Sweatshop

Like most splatter movies, "Sweatshop" features a melding of brutal violence with brutal tedium.

This one also has sexy ladies and a little bit of nudity, but unlike the violence, that is not put to much use and is mostly negligible.

This review could be used to describe basically any splatter movie. It's been the same story with every particularly violent slasher I've watched recently: from low budget affairs like "100 Tears" and "Headless" to better budgeted sleeper hits like "Laid to Rest" and "The Collector", these movies exist to show violence, and unfortunately, we still need things like plot and characters to string the violent scenes together.

If only the people who make these movies could show half as much zeal for telling a cohesive story as they do for showing intestines falling out.

The plot (not that you care) is about a few sexy Suicidal Girl types who break into a warehouse with their obnoxious male friends. Their reason for this is to start an illegal rave, so it's interesting that they are all dressed in punk style.

Anyway, the warehouse is not unoccupied, there are at least a couple of assailants hiding out there, and you can probably guess what happens next.

Interestingly (?) this one has more than just the usual one bad guy that slasher movies always hang their hat on. The bad guys in it look like something out of "Silent Hill" or "The Evil Within". There's only one bad guy who really got my attention though: a huge person wearing a welder's outfit and holding a massive sledgehammer.

The conclusion, a must-see for anyone who hates ravers, is actually something special, but will you still be paying attention by the time you get there?

I really wouldn't say that Sweatshop came as a disappointment. In fact it was the complete opposite.

Overall it isn't a good film. Its a movie that has poor acting and poor characters that you hate right from the beginning, but it feels very deliberate. The best thing about Sweatshop is that the most annoying characters are killed in phenomenal ways which gives you a strong sense of satisfaction!

The last 15 minutes of the movie is where it really kicks in.

Go and see Sweatshop if you are a fan of practical gore effects, because there aren't many movies out there that demonstrate gore as well as Sweatshop does!

Sweatshop starts off with a young naked woman trying to escape an unknown killer in an industrial building, only for a cop to come in and accidentally blast her death. Quite an opening! The rest of the plot sees a group of punks/Goths stage a rave in the same building, but killers lurk inside. I bought this on DVD for £1 and it was quite a bargain, I remember thinking Wow after my first viewing. Fast forward several years and I have just watched it for a second time, sadly I felt a lot less impressed. This is a B-movie so it goes without saying that the acting is not going to be of a high level, and it's not. Generally speaking it is reasonable but there a few of those awkward silences between characters, etc. If, like me, you find Goth chicks attractive then you get your monies worth here. There are several scenes of sex and nudity, on the flip side much of the dialogue consists of sex talk (in particular oral sex), this does become a bit tedious. After the initial death the movie does drag for the next 20 minutes or so, it is one of those slasher movies that progressively gets more violent as it goes on but may test the patience of some viewers. The killer is a hulking man who wears a welding masks and is called The Beast, however he also has a pair of female accomplices who look like nightmarish vampires. This is never explained and to be honest I would have preferred to have just had The Beast alone, thus avoiding slightly confusing thoughts (are these women of supernatural origin, etc?). Negatives aside what Sweatshop does is provide much splatter. Beast wields a huge foundry hammer and uses it to literally smash some of his victims to pieces. He also indulges in some torture porn too, one victim has her fingers cut off one by one. Given the low budget the graphic special effects are impressive, if you don't like nasty gore movies then this most certainly is not for you! The closing credits are cool, each cast member is shown with three photos, the third ones being of their corpses (or what's left of them!). For splatter fans only.

OK, I will sum up the movie. The main charters are flat, no personality except there is no reason to care so when they die, well you don't have to worry about another scene with them. At one point I asked myself, hadn't this guy already been killed? No he hadn't the main charters just weren't worth paying attention too. I LOVE "B" horror, but this is the first movie I have seen that you "just don't care" when someone dies. You don't even not like them and wish they would die.

If you are a "B" horror fan such as myself, why sit through it at all? Well let me tell you, the villains are VERY VERY good. You have no idea where they came from, why they are doing what they do and they still pull it off. There a huge fat guy wearing a welders mask welding a huge pipe with a blacksmith anvil at the end. Along with a group of female minions that are a cross between the girl from "The Ring" and a Harpy.

This bad guy and bad girls need to be reused in a well written movie. Like I said what a waste of great villains.

I picked up a copy of "Sweatshop" because it seemed like a fairly interesting slasher movie, and the DVD cover did have a certain appeal.

And now having seen the movie, I can say that it is a fairly average slasher at best. The story is straight forward, albeit a bit lacking depth and any real weight as to whom the killer and his two ghouls were and where they came from.

The story is about a group of young people, punks, emos and goths, who are at an abandoned building to set up a rave of sorts. But they are not alone there, and a deranged killer is going to turn the party into a bloody mess before the night is over.

What makes the movie bearable to sit through is the amount of violence and gore there is. The effects are nice and look realistic, which is really what is the major supporting factor that carries the movie. Plus the way that the violence and mayhem is executed is quite well, fun (in a morbid way) and inventive. There are some fairly interesting and brutal scenes to be seen throughout the movie.

As for the characters, well despite having cool costumes and outfits they turn out to be rather meaningless people that you don't really come to have any sort of relationship to as you watch the movie. It is not a matter of if they die - it is a matter of how. And the size of the hammer made from an anvil, well it just seems so ridiculous, as the guy can handle it so easily, and you can see that it is painstakingly fake as there is no weight to it as he lifts it.

For fans of macabre and violent movies, then you will surely find something enjoyable in "Sweatshop". But for fans of the horror genre, then you'll most likely find the movie to be plain and rather generic.