They Don't Cut the Grass Anymore

Nathan Schiff's "They Don't Cut the Grass Anymore" is an extremely gory horror film about two Texas gardeners,Billy Buck(John Smihula) and Jacob(Adam Berke),who mutilate yuppies.The film mixes the gory imagery with broad comedy.The gore is pretty extreme and disgusting,but the special effects are really crummy,so it's hard to take them seriously.Basically various people are killed and dismembered in the variety of grisly ways."They Don't Cut the Grass Anymore" is much better than Schiff's debut "Weasels Rip My Flesh",so if you like 'em bloody give it a look.Here is my favourite gore scene:a young girl swallows a firecracker before taking a shotgun blast in her crotch!

I am a huge Gore Hound, and read the reviews on IMDb and got this from netflix. I thought I was gonna see a movie that was so bad that it's good. I did not get that at all. The gore is so fake. The intestines are obviously pieces of rope because most of time you see them they are bright white. When they rip the girls' faces off (which is done rather easily I might add) there is a squishing noise that is obviously done with someone's mouth making the noise. I know this is low budget, but it's ridiculous that this even got released. You or I could make this film. I watched the interview with Nathan Schiff on the DVD. He said that this was meant to be a satire with a good script and decent acting behind it. However, he wanted John Smihula in it and he was going into the peace corps in two weeks. So, he had to shoot it in 2 weeks and cut most of the ideas he had and just make it a gore film. He wrote the film quickly and had to use people who had never acted before. Here's an idea Nathan, instead of building the entire movie around John Smihula, why didn't you get another actor who could do it,which would have given you more time to make the movie you claim you wanted to? So, contrary to what people say this is not a gore hounds delight, unless you like obviously fake effects with dolls in plain view. HG Lewis had better effects in Wizard of Gore in 1967.

If "The Long Island Cannibal Massacre" and particularly "Weasels Rip my Flesh" taught me only one thing, it is that you need to be in a specific sort of condition in order to truly enjoy the movies of Nathan Schiff. Clinically dead, for example, or lobotomized.

Just as its predecessors, "They don't cut the grass anymore" is a sickening and repulsive amateur splatter-movie full of misogyny and vile intentions. In fact, if the gore effects weren't so weak and pathetic, this could easily be the most disturbing horror movie in history. So far, nothing remarkable. What really amazes me, though, is that writer/director Nathan Schiff and his buddies are still incompetent and terrible at making films even though it's already their third attempt. I mean, even the dumbest and most primitive living organisms evolve and become better at what they do. This theory clearly doesn't apply to Mr. Schiff, as his third full-length film is still as lousy and inept (possibly even lousier and more inept) as the previous two. You can literally feel your brain cells dying off while watching "They don't cut the grass anymore".

Thinking up awesome and juicy titles is pretty much the only thing Nathan Schiff excels at. This is the heartbreaking tale of two hideous rednecks from Texas, Billy-Buck and Jacob, making a living as home gardeners in the state of New York. They detest rich people, and women altogether, so they go on a random killing spree. They peel off girls' faces to the skull, rip out intestines, impale their victims in the rear, blast shotgun holes in crotches, and so on, and so on... There's nothing else happening, honestly. Even though only 70 minutes long, it's a really dull experience.

This is only the first film I've seen from the collection of Long Island director and exploitation buff Nathan Schiff (I believe it was his third) and I was fairly amused by it, which was his intention for the most part. In that regard, TDCTGA (a fun title, by the way) was occasionally entertaining for me in a humorous way and prevented it from being a BOMB.

Of course, it's 8mm homegrown film-making and extremely crude, too. The acting and dialogue is terrible across the board, and there's no real story to the gruesome festivities other than two Texas dimwits hacking folks to pieces out in the suburbs -- but narrative is not necessarily a requirement for an exploitation flick, as long as it delivers the gory goods. And in that department, Schiff surprised me at times with the realistic-looking execution of some of his splatter sequences, while at other times they were so obviously fake that they lost the desired effect. In any case, it's always interesting to see independent efforts like this one, and note how the filmmakers try to utilize whatever effects, sets and locations are available to them. Here, a ravaged old house that was about to be torn down is put to good use as the sickening dwelling place of our featured maniacs.

If this had been made 20 years earlier it probably could have played in grindhouse theatres. It's too bad times have changed. Anyway -- I'd think gore hounds could have some laughs with this one if they know what to expect going in. And what not to expect. * out of ****

Nathan Schiff's third film is yet another gorefest that is gloriously short (clocking in at only 70 minutes) but that's all you need b/c there is no plot and no acting chops at all. Well, actually, I can't deny that John Smihula did a decent job as the Southern hick "mastermind" who ends up killing a bunch of Northern yuppies with his deranged friend. The way he delivered his lines made the horrendous dialogue only that much funnier. More entertaining in terms of gleeful abandonment of any attempt at making a serious film. I mean the dialogue is worse than most porn movies (it's truly truly TRULY bad). The gore is impressive though yet again (taking into consideration that this is a NO-budget movie) and that's all that really matters…watching people's faces get ripped off and their intestines yanked out in gloriously fake (but utterly disgusting and vile) detail. Long live Schiff!