Ready for a little cooking lesson? Get a big mixing bowl and start with 3 parts Jersey Shore. Pour in a generous helping of Kingpin and a dose of I Spit on your Grave. Then sprinkle a dash of Jerry Springer and some Jim Belushi-caliber comedy for good measure. What do you get? Well, you’re going to get stabbed, and probably Hepatitis, but you might also get Ryan Nicholson’s 2008 slasher/cult favorite Gutterballs. The movie is incredibly gory and fucked up. Nicholson is trying to be over the top and to disturb you. And if you have a soul, he’s succeeded.
Gutterballs is disgusting in a lot of ways and sometimes it’s just downright hard to watch. Also, I know it gets a lot of love in some circles so some of you might not agree with my review. I get what Nicholson was going for but it’s just a little too over the top for me. I know some people just watch these movies for the shock value/guts/boobs/etc. and that’s fine, but that kind of film not scary and (in my mind) it’s distinctly on a lower tier than something like The Shining or The Thing. The plot of this movie doesn’t really make a lot of sense. It’s just loosely pulled together so there’s a framework around the murders so it’s not just a snuff film.
Ok so the movie starts out with the likeliest of scenarios. A group of bros with popped collars and sunglasses, who look and act like they just crushed it at the gym for like 3 hours and then snorted up like a bunch of speed, are doing a little after-hours bowling. Inexplicably, the janitor at the bowling alley, whom these guys relentlessly harass, lets them come in and bowl while he’s doing his late-night cleaning. There are some skanks in the next lane and the bros are harassing them as well. Then another squad of bros come in and they come to defend the girls. A fight breaks out and Steve, the alpha-dog bro, has some kind of roid-rage and screams and threatens everyone. Janitor grabs a shotgun, breaks up the fight and kicks everyone out. While the girls are leaving, Steve and his friends get one of the girls, Sarah, alone and there’s a graphic and drawn-out rape scene. It’s really pretty horrible. It almost makes you want to turn off the movie except now you want to see these guys get what’s coming to them.
For some reason, everyone is back at the bowling alley the next night. Everyone. Steve, Sarah, the whole crew. And it seems like the events of the previous night are largely forgotten, though there’s some lingering hostility. So as they’re bowling, the players go off one by one to get beers or to go to the bathroom or whatever and a masked killer starts dispatching them in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. And it’s not just Steve and his raping friends. It’s like everyone. It comes full circle at the end and there’s a big reveal when the killer’s mask is removed. Blah blah blah. That’s not the point. I literally didn’t care about the ending. I just wanted the movie to be over.
Now, the movie is not supposed to be taken seriously or even to really make sense. the point was to see how much they could really get away with. There’s one scene that really tugs at your heartstrings, though. Two young lovers have a romantic moment spoiled by this killer. Well, by romantic moment I mean a drunken 69 on the grimy bathroom floor of a bowling alley. While Romeo and Juliette are chowing down on each other’s fun parts, the killer comes in and shoves their faces even further into each other so they choke, suffocate and die. The flame of young love, extinguished before it’s time. Really a sad and touching moment…
Anyway, that’s not even the most horrific scene in the movie, but you get the picture. The movie is shockingly low-budget. The script is horrible and the acting is as atrocious as the murder scenes. I read somewhere that they say “fuck” over 500 times in the movie. They literally say it in like every other sentence.
I will say that Gutterballs doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. And it certainly accomplishes what it set out to do. If you know your stuff, you might recognize the poster is an obvious homage to the 1980 cult classic Maniac. When you take that into consideration, you can see this movie more for what it is and understand what it is meant to be.
It’s not a good movie by any stretch, but it’s not really supposed to be. Nicholson has just created a good old-fashioned splatter horror movie. And though it’s not really my favorite style, I still commend him for that.
1. Is it scary: 2- It’s too campy and over the top to be scary. The lame humor and bizarre murders don’t let you get sucked in to the atmosphere.
2. Originality: 4- Though there’s nothing really original about the plot, I will award a couple of extra point for creativity. Nicholson has come up with some murders that I haven’t seen before. That’s got to be worth something.
3. Blood: 8- This thing is fucking disgusting. Imagine what your kitchen would look like if Jackson Pollock and Edward Scissorhands tried to make lasagna for an entire pro football team
4. Believability: 3. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but if I just got raped, I wouldn’t go back to the same bowling alley with the same guys the next night. The plot is just ludicrous and nonsensical.
5. Setting/Cinematography: 2 – Wait, bowling alleys aren’t scary. Also this thing looks like it was shot on a cell phone camera. Like a flip phone, not an iPhone.
Final Score: 19/50
DON'T GO UP THE STAIRS 