JACKHAMMER
PLOT-A high-powered executive's life spins out of control after he becomes hooked on a street drug called "Glass", turning him into a desperate psychotic who wields a high-powered instrument of death!
VIOLENCE-If it's gore you want, you have come to the right place. Heads and bodies are jackhammered, guts spill out and body parts fly off.
SEX/NUDITY-A couple naked hoes are seen walking around a drug dealer's house, but I don't recall any of them having sex. That would be a different kind of jackhammering, wouldn't it?
WHY I WATCHED IT-Gore-master Joe Castro, the man responsible for spilling many intestines and crushing heads in films like BLOOD SISTERS, MANIACAL, TERROR TOONS and NEAR DEATH, was at the helm of JACKHAMMER as well. I knew at the very least, I was in for a fun 90 minutes of gross-out violent mayhem in the spirit of godfather Herschell Gordon Lewis.
THE DOPE-There is one thing you expect if you watch a horror film called JACKHAMMER, and that would be people getting cancelled by a psycho with a jackhammer in the goriest ways possible. And believe me, if there's one thing Castro can do, it's deliver the goods to fans of gory horror. However, Castro's films always go beyond my expectations in some way, throwing in more than just creative deaths, and realizing that a good story is STILL the whole point of it all. Still, JACKHAMMER surprised me in many ways, went places I didn't expect, and at times completely dazzled me with its filmmaking craftsmanship.
First things first...the story is anything but your average setup for a slasher movie. In fact, JACKHAMMER is NOT a slasher flick at all, having more in common with the highly disturbing REQUIEM FOR A DREAM than, say, a Jason movie. As with last year's ADDICTION, JACKHAMMER is about the death of one's true self as a result of getting heavily into drugs. Castro and company pull off a completely serious (and at times disturbing) depiction of a man whose life falls completely apart after helplessly watching his best friend overdose, and the resulting hallucinations and ultimately horrible and violent turns his life takes. Aaron Gaffey's compelling and believable perfomance as leading man "Jack", combined with some of the best and most innovative editing I've seen on an indie film in quite a while (courtesy of Steven Escobar), had me so caught up in the story that I really could have cared less about jackhammer deaths! Those just ended up being the icing on the cake.
Joe Castro came out swinging with the unbelievable TERROR TOONS, the first film I ever saw of his (if you never caught it, be sure and pick it up, because part 2 is on the way), and with each movie his craft gets more and more refined. Yes, you can show guts flying and eyeballs popping out, but that only gets you so far unless you have the knack for storytelling and a fresh visual approach. JACKHAMMER's got it all, my friends, and was most certainly one of the better indie horror films I have witnessed in quite some time.
MEMORABLE SCENES-A junkie attempts to clean out a well-worn needle hole in his arm by first sticking it with a q-tip to dig out a bunch of stringy, disgusting pus. Then he pours peroxide on the angry wound, and howls in pain as it bubbles up and fizzes. It hurt just looking at it!
NOTES-Go to SLAUGHTERHOUSE CINEMA.COM to learn more about how you can get ahold of this movie.
(May 2004)