Carver (Unrated – 2008)
R1 / NTSC DVD
Allumination / 2008
Directed by: Franklin Guerrero Jr.
Written by: Franklin Guerrero Jr.
Cast: Matt Carmody, Kristyn Green & Neil Kubath
Review by Brian Harris

A group of friends head out to the woods to get their party on before heading off to school but their trip doesn’t go quite as planned after they happen upon some questionable low budget horror films. Could they be real? There’s no better way to find out then to stick around until the psycho comes looking for you, right?

Carver wasn’t a bad film at all but there’s really nothing here that would differentiate it from the hundreds of countless slasher films already out on DVD. Admittedly, the premise of a killer making home videos for his snuff collection is interesting but the killer himself is…well…a complete oaf. I’m sure that was the point, to show that he’s not entirely capable of killing all those people on his own, but c’mon, he makes Ethan Suplee’s character Randy Hickey from My Name is Earl look like Einstein.

Anyhow, the acting really wasn’t bad; it was a step up from the performances in Guerrero Jr.’s last film, The 8th Plague. That doesn’t mean they were amazing or anything but they were adequate. The gore on the other hand kicked all sorts of ass and really rocked my box. It was everything you could ask for in a slasher flick. Hell, they even threw some tits in for good measure! Yup, it would appear that they remembered everything that makes a great horror film except one thing…a solid story.

Carver is 100% horror-by-the-numbers. While the kills were fun and brutal, the film itself was dreadfully tedious and unoriginal. There’s very little tension generated here because the characters are all a bit hard to like and the killer is impossible to take seriously. By the time the film really gets rolling you’re really on hanging in there for more gore and THE INFAMOUS TESTICLE SCENE. Now don’t get me wrong, the “sack scene” was truly impressive but if that’s all you have to go on then you didn’t craft a well thought out horror film but rather a fetish flick for the goremongers.

By the way…BASED ON TRUE EVENTS? *sigh* Lame.

• Screen Format: 1.78:1 Widescreen / Color
• Audio: English / Dolby Surround
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Running time: 100 mins.

• Audio Commentary w/ Director & Producers
• Deleted Scenes
• Behind-The-Scenes
• Trailer

Whenever I see a specific torture sequence in a film being pushed to fans it automatically sets off alarms in my head. Add the “based on true events” bullshit to the mix and you’ve got yourself a film that’s more than likely all hype and very little substance. In the case of Carver, that continues to hold true; there just isn’t much here. As gory, but forgettable, slasher fodder, it was relatively entertaining. I’d rent before purchasing though because there really isn’t much replay value here.

“Slasher Cinema Resurrected!”