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U.S.A.
/ 1985
Directed
by Terry Lofton & Bill Leslie
Starring
Rocky
Patterson
Ron
Queen
Michelle
Meyer
Color / 85 Minutes / Not Rated
Format:
DVD (R1 - NTSC)
Synapse Films
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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4
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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SNEAK
PREVIEW
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DVD Release Date: Oct.
25, 2005 |
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What
happens when a guy in a small town south of Dallas buys camera
equipment from a bankrupt film company and, with no formal training
whatsoever, sets out to make a super-low budget horror flick?
You get Nail Gun Massacre, one
of the dumbest "slasher" movies ever made during that
genre's '80s heyday. Inept and just plain silly, the film is
nonetheless more entertaining than many of its professionally
made contemporaries — some charmingly cheesy moments along the
way save it from utter dreck-dom.
After a woman is brutally gang-raped by workers
at a construction site, a sadistic murderer starts bumping off
the culprits one by one with a high-powered pneumatic nail gun.
Dressed in camouflage and a taped-up motorcycle helmet, the
disguised avenger taunts his victims in an electronically distorted
voice before and after killing them, making painfully insipid
wisecracks and laughing maniacally. ("BWAH HA HA HA HA HA
HA!") Soon the mayhem proves to be just too much fun
to prey strictly on the rapists. Innocent people — both local
citizens and strangers passing through — are added to the killer's
rapidly rising body count. The totally ineffectual sheriff (Ron
Queen) turns to an equally ineffectual doctor (Rocky Patterson)
to help him solve the brutal slayings. Meanwhile, the murderer
conspicuously tools around town and along the back roads in
a gold-colored hearse looking for potential victims...
Watching this film would be about as pleasurable
as having nails fired into your skull if it weren't for the
laughably bad moments that seem to crop up every five or ten
minutes. These chiefly involve the horribly amateurish performances,
clumsy, gratuitous sex scenes and ludicrous nail gun kills —
or a combination thereof.
(Just before they're murdered, a couple is shagging on the hood
of a car at Lover's Lane with the radio playing a rock song
about, of all things, foosball. The tune ends, a DJ makes
an announcement, and then the music resumes...
It's that damned foosball song again!) The killer, who
noticeably changes height and build from scene to scene, walks
right past people only a few feet away who somehow don't see
him (must be the camouflage!); his victims seem to die rather
quickly from their painful-looking but superficial wounds. (And
I'm not referring to those that get it in the head. What's
he using? Nails dipped in curare?)
A poolside killing involving a barbecue grill is particularly
funny in its ineptitude.
Unfortunately,
counteracting the cheese effect is an extremely annoying
music score which, added to the killer's amplified chortling,
quickly becomes cinematic sandpaper. The aimless script is heavily
padded, spending an inordinate amount of purposeless time with
a trio of characters who later just up and disappear from the
story. (In the end they have really nothing to do with anything
that's going on other than to discover some of the bodies. We
do get to watch 'em have Spaghetti-Os for dinner, however.)
Further time is killed via numerous dull scenes of the doctor
and sheriff discussing the case with monosyllabic disinterest.
(Zzzzzzz...) Nail Gun Massacre
could easily be trimmed by a good 15 or 20 minutes to be a more
readily digestible cheese log.
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Nail
Gun Massacre arrives
on DVD courtesy of Synapse, utilizing the only existing negative
materials for the anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer. The picture displays
constant grain (having been shot under impoverished, makeshift
lighting conditions) but otherwise looks quite good, without any
noticeable blemishes. The disc's mono audio track does what it
can with the wildly uneven live sound recording; dialog is occasionally
drowned out by music and/or sound effects —
again, this is due to conditions during production of the film.
Even though the subject
may not truly merit it Synapse has put together a nice package
of extras. Nailed is an amusing 24-minute interview featurette
with writer/co-director Terry Lofton. The affable Texan covers
many aspects of Nail Gun's production,
including the often improvised performances of the actors (whom
he admits didn't have much of a script to work with, although
Lofton's grandmother can seen reading her lines from a copy during
the grocery store scene), the shooting of the nudity-filled sex
scenes (the guy who humps the chick up against a tree was divorced
by his real-life wife after she saw the film!), and the jerry-rigged,
mixed-in-the-kitchen-sink special effects. (Specially built for
the film, the killer's nail gun actually worked but was deemed
too dangerous to fire for real on camera.) All the while Lofton
remains sanguine and bemused about the film's lack of professional
polish, taking some good-natured swipes at movie critics along
the way.
The disc also comes
with an 8-minute reel of soundless outtakes (with commentary by
Lofton) and the European promotional trailer. In lieu of traditional
liner notes writer Michael Felsher contributes "Twenty
Things I Learned Watching NAIL GUN MASSACRE", a funny
catalogue of goofs, gaffes and non sequiturs to look for in the
movie.
10/15/05 |
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