FILM GUTTER - GUTTERBALLS (2008)

Come on in, the water's foul...

GUTTERBALLS (2008)

Dir. Ryan Nicholson, USA

Where to start with this one? Gutterballs is a film loaded with sleaze, peppered with genuinely shocking scenes and also sprinkled with a large dose of comedy. The closest I can come to surmising this movie is to say it's Last House on the Left meets Kingpin. Yes, you heard me right.

Gutterballs has the look and feel throughout of an 80s comedy, ably assisted by a superb rock soundtrack that often put a smile on my face. The entire film is set in a bowling alley, after hours, where two rival teams bowl each night under the watchful stare of the abrasive alley owner. This rivalry appears to be pretty innocent at first, but soon enough takes a darker twist when Lisa drops a bowling ball on the foot of the creepy leader of the 'jock' team, Steve.

That would have hurt no doubt. But nowhere near what is probably the most shocking scene in the film, where the four members of Steve's team brutally attack and rape Lisa. This for me packed an extra impact because it felt so out of tone with what we'd seen so far in the movie, and we had switched from teen fooling around to very violent territory. The soundtrack to this scene – very brooding and ambient – was also a distinctive switch in mood.

From there we cut to the next night, where the two rival teams are at it again, with Steve and the popular kids bowling up against a bunch of college misfits of various kinds. What struck me here was the odd way the film was shot, as you never saw the two teams on screen at the same time, although they were supposedly trading insults throughout. Only in finding out more about the film after the fact did I learn that it was two sets of footage shot on two different nights. So that's one mystery solved at least...

The other mystery that runs through this film is that another name appears on the scoring machine, BBK. And in finest horror movie tradition, BBK isn't looking to score strikes, but kills. As the night wears on, and more skulls appear on the computer, the teens gradually (and I mean grad-u-a-lly) put together the fact that they're been hunted down by a maniac wearing a bowling ball bag over their head. The look is weirdly face-like, but does beg the question how BBK could actually see to commit any of the murders. I certainly couldn't make out any eyeholes...

The death scenes throughout range from the ridiculous (one guy gets his head shoved into a ball polishing machine) to the shocking 

(Steve gets his just desserts at the end of a sharpened bowling pin shoved in the last place you want a sharpened bowling pin) and I think for me that's where this movie didn't quite hit the mark. It was funny, laugh out loud funny in places, but never seemed to quite make up its mind whether it was trying to be a true shocker or something a bit more tongue in cheek.

It was hard to really feel anything for any of the characters, all of whom were very stereotypical, so when they met their various demises it was hard to respond in any profound way unless the scene was particularly gruesome. There was some sex and nudity, which felt pretty gratuitous, particularly in the public toilet scene, and to be honest both teams were filled with people so unlikeable it was hard to tell who we were really supposed to be rooting for. BBK was probably the most heroic character in the whole piece, for exacting revenge for the attack that started it all. And no, I'm not going to spoil the ending by revealing BBK's identity – that would just ruin it. I'll just say that the ending was confused.

What else can I say about Gutterballs? It was definitely quirky, and certainly, unlike anything I'd seen before in how it presented things and tried to blend the horrific and the hilarious. But ultimately it felt like something of a mess – an enjoyable mess, in fairness, but a mess nonetheless.

RATING: 6/10

The least disturbing film I've reviewed to date, partly because of what is largely a comic feel throughout. With that said, Gutterballs did have a few scenes that will cause the weak stomached out there to pause for thought, particularly in its opening fifteen minutes. But at heart this was really just a bit of campy, B-movie fun with a few scenes that felt like they were there in no small part for their shock value. It probably would have been just as enjoyable without the gore and violence ultimately. For that reason, Gutterballs gets a 6/10 from me – not a strike, but not in the gutter either – just a slightly awkward spare.

REVIEWED BY ALEX DAVIES 

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