools. It seems Jack's paranoia really kicks in with a little help from his OD'd friend's ghost. Well hey this is where that jackhammer of the title rears its head and Jack goes to town thinking everyone's DEA.

The first 30 are slow and boring, who wants to see someone continuously shooting up. I don't at least. An interesting arm infection is a highlight of the first reel, not even bare chests and breasts can help that. But when the slaughter begins you can at least start cracking the power cord jokes (a la MST3K) and giggle and snicker at the bad dialogue and horrible delivery.

When the credits of a movie contain listings like "naked junkie girl" you know this is going to be about as far removed from art as you can get. Okay, maybe I am being a little too hard on this movie. On second thought . . . no I'm not. This starts out as a straightforward drama about a yuppie who tosses his career into the dumper because of his addiction to drugs. Actually this all happens rather fast and I was hoping for a little more character development but heck, the director was in a hurry to get to the gore and that's what the people who went to see this movie were waiting for.

So then . . . Jack, our anti-hero, has a job as night watchman for a warehouse and he is usually too stoned to even do that. His supplier is after him for money, his boss fires him, his only pal dies in his arms of an overdose; what's left of his world is crashing down and what's a drug addled loser to do? He goes nuts of course and grabs the nearest power tool he can get . . . in this case a jackhammer.

Now then here's the stuff you were waiting for. Anyone who ventures into that warehouse for the rest of the movie is fodder for Jack's hammer. There is ample gore but you have to wonder when one of the potential victims is going to figure out the obvious; just run far enough that Jack runs out of extension cord! Does that ever happen? Maybe I should tell you and save you from having to suffer through this movie like I did. Hmmmmmm . . . no! Ain't I mean?

The acting is okay, the effects are pretty good, the plot is cabbage. This is the sort of things that would have played in grindhouses back in the heyday of 42nd St and the Combat Zone. Now you can rent it on DVD and turn your own living room into a grindhouse. Hey, it's much safer that way.