Nutbag

This movie should have been called "NIGHT OF THE SLOPE WALKER." Mack Hail plays the SLOPE WALKER, and he is good at walking at a slope! Nobody walks at a slope like Mack Hail. If you notice when you watch this movie, Mack Hail is walking at a slope and that adds to the creepiness of his character. I really liked his friend, the spider. The Slope Walker confides all his secrets to the spider. That spider was a good actor! I liked the way he laid out his silk while the Slope Walker told him secrets. I have a friend who tells all his secrets to his pet cat, Charlie. He even has a picture of himself whispering in to Charlie's ear, and he put a little cartoon dialogue bubble with words in it.

The Slope Walker is nice to the spider, who survives the whole movie. But he is not nice to other people and to grass! He kills lots of people and when he gets mad, he throws himself on the ground and tears out the grass. That's pretty scary, to think somebody is walking around here in Vegas at a sloped angle and killing people. Now, when I walk around on the strip and everything, I always keep my eye out for whoever is not walking straight up and down. If people are walking tilted over at an angle, I am careful to avoid them. If they are crazy, I will avoid them like crazy! I don't want to get "sloped," if you know what I mean.

Slope for slope, this movie delivered the goods! I hope they make a sequal to this movie. They could call it, "THE SLOPES OF FIRE." Or maybe, they could combine Mack Hail's character with something like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and call it, "SLOPAZOIDS FROM THE DEEP." And if they could get Vin Diesel to co-star in it with Mack, they could call it, "THE SLOPEAROUND GUYS." That would be cool! Vin Diesel could walk at a slope! Or, they could put a sci-fi edge to the movie and call it, "THE SLOPE FROM OUTERSPACE." This movie concept has so many possibilities!

If you like movies about murders, people who get angry, naked women, spiders, knives, and slopes, then you will like this movie! All five of my thumbs are up!

Let me preface this review by stating that I am much more forgiving than most reviewers. I have a high tolerance for trash, and I often find myself enjoying movies that have been poorly reviewed by most. That being said, I can say without reservation that this is one of the worst movies I have seen in quite awhile...

Lately I have been off on a tangent exploring the dark world of shot-on-video horror/exploitation films. In the last week I have seen quite a few ('Scrapbook', 'August Mordum's Underground', 'Murder-Set-Pieces (Director's Cut), 'Devil's Bloody Plaything'). Of all of the above mentioned movies (and others), this was by far the worst, and least entertaining of the lot...

Perhaps it was the unconvincing Mack Hail as the lead. He just didn't work for me. He appeared empty and vacant. He didn't have the fire and desire necessary to portray a believable on screen serial killer. This film seemed like a grade-Z, poorly acted remake of 'Maniac'. Mack Hail and Joe Spinell are not even in the same universe....

The killings did not really work for me either. The gore effects were decent, but there just wasn't any fire or emotion behind Mack Hail's murderings. He seemed to be going through the motions. There just wasn't very much emotion behind his physical actions...

In addition, there were some going-ons in this movie (not a film) that made absolutely no sense. For example, you see him approaching a very large African-American male and woman at the park. The camera cuts away, and then you see both of them bound and in the Nutbag's hotel room. OK, how did our serial killer manage to abduct a strong full-grown man and a woman by himself? This makes no sense at all as I do not recall Hail having any superhuman powers...

The voice-over internal dialogue provided by Hail got on my nerves early and often. It sounded as if he was reading (and not very well) from an angry 12 year old's diary. His readings contained zero emotion and not an inkling of believability. Perhaps this movie would've been better if these infernal narratives has been omitted...

All in all, there is no way I can recommend this movie. The most important criteria I consider when offering a recommendation is whether or not I was entertained. In the case of 'Nutbag' I was most definitely not entertained. It was quite possibly the most boring slasher movie I have ever witnessed. I can think of many other serial killer films (yes, actual films) that are much better. Off the top of my head,'Maniac', 'Schramm', 'Man Bites Dog', and 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'). Hell, even 'New York Ripper'was better than this tripe. Do yourself a favor and seek out another DVD to fulfill your cinematic bloodlust. If curiosity compels you to see this little mess, please rent before you buy...

Dreadful home made movie filmed early morning hours and late late evenings on th streets and back alleys of Las Vegas with a hand held video camera.

The victims are hookers.

Their bodies are hot.

Acting is not.

There is no story.

Just a bad acting doofus who kills hookers and delivers lines like "these hookers sure bleed a lot" and "death will be along longer than me." I think I counted 4 or five murders in the first 15 minutes. How he disposes of all these bodies or why there isn't a manhunt underway is never discussed.

Neither is the clean up.

Or why he talks to a spider.

Nothing makes sense and what's scary is many of these folks have been in other films, so they are getting work.

The first victim, however, isn't. By far, she has the most smoking body of all the hookers and was probably a stripper in Vegas. Today you'll find her back in Texas working for a auto dealer.

I also need to mention that the camera work is disturbing on a couple levels...it appears the movie was made in HD and it gives a very homemade feel. Not good.

But more disturbing is that the film is obviously made to avoid film permits. I wonder how all the pedestrians would feel if they knew their faces were showing up in this obambination.

I viewed Nick Palumbo's "Nutbag" around 12 months after the much maligned "Murder-Set-Pieces". As a result, my appreciation of "Nutbag" is perhaps not as great as it would have been had I watched the two films the other way 'round.

"Nutbag" is in many ways a prototype of the excellent "Murder-Set-Pieces". Shot on a zero budget with video, "Nutbag" lacks the visual flair and pace of its successor, not to mention the audacious effects by the Toe Tag crew. This is not to say "Nutbag" is a bad film, that simply isn't the case. It's just missing the "x" factor that makes "M-S-P" such a powerful and taboo-shattering experience.

What "Nutbag" has going for it are some simple but impressive scenes, a riveting and convincing portrayal of the killer and a decent score.

Mack Hail is excellent as the lead role. His physical presence and self-assured movements are chilling on screen - this is a man who is believable as a cold-blooded killer. Hail portrays the anguish of his character brilliantly. In a scene where he starts to lose it within the claustrophobic quarters of his rented accommodation, you can see the character's sanity slipping. His monologues (where he talks to his spider, Heinrich) reveal an insight into how the Killer has turned out the way he has.

As with "M-S-P", Palumbo's film contains a cast of lovely actresses. He's also able to extract from some of his cast terrific and terrifying performances. There are members of the cast who truly give 100% here and it's not surprising that some wish to remain nameless. There is a real sense of vulnerability and gritty peril in this film.

One thing that interested me was the references to other movies in this film. Among the pornography adorning his walls, The Killer has memorabilia from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Burning" and "Psycho" is his home. Although not inspired by such characters, it's a sign that perhaps he uses them to justify his actions.

While not a masterpiece by any means, "Nutbag" shows that Nick Palumbo is a talented director. Only the budget lets him down in this film.

Worthy of a rental, "Nutbag" won't be to everybody's taste. It's a relatively short film and is quite episodic in nature. For those with an interest in zero-budget film-making, this is an interesting film and one that rises above its limitations.

In Nick Palumbo's debut movie Nutbag, a screwed-up serial killer at work in Las Vegas (Mack Hail) attempts to bore horror film viewers to death by delivering 80 minutes of badly written, introspective dialogue, only stopping to off chesty bimbos in spectacularly unconvincing fashion, or to pet his tarantula Heinrich.

Hail, an imposing, broad-shouldered figure with a mean glare and shaven head, certainly looks as though he is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he lacks the necessary acting chops to convincingly portray a multiple murderer, delivering his lines in a flat, monotonous manner that I imagine is meant to convey the emotionless state of the killer, but which, in reality, has the numbing effect of a heavy sedative.

Four years after he made Nutbag, director Palumbo gave the horror world Murder-Set-Pieces, another film about a crazed killer; that film succeeded by shocking viewers with an endless gallery of nasty OTT gore (provided by the talented Toe Tag FX team). Nutbug's kill scenes, however, are laughably amateurish, with several stabbings that seem to utilise a joke-shop knife (you know... the type that has a retractable blade), and a really bad throat slashing featuring a patently obvious prosthesis.

Admittedly, Nutbag isn't an entirely worthless experience (for blokes, at any rate) since it does feature an endless parade of skin from a series of hot, nekkid chicks. All I can say is that it's a good job for Palumbo that a city like Vegas has no shortage of big breasted strippers desperate to become famous, because without the gratuitous nudity, his film would be totally unwatchable.