Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		1.5

Gutterballs Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 31, 2020

Give Gutterballs credit where credit is due: many films featuring a bunch of hormonally out of control teens getting slaughtered one by one have been placed in outdoors settings, frequently isolated wilderness locales where something sinister might be hiding behind the next tree. This film at least tries to do something different, positing a group of often pretty repugnant characters getting offed in — a bowling alley. Gutterballs makes no pretenses about being anything other than a gory, foul mouthed, sexually charged Grade Z horror film, and in that regard it probably succeeds as well as could be imagined. But this is obviously a film designed for a (maybe not so?) small niche audience, and even some of those folks may be at least temporarily gobsmacked by the sheer audacity of some the presentational aspects, which include both male and female nudity, bodily mutilations (including of the most intimate variety), a script that seemingly can’t get even one line of dialogue out without utilizing an f-bomb, and some “acting” that if one were to be charitable might be described as not even making it to “not ready for prime time” levels.

Gutterballs relies on an almost insane amount of contrivances, including the fact that the plot hinges on two apparently prone to violence bowling leagues who are in competition with each other. The fact that these leagues are made up of apparently recent high school graduates (as evidenced by some early banter about the senior prom) adds to the absurdity of it all, and the fact that several of the performers are quite obviously well beyond their teen years lends a certain surreality, at least in a meta sense, to the proceedings from the get go. The cast of characters here is eccentric, to say the least, and includes a grabbag of "types", virtually all of whom meet their fate as the story progresses. Writer and director Ryan Nicholson labels this film a "rape revenge" outing in his enjoyable if occasionally defensive sounding commentary, included on this disc as a supplement. That may be enough to indicate that the "war" between the bowling leagues devolves to a sexual assault level, but it may not convey the fact that part of the assault involves a bowling pin. With a slight spoiler alert warning, some may argue that the fact that the rape victim is among the ultimate body count of this film gives lie to this being any kind of "traditional" rape revenge scenario.

I'm not even going to name individual characters or the performers playing them in this film, simply because the characters here exist largely as grist for the slash and dash mill, but also because, in the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" department, some of the acting in the film is inadvertently comical. The bottom line is the story is split between two nights, the first, when a horrifying gang rape occurs, and the following night, when a planned tournament goes on despite the attack (just one of several glaring (il)logic leaps this film requires of its viewers), with the rape victim herself returning for the "festivities". The second night sees carnage unleashed, as a masked killer known as BKK starts wreaking havoc on the assembled bowlers.

Gutterballs has some inventive death scenes, and it uses the bowling alley location to advantage at several key junctures. Some of the makeup effects work is quite gruesome and rather effective, for those who like lots of blood, guts and in some instances brains splattered across the frame. The film's climax is completely gonzo, with arguably one supposed "twist" too many, but it does offer at least one kind of priceless moment when one character, revealed to have been in cahoots with the killer and who is now facing a shotgun himself, gets to say "I thought we talked about this yesterday".

As silly and perhaps reprehensible (for some, anyway) Gutterballs is, it at least has the courage of its convictions, and goes for the gusto in its third act with a nonstop array of very bloody kills. In doing background research for this review (yes, even this film required some background research), I came across the sad fact that Nicholson died last year from brain cancer. He actually posted on our Forum before his death, and it's obvious that Gutterballs was a labor of love for him.

Fans of the film may want to consider the Collector's Edition, which as of the writing of this review is going for the same price as this one on Amazon, but which evidently contains a second Blu-ray of supplements. Unearthed Films only sent this version for review purposes, so I can't authoritatively detail what's on the second disc.

Gutterballs Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gutterballs is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Unearthed Films and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.83:1. With environments bathed in either outright darkness or deep blue tones, this is often a pretty chunky, almost pixellated looking presentation at times. Compression just doesn't seem quite able to capably handle the combo platter of extremely dark environments and heavy grain, as can perhaps be gleaned in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, where things can look noticeably splotchy. The colors here often seem skewed slightly toward purples, which may only exacerbate the blue end of the spectrum that is so often on display. That said, the palette's relative vividness is arguably one of this transfer's general strengths. But considering the lighting conditions and overall blue tones on display, detail levels are pretty highly variable, depending on how wide the frame is and how bright and naturally lit things are. Grain also tends to ebb and flow, and it's interesting to note that the final couple of minutes of the film, where a couple of characters finally make it outside in daylight, the palette perks up considerably and grain finally looks a bit less rough hewn and more natural. The overall imagery is pretty soft on the whole, and can look a bit "flat" and less film like than I personally would have expected. Some of the special effects work here is rather good, all things considering, and close-ups of various maimed bodies may bother the more squeamish.

Gutterballs Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gutterballs features an enjoyable LPCM 2.0 track that makes the most of some cheesy eighties music coursing through the underscore. Amplitude is a bit variable here, and I personally found a couple of lines of dialogue hard to make out, and unfortunately there are no optional subtitles to help in that regard. That said, the large bulk of this audio presentation sounds fine, occasional niggling qualms notwithstanding, with generally fine fidelity and rather nicely forceful low end.

Gutterballs Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Pin-etration Edition Extended Cut (480i; 1:36:04) includes hard core inserts (in more ways than one) during the gang rape scene.


• Behind the Balls: The Making of Gutterballs (480i; 42:50) is an enjoyable archival making of featurette that offers some fun interviews.


• Commentary with Ryan Nicholson


• Photo Gallery (1080p; 13:25) is authored to automatically advance pretty quickly (like one second per image), so have the Pause button on your remote handy if you want to linger on any given shot.


• Trailers includes Gutterballs (480i; 00:35) along with other Unearthed Films releases.

Gutterballs Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the better things about Gutterballs is its utter lack of pretension, something that comes through fairly forcefully on Nicholson's commentary as well. Nicholson obviously knew what kind of a movie he wanted to make, and he made it. Whether or not it will appeal to every viewer is probably questionable. Technical merits here are on the spotty side at times (especially with regard to video), but some of the supplements are engaging, for those who are considering a purchase.