• Directed by Bill Leslie and Terry Lofton
• Written and produced by Terry Lofton
• Starring
  • Rocky Patterson
  • Ron Queen
  • Michelle Meyer

Most slasher films are cliched, right? No one would argue with that. But the cliched ones are actually the middle of the bell curve. Those above the bell are those which use originality and inventiveness to create something more than a cliche. Those below the bell are made by people too stupid to make use of the cliches to help their godforsaken movie (also too stupid to use such things as good dialog, an actual plot, characters, etc.). Nail Gun Massacre falls below the curve. Way below. Like, where the curve has gone practically flat and become one with the base line.

First, we start with a gang rape by a bunch of rednecks at a rural construction site. For just these first few seconds, I held out some hope for this movie; there was no white guys’ butt wagging up and down (as I’ve mentioned before, the best way to make either sex or rape look just plain silly is to actually show it realistically), instead, focusing on the anguish on the woman’s face.

And then that ten seconds passed, and with it all hope.

We then cut immediately to a camo-wearing figure traipsing through the woods, wearing what looks like a motrorcycle helmet wrapped with electrician’s tape, and a nail gun connected to an air bottle backpack by a bright yellow curly hose. (We find out, most of the way through the movie, that six months have elapsed between the rape and the first attack; as far as the film actually conveyed, it could have been twenty minutes later.) The killer cleverly eludes the fat redneck woman hanging out clothes, enters the rundown redneck house, and kills a redneck man (I suppose he was one of the gangrapists — it’s not like they really gave us a good look at their faces) with multiple shots with the nailgun.

Repeat this scene about twelve times, and you have the movie.

Seriously. The next attack is one two woodcutters (after one foolishly left his naked girlfriend who is literally begging for sex — “They’re lonely! They need some attention!”). The sheriff, who apparently is the lone representative of the law in this Texas county, drives up in his non-police car, finds the woodcutters’ pickup truck (again, he says its been there a couple of days; as far as we knw, he drove up while the nailing was actually going on), discovers the bodies, and calls the only other person we will ever see at a crime scene: the doctor, who dresses in white t-shirts and denim jackets to save on the expense of a doctor costume. The doctor comes in, hems and haws, disturbs all of the evidence, and then they leave. Apparently they just let the cycle of nature take its course in Texas.

Meanwhile, three people (and we never really find out their relationship — two brothers and a sister? a guy and his friend and a girlfriend? a free love triumvirate?) are invited to move into the empty house on Old Lady Bailey’s property for free, provided they fix it up. Of course, this is the house where the first redneck was killed. They move in, eat some Spaghettios, buy some lumber, discover the next couple of bodies — AND THEN SUDDENLY DISAPPEAR FROM THE FILM ENTIRELY AT ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH. We’ve followed them for a full half of the movie, and suddenly we’re not interested in them anymore, apparently!

So then some more people are killed, and the killer (who’s got some funky reverb voicebox in that helmet) keeps trying to make Freddy Krueger-like wisecracks that are about as good as you’d expect a redneck killer to make up on his own, and the town… Well, you remember The Town That Dreaded Sundown? After two killings, the entire populace was afraid to go outside, right? Well, apparently this is The Town That Had Its Collective Head Up Its Butt. Everyone still goes to make out in the woods, or traipse around alone and unarmed. We’ve still only got the one lawman and one doctor, examining each body (and making the nailhead appliance jiggle) and then leaving. I mean, they leave the bodies there!

Finally, four-fifths of the way through, the sheriff makes a startling discovery: of the ten victims in the last week, six of them all worked at the same place — that house under construction! And they all happened to be among those accused by the girl at the hardware store of gangrape about six months ago (which the sheriff appears to have investigated in the usual style, i.e., done absolutely nothing except stand around doing his bad Dan Haggerty impression).

But we already know that it’s not the girl doing the killing, because the filmmakers (in an effort to prove that they thought all the viewers were as stupid as their characters) accidentally gave away the identity about twenty minutes into the film. (Not only does this movie contain a character named Bubba — it’s also the killer!)

This doesn’t even cover the list of ineptitudes. I have to share some more:

Apparently no one ever learned about using a microphone to pick up sound; most scenes apparently had a single mike, so that one character is heard crystal-clear and all others are muffled and distant; some scenes are appallingly similar to the one in Singin’ in the Rain.

What is it with hairy-backed guys? I understand why the first victim was shown in an undershirt that exhibited the dark tufts sprouting all over each shoulder; he’s supposed to be a dumbass redneck. But later, a supposedly handsome young fellow is shown shirtless (making the beast with two backs with his ugly, bustless biker girlfriend), and ta-dahh! He’s got a patch of dark back hair on each shoulder blade.

If you’re going to have a scene with wide-eyed corpses, make sure your “corpse” actors know not to blink! Repeatedly! Or breathe deeply!

The biggest problem here (yes, above and beyond those already listed) is that these people are all illiterate, small-minded, ugly rednecks. I find such people so mindnumbingly banal in real life, why should I want to watch them for two hours in my television?

I exploded at the end; the sheriff and the doctor (again, no other law enforcement) chase the killer to his death. says the doctor, “At least the killings are over.”

The sheriff stares expressionlessly as he has the entire movie and says, “Are they?”

I say, “YES, YOU INBRED RETARD! The killer is dead, despite the fact that you couldn’t investigate your way out of your own bathroom! The killings are over, and so is the movie! PLEASE roll credits!”

And finally, they did something right. And credits rolled.

It’s gratifying to know that, with the exception of one girl who played something like “victim’s daughter”and ten years later played “secretary #1″ in some other unknown film, no one involved in this movie was ever part of another movie.