Synopsis
Aaron Gaffey plays Jack, whom we first meet in a warehouse, strung out, paranoid andfestering, and who, given some unholy drug cocktail overdose, flips his lid and kills histormentors with a jackhammer (hence, the title). Extended flashbacks then show us how Jackdescended into a hell of drug addiction, and he now takes orders from the hallucination of hisdead best friend. The orders, unsurprisingly, consists in killing as many people as possible withthe jackhammer.
< ...>I’ll say this for the film: it doesn’t cheat. A jackhammer massacre it promises, and that’swhat we get, in explicit yet cheesy gory detail. That’s about all we get, however. The non-existence of the budget is obvious, and the bulk of the film consists in contriving ways forcharacters to wander into Jack’s warehouse and get whacked. Uninspiring.
Audio
The music has a decent mix going for it, but the audio is generally weak. The dialogue issometimes almost inaudible, and there is some distortion. The overall volume level is quite low,and this is especially true of the commentary track, which needs to be boosted enormously simplyto be audible at all.
Video
The fullscreen image is fairly sharp in that shot-on-video way. The colours are a bit murky,and there is some grain, but the bigger problem is what looks like a faulty frame rate: themovements are often jerky in a way I associate with streaming video over the Internet.Rough.
Special Features
The commentary, though hard to make out, deals with the minutiae of the filmmakingprocess. Aaron Gaffey, director Joe Castro, DP Nick Saglimbeni and editor Jason Frederick tothe honours. Also here are a handful of trailers, including the one for the feature. The menu isbasic.
Closing Thoughts
Yet another essentially amateur film dumped on the market. But you saw that coming, didn’tyou?
Special Features List
- Audio Commentary
- Trailers
