Sweatshop

What we have here is a cheap horror movie with terrible dialogue who's only saving grace is its bad guys and quite impressive gore scenes.

The movie starts with a naked goth chick being killed. Then for 20 minutes you just watch the rest of the non acting cast spout the terrible, unfunny dialogue and dance. I'm not even joking there is a 5 minute scene of three of these idiots just dancing. The set up of this movie is a little dated. I don't know if it is supposed to be set in the late 90's but judging by all the cheesy goth attire and the fact they're going to a secret rave it should be.

When we finally get to the meat of the film what we actually get is a lot of meat. The gore scenes in this movie are actually very impressive and if like me you were just constantly annoyed by the pathetic characters, you'll enjoy seeing them smashed by a giant hammer in ever more inventive ways. The main bad guy 'The Beast' is also a pretty imposing figure. Both the gore and 'The Beast' are what made me score this movie any points.

I wouldn't seek this movie out. Just wait until it's on the horror channel and watch for free, you'll enjoy it more that way.

I really wouldn't say that Sweatshop came as a disappointment. In fact it was the complete opposite.

Overall it isn't a good film. Its a movie that has poor acting and poor characters that you hate right from the beginning, but it feels very deliberate. The best thing about Sweatshop is that the most annoying characters are killed in phenomenal ways which gives you a strong sense of satisfaction!

The last 15 minutes of the movie is where it really kicks in.

Go and see Sweatshop if you are a fan of practical gore effects, because there aren't many movies out there that demonstrate gore as well as Sweatshop does!

Sweatshop starts off with a young naked woman trying to escape an unknown killer in an industrial building, only for a cop to come in and accidentally blast her death. Quite an opening! The rest of the plot sees a group of punks/Goths stage a rave in the same building, but killers lurk inside. I bought this on DVD for £1 and it was quite a bargain, I remember thinking Wow after my first viewing. Fast forward several years and I have just watched it for a second time, sadly I felt a lot less impressed. This is a B-movie so it goes without saying that the acting is not going to be of a high level, and it's not. Generally speaking it is reasonable but there a few of those awkward silences between characters, etc. If, like me, you find Goth chicks attractive then you get your monies worth here. There are several scenes of sex and nudity, on the flip side much of the dialogue consists of sex talk (in particular oral sex), this does become a bit tedious. After the initial death the movie does drag for the next 20 minutes or so, it is one of those slasher movies that progressively gets more violent as it goes on but may test the patience of some viewers. The killer is a hulking man who wears a welding masks and is called The Beast, however he also has a pair of female accomplices who look like nightmarish vampires. This is never explained and to be honest I would have preferred to have just had The Beast alone, thus avoiding slightly confusing thoughts (are these women of supernatural origin, etc?). Negatives aside what Sweatshop does is provide much splatter. Beast wields a huge foundry hammer and uses it to literally smash some of his victims to pieces. He also indulges in some torture porn too, one victim has her fingers cut off one by one. Given the low budget the graphic special effects are impressive, if you don't like nasty gore movies then this most certainly is not for you! The closing credits are cool, each cast member is shown with three photos, the third ones being of their corpses (or what's left of them!). For splatter fans only.

I picked up a copy of "Sweatshop" because it seemed like a fairly interesting slasher movie, and the DVD cover did have a certain appeal.

And now having seen the movie, I can say that it is a fairly average slasher at best. The story is straight forward, albeit a bit lacking depth and any real weight as to whom the killer and his two ghouls were and where they came from.

The story is about a group of young people, punks, emos and goths, who are at an abandoned building to set up a rave of sorts. But they are not alone there, and a deranged killer is going to turn the party into a bloody mess before the night is over.

What makes the movie bearable to sit through is the amount of violence and gore there is. The effects are nice and look realistic, which is really what is the major supporting factor that carries the movie. Plus the way that the violence and mayhem is executed is quite well, fun (in a morbid way) and inventive. There are some fairly interesting and brutal scenes to be seen throughout the movie.

As for the characters, well despite having cool costumes and outfits they turn out to be rather meaningless people that you don't really come to have any sort of relationship to as you watch the movie. It is not a matter of if they die - it is a matter of how. And the size of the hammer made from an anvil, well it just seems so ridiculous, as the guy can handle it so easily, and you can see that it is painstakingly fake as there is no weight to it as he lifts it.

For fans of macabre and violent movies, then you will surely find something enjoyable in "Sweatshop". But for fans of the horror genre, then you'll most likely find the movie to be plain and rather generic.

Somewhere, someone said: "OK, let's find an abandoned warehouse, fill it with annoying, expendable young people, and kill them off in horrible ways! It'll be the best movie ever!" Then, 2 seconds later: "Oh yeah, and let's bring in a hillbilly and a huge guy with the world's biggest hammer (aka: a steel pole with an anvil on it)!".

SWEATSHOP explores a man, his sledge-o-matic, and the punks he pulverizes. In between homicides there's mindless chatter and rave party decoration. These in-between times make up a lot of the movie.

Gorehounds will rejoice, as the splatter quotient is quite high. The Beast (hammer man) and his female cohorts eliminate the intruders by means most grisly! Anyone looking for anything other than a slippery bloodbath could be very disappointed...