I first saw Video Violence many years ago when I was in high school and discovering gore films with my
pal Jose. He didn’t care too much for this one but I liked it because it had a reasonably plausible story
and great gore. Today I own the double feature DVD with Video Violence 2. I thought this movie was
cool enough to re-visit and include here on Splatter.
Steve and his wife Rachel have just moved into a strange little town. Steve heads the video rental store
with his pal Rick. One morning, while sorting through the pile of returned tapes they find what appears to
be a homemade snuff tape. Rick identifies the victim in the tape as the postmaster. He is tied up on the
ground and is being tortured by two whacko’s (Howard and Eli). Shocked, Steve bolts to the police,
leaving Rick to man the store. The police chief shrugs him off saying the postmaster has left to Florida.
Steve brings the police chief to the store to see the tape. But Rick is missing, the door is unlocked, and
someone has switched the tape with an innocent family home movie. The police chief is angry but Steve
knows what he saw is real.
Howard and Eli are the two demented dimwits committing murder and filming their exploits. They do most
of their stuff in their basement. Today they have a tied-up hitchhiker on a chair. They cut her shirt off to
expose some natural, large boobs. They're drinking beer and spilling it on her and joking around filming
the whole thing. Howard is the grinning, fat cameraman and Eli does the dirty work, usually. Eli carves
his name on the lady’s chest with a knife and then stabs her with an ice-pick. Later on, Steve finds a
second tape, this time of Rick being killed in the store. He plays the tape for the police chief but he (the
police chief) mistakenly records over it. Perhaps on purpose?? In another part of town Howard and Eli
are up to their murderous games. They drug a couple of tourists in a deli store to perform barbaric acts
of gore while Howard tapes it. They behead a lady and cut a guys arm off then running it through a deli
slicer to produce thin strips of human meat. I’ll take a pound thanks! Now that night, as if this hadn’t
been enough, someone slips a tape into Rachel’s (Steve’s wife) purse while she’s at the deli, post
murder I suppose. When she watches the tape at home with her husband she sees a guy dressed as a
vampire seducing a young topless girl then biting her neck and stabbing her to death. Once again this
looks all to real.
The next morning while Steve is at the store Eli and Howard kidnap a lady renter. Steve and his wife who
was with him at the store chase them into a house and downstairs into a dark lit basement. The nice lady
that was apparently being kidnapped was in on it. This was a trick to get them in the basement. It seems
the whole town is down there with malevolent faces and blocking the only exit. The lady explains that their
town produces a twist on homemade porno films. Instead they make snuff films for the town’s residents.
Howard and Eli take care of all this. They kill those that wander into town and those that want to leave.
You have to be a "lifer" (lifetime resident) to rent. Poor Steve and Rachel won’t ever see the light of day
but their murder snuff tape will go on to become a top renter!
I like the story of this film so much. I can almost imagine that cult like town of blood-thirsty inhabitants
alive somewhere in the U.S. The theme of course is about the increasing popularity of violence in films
and how people eat it up. And when fiction is not enough they take it to the next level. The real shit. I can’
t end this review without saying how great the gore was and how well it mingled with the creepy story.
There is a lot of cheap blood and some good boobies. The film feels a notch tamer than when I first saw
it but this is a must see for gorehounds. I repeat, a must see!
| - Jorge Antonio Lopez |
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