Customer Reviews

Nail Gun Massacre [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like to sit down with some friends and a case of beer to laugh at cheap horror movies, this has your name written all over it! Terrible acting, awful effects, and (best of all) senseless nudity.The killer is about 5'4" tall and wears a duct-taped motorcycle helmet. Plus, every victim gets to hear cheesy one-liners as they gasp their last dying breath.Gratuitous nudity is also a staple in these kind of movies. There is one scene where a girl straight out of the trailer park decides to brush her hair while topless. The camera zooms in and out, over and over. At one point, all you can see is a giant boob on the screen.Best of all is the old man in the town, played by John Holden. He obviously was drunk during the filming, because he can barely read his lines off the cue card: "All you want to do is ride around in that damn police car". Classic.I saw this movie when it first came out in the mid 80's and have waited for a long time for it to be re-released (it was next to impossible to find until now). If you want serious horror, stay away from this. If you want to fall on the floor laughing at a movie that cost about $1.69 to make (the price of the spaghetti sauce they used for blood), rent or buy this movie. I can only pray for a DVD release!!

I give this movie 5 stars as a bad film. It is a spectacular classic that only gets better with age, a backyard Southern treasure made with love, incompetence and a nailgun. And don't forget County Line Road, the only road in the county. You will see it a lot. You'll also get to watch a couple enjoy a burger at a local drive-in, in what may be the most obscure product placement ever. Alternately, the owner may have been the only person that would let the director shoot in his parking lot.

One of the primary questions about this movie is motivation. Specifically, what motivated a number of attractive, buxom young ladies to appear topless in this film? The director must be one silver-tongued devil. Another big question: what is up with the killer's getup? Seriously. You'll understand when you see it.

I won't give away the ending, or the astounding flub that accompanies it, because that goof is something really special. Pay close attention to the frames immediately after the allegedly-exciting climax for bad-movie nirvana. Of course, this entire cheapjack production is bad-movie nirvana, so enjoy.

Bad horror films are my bread and butter. I've loved them since I was a little boy and even moreso today. A horror film can be a downright piece of crap, but very fun and entertaining with the right mix of bad acting, violence and cheesiness. I mean, Burial Ground was a horrible film, but very fun to watch coz the ingredients were all there. Nail Gun Massacre has a concept that could have been B movie heaven, but somehow the director accomplished something rather unique by making a bad horror film that wasn't entertaining at all...just plain bad. Ten minutes(or less) into the film, you know you have a turd spinning in your dvd player and you say to yourself, "Oh, no. I know how this is gonna ride out". Horror fans can identify a lousy movie pretty quick. Somehow, and I don't know how, this film managed to screw up everything that makes a bad horror movie...well, good. It's not camcorder, but it looks and plays out like a film school flunky's project, or something someone patched together in their spare time. One particular scene that really pisses me off is a sex scene in the woods. It goes on wayyyyyy too long and involves a rather unattractive couple. It's as if the director was bewildered that he could find actors willing to do a love scene and had to linger on it as long as possible. I know ugly folks need love too, but even porno films don't go on this long. It doesn't end at the sex either. Way too much screen time is devoted to long and tedious scenes that bore you to tears-probably to pad running time. Scenes like two girls walking through the woods, a guy on the phone, a chick crying and screaming, and a hearse driving about 35 mph are all stretched out to ridiculous lengths. By the time the sheriff says the final line in the film,"Is it over?", you're shouting at the screen, "JAYSUS KEEERYST, I FRIGGIN HOPE SO!!" When you're out driving, you know how you get behind a slow driver or get cut off by some jerk, and when you finally pass them, you have to turn your head to get a look and see what they look like? That's the same feeling I got after viewing this, so I had to watch the dvd interview with the director just to put a face to the rotten SOB who unleashed this movie on me. Yup, he certainly comes across as a Nail Gun Massacre director. I am a huge supporter of underground/independent/ low budget films, but just coz I love the genre doesn't mean I love every film within the genre.

With a name like NAIL GUN MASSACRE you really can't expect too much and that's exactly what you get: a shoddy, hysterically bad, extremely low budget clunker that's strangely watchable in a hokey, 80's time capsule kind of way.

A woman is raped by construction workers so (the killer) puts on a camouflage outfit complete with a black motorcycle helmet and a bright yellow compressed air tank then drives around in a gold hearse killing construction workers and anybody else who happens to walk by.

The director admits in the extras that he only had a 25 page script and that's pretty clear by the fact that people seem to be saying anything that comes to mind. Personal favorite: "I'm hornier than a rooster in a Chinese hen house." What does that mean?!

Watch out for the breathing corpses (the body on the log even has a twitching leg); the song "Foosball" being play back-to-back on the radio; the script laying on the counter in the grocery store scene; a guy being killed by a single nail to the arm and the dead guy who falls on an outdoor grill, but when the grill starts to tip over he reaches out grabs the fence and rights himself! Ah, good times.

When you read that I gave it one star, I did it affectionately. Me and my friend were joking that this movie was not in fact produced by a studio, but rather was the culmination of every bad movie idea anyone ever had, supernaturally put on a videotape. Being only fifteen, I was not around when it reportedly came out in the 80's, but like another review reads, this is not a horror movie, it is a comedy. We were looking for a crappy horror movie and got one. If you want to be scared, look elsewhere, but if you want to be entertained, and have some friends you want to joke with, this is the movie for you. I could cite about ten other instances of nonsensical improvised lines, crappy stunts, and overall drunken filmmaking, but that would ruin it, because without making fun of it, this movie could easily be torture. One last thought, to those of you who have seen it, how could they give the Massacre-ist such bad lines when they recorded them afterwards? I mean its obvious it was done in a recording booth, what with the echo and all, and he didnt have improvisation as an excuse like the rest of the pathetic one liners. Anyway, I would either recommend this movie with all my heart, or tell you to stay away from it at all costs, depending on your purpose and personality. This movie's budget makes Night of the Living Dead look like a major studio's flagship film and its IQ presents Jackass as its profound intellectual superior.

At the end of the film, two things went through my mind. 1) How the hell did I manage to watch that entire movie without tearing my eyes from their sockets and run off screaming into the hills? and 2) How the hell did that movie get greenlit for distribution by anyone?!? Incriminating photos? Hypnotism? It's a mystery for the ages.

At any rate, a woman gets assaulted and raped by a gang of construction workers, who later fall victim to what looks like Michael J. Fox dressed in army camoflauge fatigues, a motorcycle helmet, and nail gun. (Word to the costume department- using a BRIGHT YELLOW air compressor sort of defeats the purpose of the whole camoflauge outfit, but I digress). Nailguns haven't really been used much as the weapon of choice for serial killers, so it stands to reason we'd have some inventive, gory deaths. Right?

Er, wrong. Just a few hands nailed to trees, heads, etc. None of which are graphic; a little dribble of karo syrup, some half-assed death throes acting, and the victim slumps over. Of course this is followed by the killer speaking in a deeply cheap disguised voice (sounds like an 80's Casio synthesizer), dismissing the victim's death with some silly pun.

This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD movie, folks. So I must give one extra star to the director for not only getting this tripe made in the first place, but also distributed and released by a large independent company like Synapse. The plethora of boobs on display also helps.

Geeeezzzzz....more cheese please!!! The title does deliver! There is no other method that the revengeful killer uses; it's murder by nail gun all through this film. To some of you slasher fans, that might get a little old. The killer does shot at different areas of the body but that about raps it up. Also, this is another one of those flicks where the killer always says a lot of corny puns while killing someone. That right there is good for a laugh but depends on the viewers humor. I'm sure you know as well as I, that you don't go into watching a flick like this with high hopes as far as scare value goes. haha. If your like me, you go for laughable dialogue and outrages acts done by "actors/actresses" and for the number one reason (drum roll please), gore! The gore is, well, not really that gory. It would of helped if the makers could of been a little more creative in the splatter department. But all in all, not bad. There are enough scenes that made me flinch. Again, you wont be finding 'Psycho' movie material here folks. DUH..lol! I give it 4 stars only because the kills should of been nastier for flick to have such an awesome title. Glad to have it; its definitely a conversation piece.

"Nail Gun Massacre" is one of those unfortunately films with a title that's better than the film itself. I tend to like movies with 'Massacre' in the title - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Slumber Party Massacre, Toolbox Massacre, etc. - but this one doesn't quite measure up. It's not that it doesn't have a memorable killer, or laughably cheesy lines, or gore and violence. No, it has all of those Instead it commits the worst sin possible in exploitation movies: it drags. At 85 minutes, it's a little on the long side for this sort of movie. Herschell Gordon Lewis films were usually barely above 72 minutes and they had reasonably good pacing. A thirteen minute difference may not seem like a lot, but when you think about it, that's three or four long, boring scenes of pointless dialogue.

It's difficult to make a recommendation concerning this movie. It's 50% cool, but 50% tiresome as well. The killer is fun to watch, and even though the motorcycle helmet is always present, you can usually tell when there's a stunt double because the killer suddenly becomes a few inches taller and has straighter hips. That and the terrible vocodered voice are the primary sources of unintentional laughs, which any exploitation film fan knows is basically the whole point of these films. There's a decent amount of syrupy blood and a sizable body count.

My main complain is that it drags in so many places, that it is sometimes boring to watch. The setting is mostly out in a wooded farm area, so it's not like we have different sets to add a little visual interest. When most every scene looks the same (trees and the occasional wooden tool shed or old farm house), it becomes harder and harder to watch.

The other complain I have is that the film thinks that its twist on the killer's gender is some clever that it gives away the 'surprise' on the back of the box when it mentions that the killer may be a man OR a woman. I suppose it's not a big deal since the killer's diminutive stature and curvaceous midsection kind of give it away from the first sighting. That plus, the killers identity is painfully obvious right from the beginning. Now that I think about it, maybe this isn't a complaint at all, but rather another element fans of the genre will find amusing.

Synapse Films always gives us nice DVDs with a good array of special features, and this is no exception. The film has been remastered and probably looks about as good as one could expect. Terry Lofton shot this on a shoestring budget with limited technical skill in the art of filming. I don't hold any technical deficiencies against him because, after all, many terrible directors have made many highly entertaining films. That brings us to the "NAILED" featurette with director Terry Lofton. He seems likable enough, although you can tell that he's hurt by the criticism his film gets. He says in his defense, he had limited time, a limited budget, and he did the best he could. You almost feel a little sorry for the guy, since this was obviously a labor of love. There are also a few outtakes, but they're nothing incredibly entertaining. Overall, the DVD itself is very nice.

Exploitation fans will want to check this out, regardless of my warning, and they should. Any fan of 'massacre' movies should see this once. I'm not sure if you'll need to own the DVD, or if renting is sufficient. I would lean toward the latter, unless you're a collector.

Dymon Enlow (AKA turdface)'s review gives away the suprise ending. Avoid if you don't want your enjoyment of the ending ruined.

Just about everything in this slasher/revenge flick is poorly executed. If you're a fan of unintentional B-movie humor, this does the job pretty well. However, it gets tiresome after 20 minutes or so.