Smash Cut (2009)

At the premier of Able Whitman’s (the late David Hess) latest movie Terror Toy, viewers in the cinema ridicule his poor direction, terrible acting, and diabolical special effects. Dressed in his best fancy dress Able arrives just as his movie is verbally ripped apart and deserted by angry cinema goers. Depressed at his lack of focus, and poor reception Able heads to the local strip joint where he meets dancer Gigi, a woman who would never charge Able for a performance. The two share a mutual bond and leave the club to head home. On the journey however in a moment of distraction Able crashes his car leaving Gigi dead. At his worst possible moment Able finally gets his solution to his lack of inspiration, and a source of gore using Gigi as a special effects prop, but when her body is no longer of use Able realises he needs fresh blood….

I won’t beat about the bush, Smash Cut is pretty awful, but deliberately so. It’s a sort of homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis whose movies were always pretty awful, even though the story plots were often very good. Director Demebre has embraced this mix of a good storyline with awful delivery and produced a pretty diabolical 90 minutes of “entertainment”.

It’s obvious that Smash Cut is not meant to be taken seriously, from its tongue in cheek promotional artwork, to the rather amusing Grindhouse inspired opening credits; ad if this were not enough then add Michael Berryman in a 1970’s David Hess curly wig. Berryman an actor incapable of growing any hair, and has made a name for himself playing the bad guy in horror movies for over 30 years because of his looks.  The trouble being though is that the movie tries so hard to look and feel bad that very often it becomes almost too painful to watch, you feel restless and uncomfortable watching the awful performances taking place on screen.  I’m reminded in a lot of ways of the movie Death Proof (part of the Grindhouse double bill initially meant to be shown with Planet Terror), its that sort of uncomfortably bad viewing.

Smash Cut is not all bad, there are some genuinely funny moments of the movie, and deliberately so rather than unintentionally; although I have to confess I’m not quite sure where the line between intentional and accidental humour lands all the time.  What’s nice is that the man who once struck fear into the hearts of audiences across the world thirty years ago has an excellent face for comedy, I refer to David Hess; the scene where he appears as the buyer of a bus dressed like a sailor with a harpoon is just magical.

Hess plays his heart out, going more over the top than any character he has ever played before, literally pushing the boundaries of silliness. Berryman takes the opportunity to be really silly; at times you can almost see him holding back the laughter. Sasha Grey a notorious porn star struggles to act, but does a rare job of keeping all her clothes on; and then appearance of Gordon Lewis adds a nice nostalgic feel to the whole piece.

The music composed by Michael Bubue is actually one of the best aspects of the movie, drifting from the sound of Italian horror, to the electrical guitar clanging of Get Carter. Each and every score sets the scene perfectly, and had the movies production values been higher would undoubtedly receive accolade for its outstanding efforts.

For trivia fans all around the offices that Berryman and Hess occupy in the movie are posters of awful sounding movies meant to be movies that Able has created. These titles which include “Lover Take My Liver” are in fact titles for unmade Herschell Gordon Lewis movies.

To sum Smash Cut up in a nutshell, it’s one of those movies you need to see if you’re a fan of the horror movie genre, or of the actors involved then this is a must; however if you do not have any interest in the aforementioned areas then this movie will strike you as being just plain awful.