Judging
from the works of Fred Vogel or Tom Savini, some of the grisliest, most
offensive horror films you’ll ever come across just so happen to be created by
visual effects artists for horror movies.
Vogel’s own August Underground among the most notorious, there’s
something about people who know the tricks of the trade who seem to have a
stronger handle on getting underneath the viewer’s skin. Such is the case with the late visual effects
artist Ryan Nicholson. A prolific self-taught
movie effects man, Nicholson kept himself busy working in television for The
X-Files as well as working on the Scary Movie and Final
Destination film series.
Sometime
around the early 2000s, Nicholson formed his own production company Plotdigger
Films, and began creating his own brand of extreme horror which, like
Vogel’s efforts before him, pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable in a
standard slasher genre flick. Which
brings us to the late writer-director’s second feature Gutterballs, a
pornographic rape-revenge horror comedy set inside a seedy late-80s bowling alley. Ultra low-budget, trashy and utterly
over-the-top in its gleeful desire to offend, this shot on 16mm gutcruncher
“comedy” seeks to send-up the horror genre while driving ahead with it’s own
brand of extremism and sleaze. The end
result is inane, stupid, low and foul with some occasional nifty kill scenes
that call attention to themselves.
If
Bob Clark’s Porky’s were remade by Meir Zarchi, it might look and sound
like this swan dive into trashy hardcore horror filmmaking. As it stands, it’s a pretty standard slasher
just everyone in it swears more than usual, somehow managing to beat The
Wolf of Wall Street’s record for most gratuitous use of the F word. Much of the cast members in this look like
they acted in porn before getting a chance to break into a major motion picture
(provided anyone winds up seeing it).
With enough mean-spirited cruelty and violence in this thing to make the
likes of Srdjan Spasojevic blush, Gutterballs seen from afar is largely
a soporific wallow amid characters who make the denizens from Very Bad
Things look saintly by comparison punctuated by occasional demonstrations
of the director’s gore effects work.
Deliberately
indefensible and offensive as all get out, Gutterballs is mostly
remembered for pissing all over good taste, quality filmmaking and even cheap
thrills. Despite the radical onscreen
deaths, including a couple killed while graphically 69ing, Gutterballs is
ultimately a dirge. It’s a film which
wants to make fun of I Spit on Your Grave or Maniac but winds up
sinking beneath the depths plunged by those films. Grating on the eyes and ears, Gutterballs might
give you a rough horror comedy ride if you don’t wind up popping the disc out
of your blu-ray player and snapping the disc in half first.
--Andrew Kotwicki
