User reviews

The Jackhammer Massacre (a.k.a. Jackhammer – 2004) C-89 min. D: Joe Castro. Aaron Gaffey, Kyle Yaskin, Bart Burson, Nadia Angelini, Evan Owen, Rob Rotten, Rachel Rotten, Desi O'Brian. A direct-to-DVD revenge/slasher movie details a successful businessman's fall into insanity and growing love for his jackhammer, thanks to drugs. The first slasher movie in memory to blame its killer's antics on drugs...for a while, it even works too (with some nasty & gory special effects). It's nice to see a direct-to-DVD slasher gorefest. Unfortunately, the film's horrendous acting (worse than anything the 80s slasher films had to offer, which is really sad) and laughable last 20 minutes lead to its downfall. There is no excuse for the filmmakers to have been satisfied with the amount of bad acting in this movie (though the lead, Aaron Gaffey, isn't half bad). RATING: 3 out of 10. Rated R for graphic violence and gore, grisly images, drug use, sexuality, adult themes, and profanity.

"The Jackhammer Massacre"

Jack is a yuppie with a secure job and a penchant for occasional heavy drugfests with his best buddy. When his friend overdoses, Jack flees the scene and leaves him to die, not wanting to get caught with illegal substances. Unable to live with the guilt, Jack becomes a full-time junkie. He loses his professional job, garbage picks for food, and starts sporting a nasty infection (read: gigantic puss-filled growth) on his arm. As he downward spirals, he begins to hear the voice of his dead best friend, telling him to...well...murder people with a jackhammer!

This B-grade movie is pretty bad and starts out really slow. After the first few sequences, it starts showing an offbeat charm and the rest proves to be entertaining. The gore is more amusing than realistic, and it is nasty to watch Jack poke at his "infection" with a cotton swab and watch it ooze grossness. The hallucination scenes are twisted. If you have a fear of needles, or a fear of someone lurching at you and stabbing you with a syringe filled with an unknown substance, then that is the only real scare factor in "The Jackhammer Massacre."

The acting is below average but you can't help but laugh at the curious casting choices. All the members of the male cast look like gay porn stars and at some point all (10 or so) of them find it appropriate to take their shirts off and show their waxed, ripped torsos. It is hilarious and rather bizarre, as this movie is marketed as a straightforward slasher. A guy ODs, he takes his shirt off. A guy gets drenched in blood, he removes several layers until his chest is bare. Every single male cast member has his moment where he gets to remove his shirt. I found these inexplicable topless scenes highly amusing, as they reminded me how ridiculous it is when female characters randomly strip for no reason in genre movies. Jack also seems to have a fondness for stripping his male victims down to their undies for no apparent reason. And it is hard to ignore the sexual innuendo of Jack's Hammer--often murdering his victims by forcing his tool through their mouths. Is Jack repressing his sexuality? Does the voice of his dead (shirtless) friend represent more than what it seems? If the director is intending homoerotic undertones, he doesn't bother to clarify why, and it doesn't really matter because this movie is just a goofy spectacle.

For a movie that is basically saying "drugs are bad and will ruin your life," this doesn't take itself too seriously, so it is easy to laugh at its ridiculousness and be grossed out. And isn't that what B-horror movies are supposed to be about? Bonus points for featuring two characters that just so happen to be lesbians.

My Rating: 5.5/10

When the credits of a movie contain listings like "naked junkie girl" you know this is going to be about as far removed from art as you can get. Okay, maybe I am being a little too hard on this movie. On second thought . . . no I'm not. This starts out as a straightforward drama about a yuppie who tosses his career into the dumper because of his addiction to drugs. Actually this all happens rather fast and I was hoping for a little more character development but heck, the director was in a hurry to get to the gore and that's what the people who went to see this movie were waiting for.

So then . . . Jack, our anti-hero, has a job as night watchman for a warehouse and he is usually too stoned to even do that. His supplier is after him for money, his boss fires him, his only pal dies in his arms of an overdose; what's left of his world is crashing down and what's a drug addled loser to do? He goes nuts of course and grabs the nearest power tool he can get . . . in this case a jackhammer.

Now then here's the stuff you were waiting for. Anyone who ventures into that warehouse for the rest of the movie is fodder for Jack's hammer. There is ample gore but you have to wonder when one of the potential victims is going to figure out the obvious; just run far enough that Jack runs out of extension cord! Does that ever happen? Maybe I should tell you and save you from having to suffer through this movie like I did. Hmmmmmm . . . no! Ain't I mean?

The acting is okay, the effects are pretty good, the plot is cabbage. This is the sort of things that would have played in grindhouses back in the heyday of 42nd St and the Combat Zone. Now you can rent it on DVD and turn your own living room into a grindhouse. Hey, it's much safer that way.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the theatre, there's Jack Hammer.

A movie about a Jack, whose drug addiction leads to homelessness, weakness, and murder.

He lives as a security guard in a abandoned machine shop after losing his cushy day job to drugs, when his best friend OD's and dies on the street in a bad part of town.

He had it all, nice car, a yellow Viper, I wouldn't have gone with yellow, but okay - the great job, but he lacked self esteem, his ego being a little too big for his britches syndrome if you will. He had no real direction. So far it seems a pretty realistic approach, but soon the movie flails like a fish out of water - to become a cliché, and unredeemable display of stupidity so profound, I am ashamed for the actor who had to play Jack.

I'm just gonna get real nitpicky here a second and say - JackHammer was one of the worse movies I have ever seen in my entire life.

Yes, people, the summary above is true. If you took a crap and it came out disc shaped and you put it in your DVD player, you'd have The Jackhammer Massacre. I'm not kidding in the least, bruh. This movie is one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever seen, and I like a lot of crap movies. I don't like to bash movies because it makes me look like an idiot who probably couldn't make a better movie if my life depended on it, but I could film myself sleeping for two hours and it'd be more entertaining (and plausible) than this turd.

Let me start off by commenting on the acting by giving a witty analogy: If someone told you to eat a burger filled with cat turds and then act as if you enjoy it, you'd eat it, and try to act like you enjoy it. Of course, you're acting would be horrible, but in comparison to this, it'd be more believable than anything you'd see in here. The movie is about a junkie, so naturally, the guy should be able to look like a junkie. Instead, it looks like the director messed up his clothes and told him to act like he drank about a dozen cups of coffee. Because that's what it looks like, it looks like the main actor is perked on coffee.

The story. Let me tell you something witty and funny. The writer of this movie probably wrote this movie on a typewriter. If he did, which I like to believe, I commonly refer to the typewriters which bad movies are written from to be TRIPEwriters, HA-HA! Okay, back to the story. The story is about a man, named Jack (I smell irony and witty writing with that name!), who has a good job, a cool car, and lots of money. But, underneath the high paying job and cool car, Jack has an addiction…an addiction to DRUGS! One day, he and his buddy go to a rundown part of town to get high (this also happens literally five minutes into the movie; I guess these movie makers never heard of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!). They do get high, but Jack's friend overdoses and dies. Jack, being a narcissistic idiot, lets him die on the road. Then suddenly, from that one bad experience, he loses everything. Mind you, we never see him lose everything, we just assume that he has because again, he's wearing dirty clothes. But whatever. Now, after his downfall, he works as a security guard in a garage, and is still a junkie. He owes some bad people some money, so here's what they do: They go to him, kick the ever loving s*** out of him, and pull out a syringe of some kind of drug that's supposed to kill him. Now, even though this stuff if supposed to kill him (and was probably supposed to kill everyone they shot it into), one of the thugs says that he's heard some 'bad' stuff about the drug, that it can make you really strong. Yes, this makes sense. A drug that's been made to kill people has supposedly made people strong, even though it's made to kill them. How did the people who were injected even alive to exhibit these super powers if the drug's made to kill them? Exactly. Because this movie sucks. Jack is injected, he gets ridiculously powerful, and starts to kill everyone with a jackhammer. I smell an Oscar! Oh, wait, no, I smell a crap story, my bad.

Someone who likes this movie can argue, "Well, this movie is supposed to show the horror of drugs, are you stupid, LOL(!)" I would have to agree with this statement. As much as I hate this movie, I do agree that it shows what comes from drug use. It's obvious that the people who made this were on some kind of drugs, and made this piece of misery. Now kids, if you're reading, when you do drugs, you make stupid movies like this, so don't do drugs!

That's my two awesome cents on this movie. This movie's stupid, boring, and stupid. For a movie that's supposed to discourage drug use, it sure does make you wanna take something afterwards to forget that you ever saw it.

Score: 1 out of 10.

Wait, I take that back.

0 out of 10.

The Jackhammer Massacre (aka Jackhammer) follows the exploits of Jack the Junkie. Always high and looking to score Jack takes a leap off the deep end when a friend OD's. The first thirty minutes are basically him conning to get a score, boring. Back and forth he sways with the ethereal wind until one of his suppliers comes calling g for his cash. Oddly enough even as a full-time junkie Jack can find a job as a security guard at a warehouse with construction weapons, err tools. It seems Jack's paranoia really kicks in with a little help from his OD'd friend's ghost. Well hey this is where that jackhammer of the title rears its head and Jack goes to town thinking everyone's DEA.

The first 30 are slow and boring, who wants to see someone continuously shooting up. I don't at least. An interesting arm infection is a highlight of the first reel, not even bare chests and breasts can help that. But when the slaughter begins you can at least start cracking the power cord jokes (a la MST3K) and giggle and snicker at the bad dialogue and horrible delivery.

From a horror stand-point...this movie was terrible. As a message on saying NO to Drugs, this movie hits the nail on the head. I remember being moved after watching Leonardo DiCaprio in "Basketball Diaries" and I can honestly say this movie did the same. It proves that nobody is out-of-reach from drugs. It started with a young man who had a very good job, was respected by his peers, nice car, lots of money and the drugs took everything away from him until the final outcome. I'm being honest saying the producers should remove all the garbage scenes involving the jack hammer, re-arrange a few things, cut some, add some and this would be an ideal movie to show in schools to teach kids drugs can totally destroy your life. I'm going to ignore some of the ridiculous garbage in this movie and from an anti-drug point of view...I'll give the movie a strong 7 !

A "making of" featurette for Jackhammer Massacre would look like an episode of MacGyver in how director Joe Castro and a few side-kicks made a movie with a stick of gum, a few boxes, and a door bell ringer. That in itself is quite an impressive feat, and the final production value quite honestly does not show the laughable budget and resources (laughable by Troma standards no less.) Don't get me wrong, this movie does obviously look and feel low budget (really low budget) – it does not come across as a couple guys who borrowed the digital camcorder and shot at home using the props found in the glove-box, back seat, and trunk. And while praising the film, let me also add that the film has some good moments of gore (specifically, the gore not affiliated with the jackhammer.) Sadly, this praise does not mean this has yielded a good film.

Jackhammer Massacre presumes that we care about Jack and his tragedy while it flashes back to his formerly successful life as a prick businessman destined to screw himself over with bad choices and become the psychotic prick killer. Jackhammer presumes wrong.

While roughly a third of the running time is dedicated to the unsympathetic tragedy that is our killer Jack and his cartoony (not to mention comical) delusions, the victims show up just long enough to be killed. Or in other words Jack is treated as the main character, it develops him with a prepackaged uninteresting scenario of how his friend ODed and he became addicted . . . and the movie assumes we'll sympathize with everyone else because "they're walking into a death trap." Jackhammer assumes wrong.

Ever hear the overstated remark "The hero is only as good as the villain he faces"? Jackhammer built up their villain but forgot the hero entirely, resulting in a narratively unbalanced film. It's not the fact that Jack's development is screwed that hurts the film – don't get me wrong, though, that alone cripples it – the real nail in the coffin is the fact there's really no one with any cinematic weight and screen presence to metaphorically oppose him. The head of the salvage crew gets a heroic introduction shot, and that's the extent of her character development.

Jack's sister and her friend? The movie literally throws them away before the audience can gain any emotional investment in them. Jack's boss? We see his face long enough to memorize it before he bites the dust. The guy buying the shop and his assistant? They walk in, perform the horror gimmick of looking around and then die. The salvage crew? They live a little bit longer, but to say these characters are introduced would be a severe and misleading overstatement. A very precise tagline for the film would be "Show up and die." Outside, LA life goes on. Across the globe, the sun sets, and the world keeps on turning. And nobody cares about the handful of strangers we never met whom we'll never see again.

Slasher films need to kill characters to be effective. Jackhammer kills cameo appearances.

Then there was Jack's delusions, his dead buddy who returns from the grave to haunt him with phrases like "You let me die" spoken in a tone that sounds curiously similar to that smug and sarcastic Randal in Kevin Smith's Clerks. As a direct result, the scenes came across not as a delusion haunting a man to drive him insane, rather as a smart-ass ghost heckling the living for kicks. Granted a number of scenes in the film were intentionally comical (Jack's hallucination of running from the spotlight, for example), I don't sense Joe Castro intended the ghostly apparition to have that caliber of goofiness.

While speaking on the comedy element, it never quite hits its mark. The presentation of the horror/comedy blend feels eerily similar to those unintentionally lame 80s rip offs of Friday the 13th made by incompetent hacks who fail to realize how idiotic a situation they've presented. And only through the overwhelmingly ludicrous scenarios and cutting does it become apparent that the Jackhammer Massacre has its tongue in its cheek . . . in places. In other places, like with the previously discussed tragedy of Jack and the heckling ghost of Overdosed past, does the film realize how ineffective that is? I have my doubts.

With Jackhammer's various misfires, it's not surprising how tempting it becomes to target the things the film never cared about. For example, how impractical is it to kill with an 80lb jackhammer? Who is stupid enough to fall in a puddle of blood mixed with intestines and then peel off his soaked shirt as if he just had a coffee stain? How long is that extension cord? And of course, Jackhammer's obedience to the horror formula with a set of characters making out because they can.

Jackhammer is a slasher, and thank God it knows it's a slasher; however, it's still apparent that it doesn't know how to be a good slasher, which is okay. It has a ton of brothers and sisters on the rental shelf next to it to keep it company.

Jack Magnus (Aaron Gaffey) is a successful businessman who periodically does drugs with his best friend Mike (Kyle Yaskin). When Mike takes some bad stuff, Jack panics and leaves him to die. His guilt eventually causes him to become a full fledged, utterly pathetic junkie. After being force fed a particularly nasty brew by a vindictive supplier, Jack seems to only grow stronger, surviving the ordeal and living on to become a crazed jackhammer killer. He's now utterly paranoid, believing that everybody is out to get him, with his paranoia manifested in visions of his dead friend.

This viewer won't deny that this mostly routine little movie is crap, but it's crap of a very amusing variety. Co-writer / director / special makeup effects creator Joe Castro knows he's making just about the furthest thing from high art, and is clearly having a ball creating sordid characters and grisly scenarios. Some horror fans may feel that the movie isn't quite gory *enough*, but it does deliver a respectable dose of tacky in-your-face splatter. The story works best when it comes to the visions of Mike, getting positively trippy and insane.

The acting may not be much good, but it serves its purpose in a tale of this variety. The exception is Gaffey as Jack. This guy really is pretty good. Once he's descended into 100% junkie mode, he's always completely dishevelled and constantly drooling. He looks like an absolute wreck, and his insanity is damn entertaining. It also doesn't hurt any that the ladies in the cast, such as Nadia Angelini as Sam and Trudy Kofahl as Tori, are easy on the eyes.

Fun stuff for very undemanding viewers.

Six out of 10.

This movie brought to full and vivid life the powers of addiction. My girlfriend does not understand how strong addictions can be. My addiction is only to cigarettes, Thank God, but I still understand Jack's addiction. I have sold personal items and even looked in dumpsters to feed my addiction to cigarettes. That probably sounds pretty pathetic to you, but unless you know the power of an addiction, it would sound pathetic.

If the gore could be toned down some, I bet this film could be used in drug rehab clinics and in schools to show exactly what drugs and addictions can do to people. After all, who in their right mind would want to wind up like our friend Jack? It was a cheap, low budget gore fest with a message. How many films can do that?

JACKHAMMER aka Jackhammer Massacre , Director's Cut. Written and Directed by Joe Castro. Starring Aaron Gaffey, Rachel & Rob Rotten and Joe Haggerty. This is an amazing ride, It has stuff YOU have never seen in Horror, Before ! The acting was all believable, The story very unique. There were tributes to Laserblast, Leaving Las Vegas and American Werewolf in London. Special effects were something like Davids, Cronenberg and Lynch. Let's discuss the relationship of a man and his Jackhammer. The tool looks real and makes hamburger helper out of a lot of victim's body parts. While watching it,Got a weird sensation of Déjà vu and it's because of Charles Band handling of Laserblast. This movie showed you don't pick on someone with Issues or Aliens will make Him KICK UR ARSE ! Some scenes,should be spoiler warnings; The dueling Land Of The Giants hypodermic appendages/ screw driver brain surgery/ and never unplug your extension cord, Too funny. Joe Castro and Steven Escobar should be given more money to make the film there effects can imagine, But JACKHAMMER is a good start. Oh,yeah, Great Anti-Drug message too, In case the MPAA is reading this, LOL.

the movie is kinda weird with crappy acting and the basically the fist half hour is jack and some junkies shootin up or smoking. Then it gets interesting. Jack is a paranoid junkie who kills on drugs hes almost powered by drugs. He also uses his jack hammer to kill his victims. Some of his victims r friends and family. jack is basically trippin the whole movie, making up some crazy paranoid story and killing anyone in his way.

The Gore effects are pretty good ,some of the killings look great. Some other things to notice in the movie that catch out r, a scene where jack cleans out his shoot- up arm with poor equipment, a lesbo couple, Jacks dead Friend that talks to him and only Jack can see.

so if u like to see a movie about a tripped out homicidal confused junkie who kills people with a jackhammer, then its worth seeing.Overall i thought it was pretty good and original story. RATING: 6/10