Gvozdi

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).

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.

Nails (Gvozdi) is one of a series of surreal, psychedelic, gore movies called HalluCinoGeNnN, by Russian director Andrey Iskanov.

I normally tire very quickly of surreal movies, as my simple brain just doesn't function when having to decipher metaphors and imagery. Sit me in front of something like Eraserhead, and I'll be reaching for the 'off' switch faster than you can say "lady in the radiator".

Nails had an altogether different effect. I couldn't drag myself away from it, even though it was miles away from the standard movie format. Iskanov has made clever use of both monochrome and colour filming, to represent the two stages of the hit-man's life. The movie opens in black and white, during his 'tortured' phase and just after the first batch of nails goes in, it switches to colour as his outlook on life has greater clarity. The constant industrial noise in the soundtrack fades away to comfortable peace and quiet, as he starts this new phase.

As the hit-man sees the essence of life more clearly, even the most mundane things begin to take a different form. His food no longer looks tasty and delicious, instead it shows its true form as processed junk. Each can the hit-man opens contains something more disgusting than the last…penis soup anyone? He begins to see himself and his girlfriend as they truly are; soulless plastic mannequins with no purpose other than to end life. Perhaps it is the true vision of his life that drives him further to keep using the nails and finally the drill. Imagine the scene in Evil Dead 2, where Ash goes mad and all the furniture taunts him. Then multiply it by ten and make it last for an hour – that's pretty much how Nails plays out. It's like a hybrid of the cyberpunk violence of Tetsuo and the work of Jorg Buttgereit (Nekromatik, Der Todesking).

You don't watch Nails, you experience it.

This is the first time I've seen his work and I wanted to get my thoughts down on it as soon as possible, so please excuse the scatter-shot approach.

Without a trace of hyperbole, I can honestly say that I have seen a new Prince of Darkness in the world of horror films and his name is Andrey Iskanov.

Call it splatter if you must, gore if you dare, but make no mistake Iskanov is a unique artist with a signature style and he knows how to tell a story.

I see that some of the 'critics' here have slammed him for not being an original in the field of surrealism! I wonder if those same people have a problem with Hitchcock for not being the first to work in suspense. And, please note, I am not saying Iskanov is the new Hitchcock, only that he has the potential to become a very good film maker given a chance.

Coming in at a succinct sixty minutes, there's not much wasted footage in this tale of surgical psychoanalysis. To accomplish his vision Iskanov combines acute edits, expressionistic camera angles and stark imagery to a sound-scape that suggests paranoia at every off-key cue.

Working under what I can only assume is a budget that was as claustrophobic as the world his protagonist lives in, Iskanov has crafted a piece of work that will live inside you long after the lights have gone up.

One final word of warning -- after watching this film your nightmares will never be the same.

You have been warned!

Well, what are you waiting for ....

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.