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Saturday, December 06, 2008

"Gutterballs" review

Gutterballs (2008)

Director: Ryan Nicholson
Writer: Ryan Nicholson

Alastair Gamble ... Steve
Mihola Terzic ... Sarah
Candice Lewald ... Lisa
Nathan Dashwood ... AJ
Danielle Munro ... Julia
Stephanie Schacter ... Cindy
Saraphina Bardeaux ... Hannah

I was sent this DVD screener. Two bowling teams converge on an all night bowl-o-rama to have a death match. One team is filled with the most annoying, foul-mouthed cretins that have ever disgraced a horror movie. The other team has an assortment of punks, skanks and cross dressers. The cretins decide to get revenge on one of the girls from the other team and gang bang her up in the game room. The next night they come back to play again only this time a mysterious killer known as BBK crashes their party. This leads to many gory deaths as the bowling masked killer puts these worthless jerks out of their misery.

"Gutterballs" is an attempt to be a very sleazy 80's style slasher movie. The 80's cheeseball style of filmmaking saturates this movie. Just so you know where the filmmakers heads are at, they have their vicious rape scene play out while Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose" mixes ever so delicately with her screams. I'm shocked they didn't choose "Lovin' Every Minute Of It". And no classic arcade games in the game room? Where was Pac-man? Dragon's Lair? Dig Dug? Gorf? You call this an 80's homage? After the gang bang, they should have driven home to watch "The A-Team" and then played Dungeons and Dragons all night. What a night of debauchery that would have been.

So as the losers keep bowling and cursing their brains out, a few find a way to separate from the pack so they can be viciously slaughtered. The bowling bag killer uses all the instruments of death that a bowling alley has to offer. All of the different ways a bowling pin can be used to penetrate the body are exploited with hedonistic abandon. People will squeal like a pig. And bleed like one too. As far as excessive gore, "Gutterballs" is not shy about spilling a few gallons of blood. I enjoyed all of the bloody payoff scenes. But I think I liked them more than usual because I was praying for these awful characters to die so I wouldn't have to listen to them anymore.

"Gutterballs" is a very obnoxious movie. The F-word was screamed more times in this movie than in "Scarface". I'm not one to care too much about language but this movie really started to grate my nerves. I'm talking "nails across the chalkboard" aggravate me. From the laughing hyena sidekick to the main scumbag who wanted his beer, I was praying for them to die a horrible death. Clearly, these characters were meant to be annoying morons but why make them so despicable that the viewer ends up begging for the movie to end?

That's a shame because I was really looking forward to watching this flick. I saw "Live Feed" from this director and had a blast watching it. It was very inventive in its depravity and had an interesting sleazy story. I figured that "Gutterballs" would follow along those same sleazy lines.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in this one. I was hoping "Gutterballs" was going to be a fun, nasty slasher flick but it's not. There's nothing fun about this movie. It's definitely nasty but it's not fun. It becomes a chore to sit through as you listen to one moron after another find new excuses to say F--K. It should have been the F--KBB killer

"Gutterballs" is not a scary movie but it does try to shock you with it's many blood drenched kills. As a catalog of gory deaths, "Gutterballs" does deliver the blood and guts. There are also a few sex scenes as most of the women find a way to take their top off. But as a fun slasher flick, it's disappointing. You'll start hating the characters the second you see them strut in. When I started rooting for the BBK, that was a problem. When I started begging him to finish them off so the movie would end, that was a fatality.

SCORE: 2 out of 4 Gutterballs



Dude, you cannot bring this negative energy into the tournament!

7 comments:

thebonebreaker said...

Nuts!
This one is in my Netflix Queue (comes out in January, I believe)

Perhaps I should remove it...?!?

Dr. Gore said...

It might be worth keeping in the queue. It's very annoying but it does have plenty of bloodshed. Might be worth fast forwarding to the bowling pin massacre scenes.

thebonebreaker said...

Will do Doc! :-)

Thanks

Anonymous said...

i bought this film from another gorgeous little chinese bird in a cafe the other night near to where i live while i was enjoying a nice plate of cod and chips smothered in tomato sauce and vinegar, actually it was one of 15 films she sold me for $50, (all horror movies, i love `em), i haven`t watched it yet and i am not looking forward to the excessive profanity but i am looking forward to the excessive gore and the gorgeous sexy naked young girls, by the way, this little chinese bird is about 20 years younger than the other little bird who`s been selling me films, (23 as opposed to 43), and she really is a right little darlin` she gave me her phone number so hopefully i will be buying cartloads of horror films off of her in the coming months, and maybe i might get some sexual favours off of her as well at some point, something that i failed to obtain from the other little bird, heres hoping. Perhaps you will be reveiwing some of the other titles she sold me in the next few weeks, if so i`m looking forward to reading them.

Dr. Gore said...

Sounds like you might get something worthwhile out of "Gutterballs". Interesting that you have found this movie love connection in a cafe. Invite her over for a fifteen horror movie marathon. By the third movie, something is bound to happen. Unless of course she was dumping the movies because she hates horror. Although getting a phone number is always a good sign.

And I'm not going to mix words here. Cod and chips, (or Fries as we say in the States), smothered with tomato sauce and vinegar does not sound delicious to me. But I had to look up that meal on the web to understand the appeal. The internet tells me that this is a standard dish at a Fish and Chips cafe. Or "Chippy" as they call it.

BTW - They also did a fantasy poll to see who people would like to have serve them Fish and chips. For the men, it was Catherine Zeta Jones. I'd try it if Catherine was dishing it out. Now I'm kind of hungry. Where's Catherine when I need her?

Anonymous said...

dr. gore, i think you know there`s only one person i would want to serve me cod and chips, a certain miss pauline hickey circa 1986 when she was 18 years old at the absolute pinnacle and peak of her physical attractiveness and desirability.

Dr. Gore said...

You might even say that Pauline serving you would be like bowling a perfect game. It wouldn't be a gutterball. Bowling references in the Fish and Chips shop? Why not?