This film company has been releasing a few of Chad Ferrin’s films such as Easter Bunny Kill Kill, The Ghouls and this his first movie made at the age of 24 in 2000. I have to admit to not having seen any of his features previous to this and watching the film it would have been easy to discount it as being relatively low budget with fairly rough production values and not the best acting in the world (I am being polite here too). However once you get over these facts (and everyone has to start somewhere) it gets firmly beneath the skin as this really is a sleazy and grubby piece of celluloid and one where you feel like you need a good shower after watching.
We start off on a rain lashed night with couple James and Alice Fhelleps having what we assume is one of many arguments whilst driving along. Cue a crash and some cheesy grief filled cries from the surviving actor as his daughter in the back of the car is killed and his wife is left paralysed and unable to communicate in a wheelchair. Luckily as we go into the future he has a home help allowing him to go about his life. Unluckily the helper is a real sadist who loves playing with Alice and her precious poopy gifts in a gleefully overacted scatty fashion, which quickly makes it all very obvious that the film is not going to hold off on giving you shock value for money.
James is left to prowl the streets and as he does he spends plenty of time talking with his dead daughter, we are pretty certain that she is dead and he is a bit on the unhinged side; this is enforced as he starts picking off the trashy whores around town. It should be said that the streets here are not the nicest of places and we are very much in the hood or the ghetto where the low life hang out. These include a scuzzy gang of smack and prostitute dealing punks, the leader of whom sports a classic Taxi driver Travis Bickle hair cut illustrating perfectly just one of the films inspirations. Just to really hit home all the harder we also have a sodomising priest, a transvestite and a nutty drunk hobo who all get in on the action as the seedy bloodbath ensues.
The clever thing here is that the characters are all so damn obnoxious you really have a hard time feeling sorry for them, apart from the transvestite who seems to have a bit of compassion, none of them have any redeeming characters. They are “rotten whores, dirty liars” and scum who would even pimp out little girls so you are practically cheering as they meet their inevitable demise. On the whole scenes are drawn out but at only around the 75 minute mark the film manages to keep attention. Gore is not over the top but when it splashes it does so quite moistly.
Although made in 2000 this has a real grindhouse flavour to it. Apart from the obvious aforementioned Taxi Driver it reminds me of films by the likes of Abel Ferrara specifically Driller Killer, the scuzzy gang is the type that would hang around in Roberta Findlay’s ‘Tenement’ and the decrepit streets are not quite as depressing but not far off the likes walked down in Buddy Giovinizio’s Combat Shock and Welcome To Cracktown. It comes as no surprise to see that Troma released this in the USA, although this is the first time it has been put out over here.
Unspeakable is America shown as a dirty crippled whore, it lives up to its name admirably and is no place you would want to find yourself in.
Pete Woods
Leave a Reply