Carver (2008)

People are voting emotionally.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

A Major Disappointment

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

So, my nephew, a now accomplished Hollywood A-lister for major studio big budget films - got started back in 1987 asking me to borrow my S-VHS (state-of-the art at the time) so he could video tape his whore heroin addict lower Bronx whore street-trash prostitute girlfriend spew her bowel-load of soft-pass fecal matter from a 7-11 re-fried burrito frozen micro-wave oven heated diet - at stag parties for homeless Salvation Army dudes.This video made for a Mississippi drive-in porn truck-stop audience of uneducated, hillbilly, inbred of first cousins seems to rely on the artistic thrust of a high school video production class taught by a felony-convicted sibling rapist.This film is WORSE production value, story line than that.

Friends, on a camping trip in some backwoods area off the beaten path, fall prey to a sadistic wacko hillbilly in overalls who likes to record his handiwork so that he can enjoy future viewings on his projector. There's a twist at the end(..it's HAND HELD!)that won't surprise anyone unless you are the most naive dolt on the planet.The killer, Bobby Shaw(Erik Fones), assaults his victims with a number of tools and the results are often unpleasant. One victim's head is taken off at the neck by a hacksaw. One victim is trapped in an outhouse, his leg smashed with a toilet;it's hinted that Shaw used a wrench to castrate him. One victim is pummeled several times with a sledgehammer. One is stabbed multiple times. One victim has nails hammered into her leg and forehead. And, there's still room for a hacksaw to be buried into the face of a victim, while another's eye is gouged in by a hook. Shaw's older brother runs a beer joint and seems a bit off himself. There's no real style and the violence is carefully executed with director Franklin Guerrero Jr.(..who also wrote this)often cutting away perhaps due to budget restraints. Oh, there's still plenty of blood shed, don't get me wrong, but Guerrero Jr. relies on what we imagine as much as what is presented on screen. For instance, a victim blows her brains out with a shot gun..not seen, but we get the general idea, although the decision to do so, even if your friend was murdered, seems a bit odd. Another scene has Shaw finishing off a victim he had been punishing with the sledgehammer, with a face crushing that's never visible either. This is a common occurrence that infuriates slasher fans, but the film is presented in such a cold, mean-spirited manner(..the way real killers work)that I wonder if the audience would enjoy CARVER anyway, perhaps they would. It's fairly obvious from the production values that the movie was low budgeted, and I never felt Franklin Guerrero Jr. was skilled enough to rise above his limitations. Others might think otherwise, but CARVER, to me, never rises above the countless direct-to-video slasher clones..it's just this one is about a cold-blooded, deranged killer hunting folks in some godforsaken warehouse in the backwoods of rural America. I would go into detail regarding the cast but they all support the film as lambs to the slaughter, nothing more or less. Sick, ugly film that will fade from memory I think not long after you watch it.

OK, first i think i have to thank both the director and the writer of this film for giving me another opportunity to practice my writing skills... Thank you! Now let's get on with the "huaa"s... What surprised me from the very beginning was the song they were playing during the first seconds of the movie... I knew this was a horror and mainly because of that i was expecting something else. Still, i thought maybe i am too conservative and the movie is different from others the like ('finnaly' - i said to myself). But, guess what? I actually was too conservative and the movie was NOT different (even worse). However, i kept watching...So the song ends ('thank god') and the characters begin to appear. Normal conversation, nice surroundings, adequate actors, average acting... I was still hoping ('well, this just might be a good movie'). Everything was great until The Killer joins the party (and, obviously, ruins it - big time). I felt like watching someone playing a computer game - you know, when you keep hitting your opponent and he just doesn't die! Anyway, this is a horror, so let's give him the special enchanted armor a regular killer has... But for Christ sake! There were times when everything was so unbelievable fake (starting with how they were moving and falling and rising after taking several major damage points)!! The entire 'building the personality' process - which wasn't that bad for a horror - was totally ruined by this bad acting. But don't blame the actors! They could have done better! It was the writer or the director (whatever, who's in charge with this?) who made this movie so bad! Despide the cruelty and the intense violence (and, let's be honest here, not so violent after all! i mean, i've seen worse), there was one scene i saw at least two times because, surprisingly, it was too funny: one kills another with a tool, but you can actually see how the victim tries to place himself in the perfect position to be executed and as the executioner makes the move you can hear a sound (special effect) like those from old Japanese movies when they used swords to kill each other. Funny. Very funny! And do i need to say something about the ending? Of course, NO motive, no explanation, no real ending - just some more killing. And the song - so from another planet than the movie!!Conclusion: unless you don't have anything better to do and want to see some violence and some tomato sauce (with extra water added - i guess a low budget feature), do not watch this crap!

Decent gore hampered by an unoriginal, over-done, seen it all before, becoming quite redundant, for the love of God... Story.This is a real shame, because I truly enjoyed everything else about "Carver". It's shot well, the acting is solid and for the most part it is a strong contender to be a stand out horror film. But, instead follows the same olé' boring formulas of a thousand other (better) movies. Director Franklin Guerrero has the eye to make a real name for himself in the business, but first he must trust his "Own" abilities and stop trying to remake other peoples work. And as far as the whole "Based on a true story" (Crap) is concerned, it's just that, and no-one is buying it anymore so you can leave it off the packaging. I look forward to seeing what Mr. Guerrero can do with a story that he writes himself, and not after watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" followed by "The Hills Have Eyes" as a double feature with "Hostel" and then going to his neighbor's house to watch "Vacancy" and "Wrong Turn"....Originality is a key element in this genre... Try it, you might be surprised.