Gatorblade Films / Reaper Films
Tampa, FL has a pretty cool indie film scene. There's plenty of new titles coming out each year from directors that are pushing the envelope and giving the horror masses more than what you might expect from no budget horror these days. Rough Cut (or as I like to call it - "Zip-Tie: The Movie") is no exception.
Jack (played by Mike Duffau) is an aspiring director. His first big break is taken from him. Then he finds out his wife (played by Tanya Christiansen) has been cheating on him and she wants a divorce. That's when Jack goes a little nutty. He starts to make a new movie where he abducts, tortures and kills completely random people that cross his path. He tries to get the best "performances" from all his "actors" as we see him not-so-slowly lose his mind. That's pretty much it as far as the story goes besides a few minor plot points that aren't really the main attraction in this creepy film.
Now, when you watch a no budget movie, you expect the acting to be a little...um...not so good. But I was actually very surprised by the performances here. We see Jack talking to himself all through the film and there's a ton of ad-libbing in the torture and murder scenes which raises the tension in these scenes. The interaction between Jack and a couple of the victims, like "Bolt Hand Victim" (Tamara Tathem), "Finger Nails Victim" (Olivia Blake) and "Wakey, Wakey Victim" (Jeannine Fiallo) are really good. They grab your attention and make you feel a little dirty for actually watching it all take place. Not all the acting is the best but these and a few other performances definitely push the movie and will keep you watching.
The gore effects are all practical. You can tell that, more than likely due to budget, a lot of the gore takes place off-camera. Some of it works, some of it doesn't - but overall, it's pretty effective and doesn't take you out of the story too much. I liked how some of the shots were on-camera but out of focus. Plus, there were more than a few interesting shots and camera angles that gave the feel of voyeurism. Speaking of voyeurism - the masturbation kill is one of the strangest things I've seen in a while.
Chris Leto (The Housewife Slasher, Die Die Delta Pi) directs this oddball slasher film and does a good job of engaging with the audience. Overall, I liked it. The only issues I had with it were minor. I almost stopped watching it about 15-20 minutes in. It just wasn't going anywhere and I felt like I might be wasting my time, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The movie really started picking up and was way better than I was expecting. I'm not a huge fan of new SOV movies but I would definitely recommend this one, especially if you're into any of the other films coming out of Tampa lately.
You'll notice the 2013 date at the top. I guess the movie has been on the shelf for a couple years and Sean Donohue at Gatorblade decided to finally get it out. The film gets it's official release on DVD in February 2016 but I've got a few of these guys available at Grindhouse Video now if you don't want to wait.
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