The Jackhammer Massacre (2004)

Director: Joe Castro

Screenplay: Daniel Benton and Joe Castro

Cast: Aaron Gaffey as Jack Magnus; Kyle Yaskin as Mike Fletcher; Nadia Angelini as Sam; Trudy Kofahl as Tori Magnus; Jill Moore as Bobbie; Bart Burson as Zach; Evan Owen as Brian; Desi O'Brian Wilson as Nelson; Christopher Michaels as Roger; John Sarley as Darren; Joe Haggerty as Borris; Scott St. James as Taylor; Staas Yudenko as Vic

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #156

 

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The Jackhammer Massacre exists in an unfortunate time period - that, whilst films from the early 2000s have been restored by the likes of Arrow Video for Blu Ray, it is late enough that, whilst so many films from the eighties have been restored regardless of public consensus, this and so many from the early days of straight to video are in obscurity still and do not have the aura of their era¹. In Joe Castro's career, this is a shame as this is arguably his most cohesive film, flaws and all, if you ever wanted a micro budget and equally bleaker take on Abel Ferrera's The Driller Killer (1979), at least for the first half, combined with a slasher film. Even if it is still with boilerplate plotting and restrictions due to his budget, I have to admire Castro and co-writer Daniel Benton, the later who I criticised for Near Death (2004), for a film that is interesting even if you feel dirty watching it.

And bleak is the right term as, set up to start at the middle of the tale only to go backwards to the beginning of his downfall, the film follows Jack Magnus (Aaron Gaffey), a newly successful businessman who is also unfortunately into drugs. Never was there an appropriate anti-drug horror film, as his friend ODs on a new narcotic at the dealer's, before Jack himself loses everything and becomes a vagrant, working as a dishevelled night time guard to a storage building. And here, the budget and aesthetic really help as, shot in Los Angeles, nothing looks glamorous in the slightest, casting unknowns as meth addicts and ordinary environments without any heightened glamour to them appropriately bleak. The result is far danker than its grim tone even initially suggests. Even when two female actresses, one of them adult star Rachel Rotten, are willing to act entirely topless in their small roles, everything is so seedy to the point even the casual nudity is uncomfortable.

Joe Castro has always had a greater visible affinity for more nihilistic tones, his practical effects realistic and grotesque, so having this premise is actually to his advantage. Daniel Benton, who only worked with Castro here and on Near Death, wrote one off episodes for television like Dynasty in the earlier part of his career, so a melodramatic tale where Jack is paranoid, in debt for his addiction, and eventually seeing the ghost of his friend telling him to kill people is just an exaggeration of plots Benton likely has worked with. It can be unbearably grim, hence The Driller Killer comparison is apt, only becoming absurd when a drug dealer shots him up with a concoction of PCP, heroin and meth to kill him, only to push him over the edge and grab a jackhammer. It is not dismissible to Ferrera, playing the central lead in him film, acquiring a drill powered by a backpack battery and assaulting the homeless as part of his own bleak film.

Alongside getting a forearm so swelled and malformed, due to how many needles have pierced the veins, that he has a gaping elbow with enough room to store things in, Jack also hallucinates about beings with needle faces and the D.E.A being after him, part of Castro's growing interest in computer effects alongside slowing down footage to show drug effects or have his best friend, as a hallucination, be transparent talking to him. When Jack decides to go on a rampage and kill anyone who enters the tool shop, his best friend informs him that his paranoia is right, leading to him fully going off the deep end....

....which leads The Jackhammer Massacre turning silly when it ends as a slasher film, where a removal team (a group of men and one woman) come to catalogue the contents of the storage building, but it is strangely charming. After all the darkness of before, and that this has been a slasher film which has actually built up its villain with for more detail than most films in this genre, it actually feels successful for the last thirty minutes to indulge with this genre shift. To have characters, even at work let alone with someone being missing, to suddenly make out, or the clear excuses for many shirtless muscular men onscreen, is still silly, but for once a slash plot is not padded out for ninety minutes and feels a nice change of pace.

Certainly in context this is far from a great film, but truth be told, this was a pleasant surprise from Joe Castro. That is in mind that two-thirds are as bleak as hell, but the sucker punch of what felt like a grim horror drama, only to spring out as a slasher film where the serial killer has been build out in depth, actually is interesting and applaudable. Aaron Gaffey's performance, as everyone else's, is shaky but the film does manage to go from a dishevelled drug addict stumbling over to a drinking fountain for water, than later this same character becoming a jackhammer welding manic ranting to a victim that he knows where the hidden cameras are, whilst making it all make sense. The premise, because drugs are a real concern, can be seen as tasteless, this film having a tightrope to walk, but it manages to succeed. Unlike the many contrived ways Freddy Krueger managed to come back, this at least had a (PCP laced) logic of some form.

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1) We got David DeCoteau's Final Stab (2001), his take on Scream (1996), on Blu Ray from Massacre Video, so anything could happen.