MACHINED (2005)

A chubby, unseemly-looking man named Motor Man Dan (Hayes), is obsessed with serial killers, even buying serial killer memorabilia. Basically, the guy’s a sicko, and a hairy one at that. Then one day he gets tired of all this collecting, and finds a new hobby. Acquiring himself a road accident victim, our man Dan fixes the guy up with machine parts from his auto shop (and a little torture/brainwashing to boot). He actually ‘makes’ a serial killer. Soon, stranded roadside travellers who make it to Dan’s shop, become fodder for this killing machine. Meanwhile, the auto victim’s sister starts to get worried about her AWOL brother.

The zero-budget filmmaking that Craig McMahon has clearly been forced to adopt, has actually worked in his favour here. The film has a gritty, slightly sleazy feel that helps the audience in overlooking what is essentially a really loopy idea (yeah, turning a guy into a killer is like, sooo easy!). But actually, McMahon has provided us with a surprisingly very good-looking, visually interesting film, so that this silly Frankenstein meets Se7en idea isn’t much of a distraction. Heck, even the DVD menu design is a grabber (it shows the big, hairy fat guy sitting down to look at a monitor). Needless to say, under the circumstances, the film looks quite slick, and McMahon has learned that pitch darkness and silence are very effective tools to use.
The production designer has clearly worked overtime here too, with Dan’s auto shop looking like a spare parts freak show. I wouldn’t say that this was a modern horror classic (as some critics have), but it is effectively sleazy, quite disturbing (the large fellow is essentially our main character, and he’s a nutter whom we are forced to get to know), and visually very interesting. Hell, even the Carpenter-esque synth score adds to the effectiveness of the whole thing, and I hate most synth scores not composed by John Carpenter himself.

So, I was with the film for the most part. It wasn’t a very nice film, but I was surprised to find that not only was it pretty well-made, but also not as grotesquely violent as I had anticipated. This isn’t really one for the gore hounds, though there is some of that. Personally, I was worried that the film would be much gorier, and not in a ‘fun’ Troma kind of way. But there are definite problems with the film. Firstly, the acting is mostly very amateurish, even Hayes who has definite presence, is a tad mannered as the twitchy, uncouth Dan. I’d have to disagree with some critics by saying that despite the twitching, he still looks and acts exactly as I’d expect such a character to. He is purposely and appropriately unpleasant, and I wouldn’t want him any other way. The rest of the performances are pretty average, particularly an elderly couple who enter the story in the second half and look like they are reading cue-cards. But that is mostly pretty forgivable, the film is a low-budget indie flick after all. I’m just glad that it doesn’t look like a home movie or something.
What does pull Machined down half a peg, is the plot structure. The subplot involving the victim’s sister is a constant distraction, especially early on where we keep cutting back to her, with very little of interest going on. The scenes are mundane, and whilst necessary to the plot, they are not carefully and seamlessly inserted into it, it takes too long to connect the threads, even though the audience can work out easily how it will pan out. Also, the film becomes repetitive around the home stretch, with more potential victims turning up and the same scenario unfolds. Overall, though, I must admit to being surprisingly engaged with this film, even if it was a little seedy, but I guess that goes with the territory. McMahon certainly shows that even with a low-budget, he knows how to shoot things in an aesthetically interesting way. Worth a look, especially for fans of this sort of thing.

The DVD release merely contains a (very good) trailer for the film, and assorted other trailers of minimal interest, including Stephen King’s Desperation, which stars the love of my life, Annabeth Gish (yeah, she’s married…for now).