Gouge Away

Sometimes it feels as though films these days are increasingly trying too hard to be one thing, and that, in turn, causes them to lack any sense of authenticity. We’ve seen it with Marvel films recently, trying too hard to force the classic wit of Marvel films of old with corny one liners, and so too with a number of horror films, all determined to outdo one another with both their false pretension and their over the top insistence on extreme gore. ‘Gouge Away’ reflects both these things, and becomes a long slog of a film as a result, with each line ingratiatingly trying to please the audience rather than working on a basic fundamental level as a film.

From the moment ‘Gouge Away’ begins it’s easy to get a feel for the type of film it is - offbeat, edgy and violent. The only question is whether it’ll have anything more to it than those three qualities. Unfortunately, the answer is a simple no, with perhaps the funniest and most inspired moment coming from the production logos at the beginning, with a genuinely humorous, cheeky parody of the legendary Georges Méliès film ‘A Trip To The Moon’. From there on in, it devolves into poorly written humour lacking any sense of wit, or even the slightest hint of brains.

The film follows Tony the Stamper (played by Matthew Ritacco) as he searches for answers following the disappearance of his mentor Stanley (Jacob Trussell). All the while a hazardous narcotic gas - named the Hehe gas, with a named reference to Michael Jackson - flooding the city’s streets. Tony the Stamper is not a bad name for a character, especially one so embroiled in a life of crime, however, other names in this film are cringeworthy. With names like ‘The Bone Daddy’, ‘The White Hotdog’, ‘Bad Nana’, and ‘Uncle Greggy’, the film begins in a difficult place already, but the screenplay itself only makes matters worse.

Lines of dialogue are unbelievably poorly written. There’s simply too much exposition and no subtext to anything. Beyond that there’s an insistence on humour which has humour of the lowest common denominator.

There is zero depth to ‘Gouge Away’ , just senseless, overexaggerated violence, crass poorly written jokes, and a weird insistence on recurring poorly directed drug infused scenes. The drug scenes are indicative of the level of directing throughout, with writer-director Jeff Frumess delivering one poorly lit scene after another, with no sense of colour gradients or visual depths. In fairness to Frumess, who is involved in virtually every aspect of production, his commitment is admirable, and it is clear that he had a vision for the film he wanted to create on a tight budget. However, that doesn’t make ‘Gouge Away’ an any more enjoyable experience.

‘Gouge Away’ is a testing experience, one in which the audience suffers almost as much as the characters on screen. There is definite passion here, but it is lacking in any sense of quality and any sense of depth. It’s vapid violence porn for those that purport to being edgy and off the beaten track, but fail to understand that films and art in that vein should have an ounce of depth to them as well.