GUTTERBALLS

A bunch of obnoxious kids get the run of their local bowling alley after hours on an evening. There are, ostensibly, three groups: a bunch of wise-cracking jocks led by the truly repugnant Steve (Alastair Gamble); three girlfriends and their transvestite pal Sam (Jimmy Blais); and a rival crew of bowlers steered by Steve's arch enemy, Jamie (Nathan Witte).

An altercation one night leads to a fight between Steve and Jamie. Consequently, Steve is left with a broken foot and all concerned are warned by the alley's owner that any more such shenanigans will result in them being banned from using the place after hours.

No-one wants that, so they all agree to retire peacefully for the evening. On their way out, however, one of the girls - the gorgeous Lisa (Candice Lewald) - realises she's left her purse behind. Feeling safe with the owner there, she wanders back into the building alone.

Bad move. Lisa is soon accosted by Steve and his moronic lackies. Steve's still pissed that Lisa rejected his advances back in High School, and has decided it's time he took a piece of Lisa's cherry. Thanks to the alley owner busying himself cleaning his establishment while listening to music through headphones, the boys are given ample opportunity to rape Lisa one-by-one.

All, that is, save for Patrick (Trevor Gemma). He doesn't want to take part in any sexual assault. Alas, Steve forces him to perform perhaps the greatest (certainly the most painful) violation on Lisa's body.

The following night, Steve and his crew return to the bowling alley as if nothing had happened. Steve's even flanked by a couple of comely blondes. Sam and the girls return, oblivious to any ill-doing that had befell their friend at the end of the previous night. Jamie and his hippy pals turn up, still brewing for trouble. Oh, and eventually Lisa turns up - wearing shades and a cold expression.

No-one seems to worry too much about that rather obvious latter point. Instead, everyone gets down to their usual business of bowling, bickering and talking about sex.

If they're lucky, some of them even have sex. Though that doesn't end well, especially for the first horny couple to pair off. They take their overactive hormones into the toilets and get down on the floor for a bit of surprisingly graphic 69'ing - only to fall foul of a mysterious figure lurking until then in the shadows.

The rest of the kids are oblivious to this. They continue bowling, drinking, swearing ... their only clue to the fact they're about to be picked off in quick succession is a name that appears on the digital score sheets above them: BBK. Each time a fresh kill occurs, BBK's score is upped with the arrival of a new skull on-screen. But, of course, these dumb fucks are too stupid to realise what's happening - or even care.

Who is it who's taken to wearing a truly bizarre mask and is bumping off these despicable excuses for human life one-by-one? What's their motive - other than, if they weren't kill them we surely would?

Indeed, almost every character in GUTTERBALLS is horrible. For a comedy (which, in part, it is), this is a very cynical film: each character is aggressive, disagreeable, volatile - writer-director Ryan Nicholson's vision is quite misanthropic, intentionally or not.

Humour is relentlessly crude and irreverent. It's all based around sex and expletives. "You're lucky the buffalo beat me over the fence, otherwise I'd be your Daddy" - that's a typical line. Actually, it's perhaps not: almost every line of dialogue in GUTTERBALLS contains an f-bomb. It's not an affront to my sensibilities, but it does become a tad laughable (intentionally?) after 30 minutes or so. You want a more typical passage of dialogue? Okay, try this on for size: "Hey asshole! You fucking do this? You cut my friend's fucking head off? Fucking cocksucker. Aargh, fuck - take off that fucking mask, prick. I wanna see your fucking face then beat it to a fucking pulp. Who the fuck are you?!" I promise, that's verbatim.

The incessant profanity can be excused when considering the overall broadness of this production: everything is exaggerated. Characters are broadly played and written; dialogue is hammed home fast and with no subtlety whatsoever; humour is aimed for in even the most inappropriate places (the early, prolonged and nasty rape scene contains a character 'comically' moaning about being unable to reach climax).

GUTTERBALLS is set in the 1980s. This affords Nicholson the opportunity to furnish his movie with some surprisingly authentic-sounding 80s MOR tunes on the soundtrack and great synth-led incidental music in the same vein as THE BURNING, as well as fashion design straight out of THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and some stylish neon lighting.

In further homage to 80s trash cinema, there is a healthy amount of bare breasts and gore on display. The women are pleasing to the eye; the violence is pleasingly old-school in terms of execution. No CGI here.

Eyes are stabbed into skulls in alarmingly gory manner. HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is nodded to at the climax of a scene where one character has a bowling pin rammed down his throat and his penis sliced in half. Brains are literally smashed out of people's heads. The effects, overseen by Jon Funk, are very good in a retro way.

In fact - and I'm surprised to be saying this - GUTTERBALLS is actually a well-made film. Of course, some of the acting is on the iffy side here and there. And it's hardly original: if the MANIAC-style artwork doesn't ring alarm bells, then early nods to I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and INTRUDER should do. But Nicholson keeps the action tightly edited together, nicely lit and imaginatively shot. The script may well be excessive but is at least fast-moving and filled with lines that, on a bad day, Kevin Smith may have been happy to pilfer.

Tonally, the film is a disgraceful mess. How do you sympathise for a character who bends over to reveal she's wearing no knickers, moments before getting raped? How do you empathise with the rapists when they start getting slaughtered? It's mix of unapologetic sadism and laddish humour never gels. But it does give GUTTERBALLS a demented energy that, combined with the righteous gore and keen cinematography, make this an unexpectedly entertaining proposition. It looks very good for its reported $250,000.00 budget too. A guilty pleasure, perhaps, but fun nevertheless.

GUTTERBALLS is said to have been submitted to the MPAA when first released, who suggested it would require 20 minutes of cuts to attain an R rating. That's not difficult to accept, especially as there's a fair amount of sexual violence evident here. That early gang rape scene alone probably accounted for at least half of those proposed cuts.

Anyway, here it is in its fully uncensored form, courtesy of the fine folk at Shock Film. Their region 2 Dutch DVD release touts the film as being the "full uncut hardgore blood edition" and I've no reason to doubt this is as strong as this title gets.

The film is presented in widescreen with a nice line in solid blacks and strong colours. I'm not sure what format GUTTERBALLS was shot on, but it looks like 16mm - there's definitely a filmic aesthetic to events. Detail isn't great - some softness and overly dark moments do creep through - but, by and large, this is a satisfying presentation of one outrageous film.

English audio comes in 2.0 and 5.1 mix options. Both are impressive. Optional subtitles are available in Dutch.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, an animated scene-selection menu allows access to GUTTERBALLS via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with "Behind the Balls", a 33-minute Making Of documentary. This is as bombastic and sarcastic as the film. It looks like shit (bad VHS quality), but at least serves to better convey how tongue-in-cheek the film is meant to be. There's lots of on-set footage, including audition stuff, outtakes and much more.

Nicholson provides a good, fluent commentary track in English. It's very detailed, and also suitably irreverent. Nicholson finds that fine balance between humour and information. Again, this track should help those who've missed the joke (of which there seems to be many).

The film's original pillar-boxed trailer is 36 seconds long and, as a result, doesn't really say enough about the film it's promoting.

Four galleries offer between them a wealth of posters and stills related to the main feature.

We also get trailers for ALL ABOUT EVIL and FAMINE.

GUTTERBALLS has a bad press and, I'll be honest, it's one that I'd previously avoided because I assumed it would bore me stupid. But I actually had fun with it: it's crude, loud and stupidly nasty, yes - but it's also fun, and deceptively well made.

If you're a fan, this uncut edition looks pretty good and is completely English-friendly.

Review by Stuart Willis