Smash Cut (2009, Lee Gordon Demarbre)

This SHOULD have been fucking awesome! An homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis starring David Hess and a bit of a tongue-n-cheek reference to "A Bucket of Blood". So how did "Smash Cut" turn out to be a erroneously inept failure of staggeringly boring proportions? Well first, a brief run-down of the premise...

Hess plays an indie-horror film director who's growing tired of making cheap, contemptible tax write-offs for an artless production company and wants to make his ultimate cinematic masterpiece. It basically starts when he's driving home with his favorite stripper and they get into a car wreck that kills her. He stores her body in the trunk and the next day realizes that her mangled corpse would make a great prop for his latest film project. So he goes about collecting other body parts for the film by killing off other folks around the company, even siphoning his own blood for the production. All the while, the stripper's sister and an overly cartoony P.I. are searching for her...

The movie fails at doing everything it was obviously attempting, such as being humorous, gory and formulating a distinguished David Hess role. I will say, the guy made the most of what he was given here - what with the complete lack of direction and aimless script. It's just... I don't know what the point was of having him doing yoga in the park... That bothered me. Uck. Porn star-turned mainstream actress Sasha Grey demonstrates a total LACK of on-screen presence and coldly recites her meaningless lines as I just PRAY for someone to slam their cock down her throat to shut her up. Michael Berryman has a few scenes and - I know I'm using the word "pointless" and it's variations ad nauseam, but... that's what he is in this. They put some shitty wig on him and drew on some eyebrows and I think that was suppose to be funny, but it just fucking wasn't. H.G. Lewis also pops up a few times just for the hell of it...

Clearly, "Smash Cut" was meant as a 'nod' to the work of Lewis and to show respect to old-school splatter cinema, but falls completely flat. If I had to pick the worst aspect of this movie, it would have to be the surprising lack of gore. There's some cheap looking severed limbs, but the most you really get is a dumb looking rubber head getting it's eyes poked out. David Hess looks his age here and is TRYING, god bless him, despite this being just a paycheck for him. Avoid "Smash Cut". It's truly fucking miserable.