The Scrotum

I've seen a lot of horror films where a lot of different types of monsters chase a lot of... well, pretty similar teenagers, but I never thought I'd be watching film about a killer... er, 'male appendage' shall we say (hey, the clue is in the title!). The closest I guess I've seen was 'The Killer Tongue' back in the nineties.

The title basically tells you everything you need to know about the film, but, if you want any more, a couple who are out camping run into some toxic waste when the man decides to shave 'down below' in the water. This causes one of the most hard-to-watch scenes any man will ever witness when the guy on screen uses a cut-throat razor to saw off... I'll leave it up to your imagination.

However, it doesn't end there (I wish the film ended there). Instead, the bl00dy pair of male dangling bits decide to chase and murder everyone they come into contact with.

Most of the hour-long movie is effectively one random stranger wandering through the woods before coming into contact with our titular monster and then coming off second best. We sometimes get 'point of view' shots from the scrotum's perspective and it's something similar to 'Evil Dead' where you see that thing in the woods constantly chasing Bruce Campbell about the place. I guess I'll never be able to watch any 'Evil Dead' movie again without wondering whether what Ash sees is actually a disembodied scrotum coming to possess him!

And that's about it. Some stranger is killed. Move on to the next until we're finally back with the girl who were met at the beginning of the film. Yeah, I guess it's a novel premise and - yes - that scene with the cut-throat razor was genuinely horrific, but even for a short film like this I can't really recommend wasting an hour of your life just for one gory scene then a 'rinse and repeat' format which follows until the end.

For the sake of science and/or morbid curiosity, I decided to follow Amazon's recommendation and actually watched all 64 minutes of "The Scrotum", including post credits scene. I was expecting a typically knowing cheap horror comedy, but bizarrely it's actually played straight. Or at least as straight as you can, given the fundamentally ludicrous concept. The plot, such as it is, is simply a conveyor belt of badly acted nothing characters who are served up without explanation just so they can be consumed. They take the Jaws principle of "don't show the shark" and lean into it hard (no pun intended). Which to be fair is probably for the best given the nature of the creature. All attempts at character, never mind character development, are terrible. On the plus side, it plays some nice homages to 80's horror such as Evil Dead, and there is one particular scene which was genuinely one of the most nasty and disturbing things I've ever seen on a screen. It also has the single most ridiculous twist/reveal ever commited to film. Not gonna lie, it was pretty terrible, but if you enjoy silly low budget horror it's amusing enough for its short runtime. It even has a sequel, which is baffling. Of course the true horror here is what I have now done to how the Amazon algorithm views me, and what it will recommend next!

Surprisingly, there is a plot to this so-called movie. Toxic chemicals mutate testicles into murderous monsters. There you go. Now that you know what it is about, you can save yourself the hour and very few minutes it takes to watch it. Every male character is a short-lived idiot. I'm not even going to start asking all the questions I still have about the monster. Okay, maybe I'll ask a couple. How does a mutated testicle become physically large enough and strong enough to not only kill full-sized adults, but pursue them at top running speed and worse, drag their bodies around? Yes, these critters are quick enough and have the endurance to chase down a van with enough strength left over to kill the driver. I watched this film constantly wondering how bad it could get. The answer is 'Pretty Freaking Bad', and not in the 'so-bad-it's-good' way, either. It's awful to anyone capable of reason, yet for some reason it spawned a sequel. I'll leave that review to someone else.

After shaving his balls in a lake contaminated by radioactive sludge, Tyler (Ryan A. Renfro) is compelled to hack off his knackers, the severed scrotal sac and testicles mutating into monsters that chase after Tyler's girlfriend Lindsay (Kelsey Tweed).

The Scrotum is cheap. Way too cheap to do its absurd premise justice. The special effects are cheap, the acting is amateurish, and the direction and editing are shoddy, with tacky scene transitions and uninspired tinted POV shots for the testicular attack scenes. The continuity also sucks, Lindsay grabbing a chainsaw to fight back against the rampaging genitalia, only for the saw to magically turn into hedge clippers.

There is the possibility that much of the ineptitude is intentional -- the totally inappropriate use of opera music and slow motion for the testicle attack scenes has to be deliberate -- but this doesn't alter the fact that The Scrotum is bollocks.

2/10. A real test(es) of one's patience.

A young couple, Tyler and Lindsay, are out camping in the great outdoors. They are getting very intimate but she won't "finish him off" unless he shaves off his pubic hair. So off to the lake he does trot and starts shaving his fake genitals. Unfortunately for Tyler some toxic waste has been illegally dumped in the water. He returns to unlucky Lindsay but during their resumed sex he experiences extreme pain and castrates his fake privates. His balls mutate into a blood thirsty monster and the rest of the film has numerous people killed in gory fashion. This is a very low budget movie so don't expect good acting or effects, much of the gore looks like offal from a butcher's shop and probably was. The ridiculous plot means that it's way too stupid to be taken as a serious horror movie, likewise it's not funny enough to work as a credible comedy either. Nice lakeside location though. The running time may only be 64 minutes but that was long enough. If you make it to the end credits then stick with it as there is a post credits scene, it really doesn't add much to the story but does last maybe a minute or so. So if you are looking for a silly short gore fix and provided you don't mind micro budgets then Scrotum may be worth a look.