Does anyone have fond recollections of the early-to-mid-eighties slasher craze?  Along with all the “major” works such as Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and their sequels, there were just tons of cheaply-produced films that seemingly cropped up every few days or so.  There were occasional hits like My Bloody Valentine and Happy Birthday to Me, but there were also some really over-the-top sleazefests that disappeared almost as quickly as they hit the theaters.  Films like Maniac, Basket Case, Deathbed, The Mutilator, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, and Pieces drew criticism from politicians and parents alike for their extreme violence and misogynistic tendencies.

Being in high school and later college during the eighties, I was able to track down and see many of these films in theaters and drive-ins around the area.  I remember going nearly every weekend to either the Richmond Drive-In or the Buccaneer Drive-In to be amazed at the sleazy, politically incorrect B-movies (sometime Z-movies) that they showed.

Well, apparently Ryan Nicholson spent his teen years pursuing horror films, and specifically slasher films, much as I did.  And in Gutterballs, he has melded all the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) elements of the slasher genre into one extremely entertaining retro-slasher flick.

The set-up is simple:  two rival groups of teens meet at the local bowling emporium after hours to compete against each other.  A fight ensues which leads to one group gang-raping a girl from the second group.  The kids meet the next night to finish their “friendly” bowling competition, but all is not well.  A mystery person that calls himself “BBK” keeps bowling strikes while the kids start slowly disappearing throughout the night.  Just who is this mysterious “BBK” that seems to only bowl strikes?  Why do the teens keep disappearing?  And why is our rape victim so calm?

Gutterballs singlehandedly revitalizes the slasher genre.  It is sleazy, degrading, brutal, sadistic, and mean-spirited.  But director Nicholson clearly has his tongue planted firmly into his cheek, so Gutterballs also functions well as the blackest of comedies.  The eighties were obviously a decade that defined Nicholson as he sets his film in a bowling alley complete with all the video games and neon associated with the time.  The kids all wear hideous clothes and hairstyles straight out of a John Hughes film (think Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, or even one of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels).  Each character is created as an extreme stereotype from that period as well.  We have the cruel prep, the jock, the nerdy guy who just wants to be a part of the clique, the beauty queen, the headbanger and his female counterpart, and even the token black dude.  And in one of the best performances I’ve seen in the new millennium, we also have a transvestite, played to over-the-top perfection.

In fact, the performances are decent across the board, ranging from good to plain terrific.  Most of the characters are hateful and cruel, which helps the audience root for the killer to take them out one-by-one.  The viewer feels no sympathy for these kids.   They are rude, crude, disrespectful, and foul-mouthed (in fact, I believe that this film may hold the record for number of uses of the F-word, at well over 600 in 90 minutes—no I didn’t count, I looked it up).  As mentioned previously, the costuming is dead-on, as is the electronic synth score and garish, neon colors used in the film.  It is obvious this film is a work of love by people who care about the genre and know all the conventions of that genre.

But the real reason this movie exists is for the sex and violence.  And make no mistake—this is not a film for the masses.  The gang rape near the beginning is hands-down the most brutal rape put on film since I Spit on Your Grave, rivaling even the rape in Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible.   The rape occurs on a pool table, reminding one of the film The Accused, although it is much more violent and sadistic than the rape in that film.  And there are plenty of other homages to both slasher films and rape/revenge films as well.  There is a ton of nudity, of both the male and female variety, and some of it is clinical, causing the film to cross the boundary into pornography several times, again reminding me very much of the movie Thriller-A Cruel Picture.

There’s also plenty of sex and death, which of course is a requirement if you are trying to create a retro slasher flick.  Speaking of death, in a genre that perhaps has been overdone and with an audience that is quite jaded, writer/director Nicholson has managed to give us some of the most creative, sadistic, gross-out kills ever committed to celluloid.  The effects are rendered quite well, and include such over-the-top blood-letting that the film veers into cartoon territory, rendering it difficult to take this film too seriously and perhaps allowing the viewer to have some fun with the gore.  Featuring scenes such as face-removal with a bowling-ball waxer, heads being bashed into goo with bowling pins, sodomy with sharpened bowling pins, and throat slashings that include oceans of blood, who knew bowling alleys were so dangerous?  But the most creative kill is hands-down, the death by 69, another scene that firmly pushes this film across the boundary into pornography.

While this film isn’t for the kiddies, and probably is not for anyone without a steel stomach and a very dark sense of humor, Nicholson has pumped some new blood (pun intended) into a rather tired genre.  His love for horror films, and slasher films in particular, shines through, making what could have been a very grim and downbeat film (similar to Cannibal Holocaust) into a fun—if extremely politically incorrect—little film.  I enjoyed it tremendously, but my sense of humor is more than a little skewed, so be warned:  Gutterballs is an apt title because this is a “gutter film” and should not be viewed by people who are overly sensitive.  But I loved it!