Nails

Nails, directed by Russian Andrey Iskanov, is about a hit-man unable to cope with the daily life. The leading character tries Vodka and pills but nothing will do the trick. At one time, unable to sleep, he stumbles on a magazine that inspires him to drive nails through the brain. And that's basically it. The first part of the movie is rather good - grey sweeping footage over suburbia accompanied by monotone instrumental music sets the mood effectively. A mood-setter is also the fact that there is no dialog in this part of the movie either, almost like an old journal film. However, as the film progresses the story gets old. The running time is about 1 hour which is about 30 minutes too long. The FX are not very convincing, although may be unpleasant for the casual horror fan.

If you want gore you'll probably will be disappointed. However, if you want surrealism, you'll probably like it a lot. Myself, I like my horror horrifying and my gore extreme. If I want surrealism a prefer other genres.

His movies are a complete rip-off, they fail on all levels. This guy has absolutely no talent, he does not understand the concept of surrealism, he makes self-indulgent, extremely amateurish no-budget films and thinks of himself as a big artist and drops big surrealist/horror names on his DVDs, e.g. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Sorry buddy, but these shoes will never fit you, no matter how hard you try.

He has no idea of how to direct, how to set light, use the camera, of timing etc. Only the score is sometimes interesting, but not subtle.

The guy who plays the hit-man looks like an 18 year old and has - of course - absolutely no acting talent, he even grins his way to some of the gore scenes. The story is nothing else than a bold statement without anything on the screen to support it. The gore and horror looks like its been done from 14 years old fan boys, I don't know how people can be disturbed or shocked by this ridiculous joke of a movie.

The same goes for Iskanov's "Visions of Suffering", its even more boring and filled with pathetic random imagery, which has absolutely nothing to do with surrealism or artistic expression, its just clumsy and shallow.

Don't waste your money or time on releases of this guy, he's just not capable to deliver anything interesting now or in the future but is a loudmouth playing around with big topics like Japanese Unit 731. Gosh! Get a life, Mr. Iskanov.

ultra low-budget gore/surrealist flick from Russia starts off very well with a KGB hit man smoothly executing his latest targets then coming home to a barren, depressing flat. He tries to sleep but is haunted by strange, unnerving sounds and spectres from his past as gruesome images of people he has killed enter his mind without warning.

After much pretentious head-banging he comes across an article on the art of pounding nails into one's head as a way of relieving mental agony. He gives it a try and (understatement of the year) gets a little carried away.

Film is very gruesome but also has a lot of nice touches of surrealistic weirdness to keep it afloat. The whole thing takes place in the hit-man's apartment - very low budget. It's a nice idea but more like a student film than anything else. It's shoddily photographed in places and the pacing is slow and draggy (even at an hour long).

Best aspect is probably the sound design, which is very odd and seems to contain a lot of distortion and sound f/x played backwards.

It's basically kind of a rip-off of Tetsuo, only Tetsuo is about a hundred times better (and was made twenty years ago).

The story of Andrey Iskanov's "Nails" goes like that:a professional hit man retires to his colorless apartment but soon starts to suffer from horrible headaches along with that he hears voices.In order to cure himself,he starts practicing self-trepanation and hammers a nail into his skull."Nails" is a weird little art-house horror flick.You'll have to be a very open minded to fully enjoy it.The film looks like a bad acid trip with several impressive colorful shots.There is a good deal of gore and claustrophobic atmosphere too.Alexander Shevchenko is superb as the tortured assassin.I can't wait to see the next project of Iskanov "Philosophy of a Knife".7 out of 10.

Everything I've seen so far by Iskanov has pretty much been boring or awful, with the exception of the director's cut of Visions of Suffering (a huge improvement over the original), which has some compelling visuals and atmosphere on a low-budget. Nails, however, isn't far off from dreck like Philosophy of a Knife. It starts off in black and white with the main character in the middle of a hit on a crime boss of some sort. The setting seems to be that of a dystopic sci-fi, with the interesting element of his gun stating that his daily ammunition allotment has been used up part way through the scene. This forces him to dispose of the boss's female companion with a knife; in a strange turn of events, she seems... almost turned on by what transpires and the whole scene is rather fetishistic. The effects and gore are also laughable.

From this point on, the film is hopelessly directionless. He mills about in his room while haunted by visions of those whom he has murdered. And that's... pretty much it. The name of the film comes from the main's bright idea to hammer nails into his head as a cure for all that ails him, resulting in an oversaturated, hallucinatory world in color and tripped-out visuals. It's fairly inventive in the tricks that it employs on a shoestring budget, similar to something like Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo, Sogo Ishii, Shozin Fukui, etc, but it's ultimately wasted on a one-note gore premise and a so-so descent into madness.

He doesn't do much except try to fix himself dinner with an arrangement of nasty jello-caked critters. It's not clear if these disgusting assortments are a result of his unraveling mind or the dystopian world he inhabits. Now all that's left is for him to spout a bit of philosophy in a typically cryptic Russian art cinema style and have his "hitgirl" girlfriend over for a bit of conflict. The atmosphere and visuals peak sometime around this point, but Iskanov has no restraint whatsoever, so it's to be expected that film connoisseurs will be pleased one moment and cringing in disgust in the next moment.

The cinematography and effects are a mixed bag. Certain detailed close-ups are very effective, and the saturation and odd visuals help to obscure the limits of the budget. But certain shots simply look awful. There's far more of a kitchen sink approach than there is meticulous craftsmanship.

The script is the main problem. I don't really have much of an issue with the dialogue or themes, but there's just not much happening at all. Even having the main character contracted for another hit and breaking down along the way in a nightmarish world would have been a conventional angle that would have worked better than the next to nothing we got for over an hour. Perhaps what they had would have been okay with better pacing or some cuts for time, but it's debatable. The ending is rather nasty, but will likely leave most viewers scratching their heads or shrugging their shoulders. Meh.

It has a bit of an "insane" feel and has the touch of an auteur, albeit one who is on the lowbrow, z-budget side of the spectrum. It's a somewhat effective example of creating a unique visual style and atmosphere on a low-budget for an aspiring filmmaker, so I'd recommend it for film students who like genre films, but if you want a truly GOOD movie, you can probably safely avoid this.