Ruptured Review: The Nail Gun Massacre

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 1985  

Directors- Bill Leslie, Terry Lofton
Stars- Rocky Patterson, Ron Queen, Beau Leland

What do you call a film with gangrape in the first 60 seconds? The Nail Gun Massacre. Yes that’s right folks, this film throws us straight into the deep end with a rather grotty gangrape scene that is presented with no backstory or context just to make completely sure your instantly cringing once you sit down to watch this bizarre low budget 80’s slasher.

Directly after the rape scene we see possibly the hairiest man ever to grace a backwoods cabin shouting at his wife about his dirty shirts. This pretty quickly leads to him having a rather penetrating encounter with a motorcycle helmeted madman who seems to have stolen Robert Ginty’s head gear from The Exterminator and Richard Harrison’s ninja suit from Ninja Terminator. After this we see the credits roll while we hear the strange and distorted laughter of the nail gun wielding killer. From there on in the film revolves around poorly portrayed cardboard characters being killed off in surprisingly quick succession in often hilarious ways by the wise cracking nail gunner, all while a hick sheriff and a cowboy doctor pretend to look for the killer, while really not giving a shit. The film eventually reaches its predicable climax after 85 minutes having only just explained the significance of the opening rape scene.

I went into this one wanting a cheap, sleazy bloodthirsty slasher film drenched in bad acting and pointless nail gun fodder, and by God did I get it. This film oozes low budget 80’s horror cheese, everything from the dialogue that sounds like it was written ten minutes before filming, to the overly loud synth music that pops up almost at random, this film has it. Now, don’t get me wrong, this film is rubbish, but it’s a very special type of rubbish that I find inexplicably enjoyable. It’s often hard to place why I like certain rubbish films and so passionately hate others, but in the case of The Nail Gun Massacre it is clear why I enjoyed it so much, the killer. This film manages to stand out from the gigantic throng of 80’s trash slashers by having a killer with both purpose and personality that is the instantly enjoyable to watch. If you enjoy slasher films that were made in some random patch of woodland on the budget of a packet of crisps then you will cream/soak your underwear for The Nail Gun Massacre. I cannot recommend it enough, that’s why I am going to give it 7.5/10.   

This film very recently got it's first UK region free Blu-Ray release from 88 Films which is well worth picking up.