johnnyohno

Having read of this film and its charms in such reputable genre magazines as "Rue Morgue" and "Fangoria" over the past eight years or so, I finally got around to viewing "Shatter Dead" in its newly released DVD format. That said, I find myself shaking my head (and just shaking in general) as to how anyone with an IQ higher than that of the most scholarly of algae could summon up anything positive to say about this terrible waste of time and money. While the premise of having the living dead trying to live amongst us is an intriguing one to this long-time viewer of hardcore porn, (Oops! Did I say hardcore porn? Sorry, I meant to say zombie movies.) there is nothing at all intriguing about watching a lousy student film (which is to say, a student film) shot directly to video, starring said student's film school chums running around backyards and stripmalls with the same blatantly latex makeup jobs as if they'd all consumed cases of Schlitz Malt Liquor with Vicatin chasers. Much more interesting would be a film about a pencil factory where the evil CEO falls into the grinding machine and his soul comes to inhabit millions of number two pencils the world over. Mankind, armed only with his own moxie and a few good pencil sharpeners, in the end are no match for this fiendish plot, and soon succumb to the heathen pleasures of permanent and non-permanent inks. I call it, "Get the Lead Out!", and while it may not exactly be coming to a theater near you anytime soon, when it does, you will find it a much more harrowing experience than say, "Shatter Dead", and you will believe (!!!), or, at the very least, you'll think twice before chomping on our bright yellow friends. As I close, I am reminded again of this kindergarden klownfest's declaration that "God Hates You!". Well, duhh! Tell me something I don't know! Of course God hates me. He told me to watch "Shatter Dead".

"...and the winner is...Richard Burton for "Equus"(!)", is, most unfortunately, a line that has never been uttered. If he had only minced, "...and I don't like the panties, hanging in the bathroom", punctuating each syllable like the drumbeat of a Roman slave ship, he may have won, instead of that other "Dick", Richard Dreyfuss. Then again, Burton had a Paul Schrader screenplay, the luscious Jenny Agutter in support, and a stableful of blinded horses!!! Not exactly the Oscar punch of a Neil Simon screenplay, a limp (is there any other kind?) Marsha Mason performance (Oscar nominated) and the most precocious child performance this side of the little bastard who played "Dondi"(also Oscar nominated, Quinn Cummings, not Dondi). Dreyfuss went on to portray himself again and again in film and television roles. Burton went on to die, without being nominated again. Oh well, with God being dead and everything, it's easy to see how things like this can happen. They shoot good films don't they? Yes they do, so don't say hello to "The Goodbye Girl".

What can one say about this wretched waste of time? It aspires to be many other films, until it becomes a non-film. Think "Crash" without sexual tension, "Lost Highway" without an imagination, "Hellraiser" without thrills and a sense of adventure, and any film that genuinely horrifies, as opposed to a film that is just horrible. Comparisons are redundant when you're speaking of a film as dreadful as this. There's just so little that I've seen that is actually worse than this dreck, that I don't really know what to compare it to. The plot has something to do with Vincent Gallo and some woman in France that eat people and get messy with the blood whilst making new orafices in their victims for god knows what! Paris has never looked so ugly, and come to think of it, neither has that nasty little buffalo-boy, Vinnie Gallo. Take a shower, get off the horse, and start eating more salad. Long live the new flesh? I don't think so.