Any horror movie that opens with a naked woman automatically gets notice in our books. We don't mean the statement to be sexist, but rather an observation that the film being screened will go for the R-Rated jugular – a rating to which most horror films should aspire. So when Stacy Davidson's Sweatshop opened with a naked woman awakening on the ground only to be gunned down by a trigger happy police officer, our attention was grabbed. The opening scene was hardly shocking, but it was gratuitous and the exploitive nature of the opening kill was only the salad of a 12-course meal of blood and guts that Sweatshop relishes in so unapologetically. The setting is an abandoned steel mill where a group of punks descend in an attempt to transform the warehouse into a parlor for an evening rave. Unknowing to the drinking and sexual promiscuous party planners there is a bruiting killer disguised by a welding mask that is lurking in the corridors. Using a hammer the size of a video game prop the killer smashes his way through the group – sometimes in one quick hammer to the head swoop and other times with the taking of prisoners which are tortured in hard-to-watching excruciating manners. The script as penned by Stacy Davidson and Ted Geoghegan is irrelevant. The characters are underwritten and disposable. And the dialogue is downright embarrassing with the film's best lines being forced or expressed out of context. We are sure director Davidson cared not so much for the details but for the focus on the splatter and Sweatshop has gore to spare. Every single death is gruesomely bloody with each kill seemingly topping the absurdity of the last. We could not detect any CGI blood but marvelled at the practical effects that drive the film. For horror fans that consistently argue that all the fun has been extracted from modern day genre films, they can sit back and enjoy a film that had one clear focus and delivered on its premise's promise. Most horror movies are worthy of a re-watch if the kills are earnest enough for a second glance. Sweatshop definitely delivers those goods. The lack of any true story, killing motivation or relatable characters keeps the film from ever being considered a classic. But Sweatshop will grab your attention

Seriously, if you want high art this movie is not for you. If you want a movie that sets you up to root for the cast to get killed in fantastic ways, then you need to watch this film.I'll be honest, I almost turned it off at the 25 minute mark. VERY bad acting, and a setting (a rave. Really?) that I didn't care about, but once the killer enters the fray it's incredibly creative.The gore is off the charts and worth a watch to any true horror fan. I watch EVERY bad horror flick in hopes of finding gems that stand out. You'd be surprised at how many low budget horror movies don't have any effects in them these days.I can handle a bad movie. That's what cult cinema is all about. But I can't handle a BORING movie. This movie, once past the 25 minute mark, is definitely not boring. It's blood-soaked and it's beautiful.

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.

Texas Frightmare Weekend is the best place I could ever imagine to be able to screen some of the best work on display from the young, hard-charging up-and-comers in the the thriving field of independent horror. Last year, I was wowed in equal parts by Robert Hall's impressive hard-core gorefest, LAID TO REST, and the epic struggle of Good Vs. Evil (or Evil Vs. REALLY Evil) in Stacy Davidson's microbudget epic thriller, DOMAIN OF THE DAMNED, which looked, sounded and played better than 2/3rds of the bigger budget Hollywood-made pieces of crap that had the audacity to classify themselves as "horror films". The mark of a great filmmaker is seeing how they raise the bar for themselves with the efforts that follow their previous work. Looking forward to the future offerings of both Hall and Davidson, I was pleased to see that Mr. D. was first out of the gate this year with his sophomore feature, SWEATSHOP. I am happy to report to fans of true, out-and-out, balls- to-the-wall mayhem, that the director of DOMAIN has delivered in spades, giving us everything we'd hoped for and nothing we expected.The movie bucks the trend right out of the gate when it establishes its premise. As enjoyable as a great part of the series is, the Friday THE 13TH franchise does defy logic in more ways than one (how many groups of kids would have to be butchered at Camp Crystal Lake, before the authorities simply closed it and razed the place to the ground?), asking audiences to suspend their disbelief roughly the height of Mount Everest. SWEATSHOP, though it hardly tries to reinvent the wheel in this respect, does NOT suffer from this problem. The scenario is still kept pretty simple: a rave promoter and her friends, all involved in that lifestyle, do what ravers do best: find an old abandoned warehouse, break in and set up a party in order to score some quick and easy cash and party down at the same time.Their mistake? Not asking permission of the previous tenant. Who never left. Who isn't happy with their intrusion, and who walks not so softly, and carries the biggest freakin' stick you have ever seen in life. And actually, it's not a stick. It's a pipe...with an anvil attached to the end. No, that is not a typo, either. When you witness what this character, known only as The Beast (Jeremy Sumrall) does with this brutally improvised implement, you will never think of the phrase "getting hammered" in quite the same way again. In the same F13 tradition that was well-established as that series progressed, there are few likable characters to root for here, and the ones that do have your empathy or sympathies? Don't get too attached to them. Having said that, plenty of time is still taken to establish the dysfunctional dynamic between the friends, including Charlie, the organizer (Ashley Kay), DJ Enyx (Naika Malveaux), slovenly equipment handler Wade (Brent Himes, making Larry The Cable Guy look as cultured as Basil Rathbone by comparison) and his put-upon assistant, Kenny (Vincent Guerrero), amongst others. All of which makes little difference as it turns out, once The Beast begins to decimate the group in a fashion not seen since grindhouse ruled the drive-ins and the dilapidated urban movie palaces back in the Seventies. Which brings us to the most impressive thing about SWEATSHOP: the technical aspects. Lighting, camera-work, sound design...everything is on point here, and it makes you wonder how in the hell Davidson and crew managed to pull it off, and make this look as good - or better than - a watered-down, PG-13 piece of dreck from a major studio. And that goes double for the FX work. Though the death sequences are far from pleasant, this is a whole different animal than the 'gore-ture porn' offered by series like SAW and HOSTEL. Kristi Boul, Marcus Koch and Mike Oliver are not beneath giving The Beast multiple and cruelly creative ways of dispatching his victims, but the monster seems to be as much about his business as he is about dealing out unimaginable suffering. He wants to teach these interlopers a lesson they'll never forget, and does so with a vengeance that YOU'LL never forget.And then there's that ending. If you're the kind of horror fan who loves to rewind the prom scene in CARRIE and watch it several times, you cannot miss SWEATSHOP'S hell-bent-for-leather conclusion. When it comes to a well-done indie horror entry served up straight, no chaser, Stacy Davidson and company have delivered, firing on all cylinders with this one. So strap in and prepare for a bloody, terrifying ride.And don't forget to thank them for putting the "hard-R" back into "hoRRoR" again.