A shot-on-video nasty.
For those too young to remember, a video store was where you would go to rent movies (recorded on things called 'tapes'). Providing it wasn't already 'out', you could take home an action-packed Chuck Norris or Michael Dudikoff flick, enjoy the latest antics of those crazy Police Academy cops, or check out a Charles Band sci-fi or fantasy offering. And, of course, there was always the horror section, packed with zombies, masked maniacs, and semi-naked scream queens.
It's this last blood-soaked genre that appeals most to the not-so-good people of Frenchtown in low-budget shot-on-video nonsense Video Violence. The townsfolk not only rent legitimate scary movies from The Video Studio, run by ex-New Yorker Steven Emory (Art Neill), but they also make their own special brand of horror: snuff movies starring transients and those who decide to leave for pastures new. When one of these gruesome murder tapes is left at Steven's video store, he tries to alert the authorities, but is there anyone in the town he can really trust?
Shot on a shoestring budget and featuring a cast with limited acting ability (to say the least), Video Violence reeks of amateurism, from the shoddy picture and sound quality, to the abysmal script, to the dreadful dialogue and dreary pace. For the most part, it is very hard going, heavy on the talking and light on the horror, but, just occasionally, the film gets it right: the murder of a young woman by evil Eli (played by a bloke called Uke) is surprisingly nasty, the killer carving his name into the woman's breasts Krug-style before stabbing her with an icepick, while another slaying in a deli delivers the film's goriest moment, the bloody decapitation of a customer (whose severed head is boiled in a pot).
A lot more of this fun splatter and far less dull chatter and Video Violence could have been a minor classic of the SOV horror subgenre, but the way it is, it's bordering on the unwatchable.
It's this last blood-soaked genre that appeals most to the not-so-good people of Frenchtown in low-budget shot-on-video nonsense Video Violence. The townsfolk not only rent legitimate scary movies from The Video Studio, run by ex-New Yorker Steven Emory (Art Neill), but they also make their own special brand of horror: snuff movies starring transients and those who decide to leave for pastures new. When one of these gruesome murder tapes is left at Steven's video store, he tries to alert the authorities, but is there anyone in the town he can really trust?
Shot on a shoestring budget and featuring a cast with limited acting ability (to say the least), Video Violence reeks of amateurism, from the shoddy picture and sound quality, to the abysmal script, to the dreadful dialogue and dreary pace. For the most part, it is very hard going, heavy on the talking and light on the horror, but, just occasionally, the film gets it right: the murder of a young woman by evil Eli (played by a bloke called Uke) is surprisingly nasty, the killer carving his name into the woman's breasts Krug-style before stabbing her with an icepick, while another slaying in a deli delivers the film's goriest moment, the bloody decapitation of a customer (whose severed head is boiled in a pot).
A lot more of this fun splatter and far less dull chatter and Video Violence could have been a minor classic of the SOV horror subgenre, but the way it is, it's bordering on the unwatchable.
- BA_Harrison
- Nov 25, 2018