Sweatshop (2009)
Directed by: Stacy Davidson
Written by: Stacy Davidson, Ted Geoghegan
Starring: Ashley Kay, Brent Himes, Peyton Wetzel
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLmEC6uWCcY[/youtube]
Sweatshop (2009)
(18) Running Time: 87 minutes
Director: Stacy Davidson
Writers: Ted Geoghegan, Stacy Davidson
Starring: Ashley Kay, Peyton Wetzel, Brent Himes
Reiewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic
So, where to begin with this? Let’s start with the plot, what there is of it. A group of friends break into an abandoned warehouse to hold a party, turns out they are not alone and some giant masked killer starts killing them off one by one. There you go, that was easy wasn’t it, so you can go into this film gladly knowing that you can leave your brain well and truly somewhere else. Hell, you could watch the film with the sound off if you wanted, you’d still get the gist as this is simplicity at it’s most simple!
Saying that, the film itself is not as bad as it sounds. Granted, after an opening scene of a naked girl who has been kept captive by the killer being shot accidentally by a cop, the film falls flat. The naked girl is very attractive and holds your attention as she prances around nude, but then a group of fully clothed muppets arrive to break in and have their party. Bad acting all round, and whether i’m too old for this, but their sense of fashion is embarrassing, a sort of futuristic but trapped in the 80’s style punk look. One guy even has four 10 foot tall spikes made out of his hair. Now, I feel bad as the acting deserves far more complaints than the fashion. My God it is awful, and mixed with the cheap and tacky look, the film feels a little too low budget to enjoy. I make no apologies for admitting to some attractive girls holding my attention of even the most rubbish horror, and that works here. The film feels quite depraved as the friends watch a girl strip on a video. They drink beer and do a lot of shouting, and suddenly the ‘rave’ kicks off. The girls here are all very good looking, wearing strange outfits and seducing with their dancing. A bizarre sex scene involving a fat man and a girl clearly wanting to make another jealous, I was about ready to switch off. Thankfully, I didn’t…
You barely get to know the cast, and you don’t really need to as they simply serve as a means for violence as the killer makes himself known, and now the action heats up and what looked like a cheap, tacky and quite crap film suddenly takes on a whole new life. Simply listed in the credits as ‘The Beast’, the killer is about ten foot tall, I kid you not, with a sort of mask welders wear and a massive, furry jacket and carrying the biggest fuckin metal weapon I have seen since Resident Evil’s Pyramid Head showed us his giant sword. This killer never speaks a word, but uses violence to simply put the fear of God into us. Sadly, the killer is so great, the scenes in between are tiresome and a bit dull. There is a highlight though, a very very awkward dance routine involving the man with the spikey hair and two girls. You have to see it to believe it, but it fits into the ‘am i really seeing this?’ kind of weirdness. It almost feels like your watching a messed up music video as the track they are dancing to plays out in its entirety.
Now, the killer, he is followed around by a number of demon like creatures, some with their bottom jaw hanging off. Nothing is really explained as to who any of them are who how they came to be here, but who cares, just watch the kills and enjoy how brilliantly director Stacy Davidson has delivered them. The killer literally rips someone’s jaw off in a scene that equals the jaw tearing scene in the first Hatchet movie, witness the giant monster swing his massive metal weapon which smashes a victim through a cage door (think of how a garlic press works and you’ll get the idea), he strangles, bashes peoples heads against walls, uses a machete to cut them in half between the legs and in what has to be one of the finest scenes of carnage so far this year, he smashes a girls legs to pieces! The early kills are met with a sudden silence to give you the chance to sit back to think, holy shit how’d they do that! And if you are a true horror fan, this will probably be met with an almighty cheer! Whatever your taste in gore, Sweatshop delivers the goods, it is far from perfect and is in fact quite bad in places, but the genius of the killer more than makes up for it. A strange twist at the end left me slightly confused, and I think I may have read into it too much, either that or they coudln’t afford to pay any new actors. And finally there is another scenes that reminds you that this aint a great film as party goers run round, literally, in circles on the dance floor trying to escapre the madman. Silly, stupid fun that shoudln’t really be viewed while eating, Sweatshop is crap, but its good crap!
Rating: 
[pt-filmtitle]Sweatshop[/pt-filmtitle]
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