Carver

Carver (2008)

Directed by Franklin Guerrero Jr.

Rating: 3.25 out of 4 Pentagrams

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth 

The DVD packaging on this film promises some serious brutality and gruesomeness and for once they are telling the truth. I found this film to be truly enjoyable to watch for a few reasons. One, the kills are awesomely over the top and two, the killer is actually scary looking. I mean I can’t picture that fat retarded backwoods hillbilly to be anything other than a psycho-twisted killing machine.

The size of the SOB really plays well in scenes where you can sympathize with how dominating he would be if squared against him. Especially with the woman. It’s all a cat and mouse game of torture and mutation.

Ah, but let’s talk plot. The first half of Carver is your typical stock-in-trade slasher premise. A group of college kids heads out to the wood… there’s a family of psychotic butchers living in a dilapidated shack filled with 16mm torture-porn snuff films… invariably the two come to meet.

The acting is believable enough for the most part. The important factor is that they seemed truly terrified when they come face to face with the demented killer.

Stylistically the director and cinematographer did a good job with dirtying up the look to create a gritty atmosphere. Obviously, Texas Chainsaw was a major influence. Tons of movies have tried to be like TCSM but they never seem to build the intensity that classic is famous for. They seldom come off as genuine either.

The difference with Carver is that they really used that classic model and were able to take it into their own realm. The idea of having the killer family double as snuff filmmakers was a nice touch. That kind of raw realism is what Chainsaw was capturing in the first place.

At the end of the day this is just a slasher movie. But it’s one of the better ones in a sea of mediocrity. Sure there are flaws and predictable moments but its easily overlooked considering the level at which the envelope is pushed, violence wise. The box art mentions a scene in particular that I for one was shocked by. Overall the filmmakers set themselves apart from other Hollywood types by being ruthless toward the characters in favor of the killer. There was very little mercy shown which was quite satisfying.

I was impressed by the effort put into the kills and apparent reverence they showed the genre. I felt like they actually cared about entertaining me the viewer and where willing to pull out some extra stops to surprise someone who’s seen a thousand of these things.

I actually felt an emotion when the credits came up. Kind of sick, kind of dirty. An impression was defiantly made and that’s much more than I can say for most straight-to-DVD horror that’s made nowadays.