Cut! (0 out of 10) – Directed by David Rountree; Written by David Rountree and David Banks; Starring David Rountree, David Banks, Chris Moir, Sam Scarber and Michelle Ivette Badgley; Available on Amazon; Not Rated; 104 minutes.
It is extremely rare that a movie comes out that is as incredibly bad as “Cut!” is. I can’t tell if the director has absolutely no skill in or understanding of the filmmaking process or just got stuck with an unbelievably bad string of luck that forced him to release the movie before it was finished. I have a feeling it is the former, but either way, this movie can’t be banished to the dustbin of obscurity fast enough.
Travis (David Rountree) a wannabe movie director and Lane (David Banks) an ex-con with a penchant for cocaine and beating up hookers cross paths while working together at a film prop warehouse Travis is temporarily managing. Bemoaning the lack of movie-making skills he notices on various film sets he is delivering props to, Travis comes up with the idea to shoot their own horror movie, and Lane decides they should involve real people instead of actors in order to capture real fear on camera. The two eventually hire a prostitute as their first “victim” and ask a homeless man to pretend to be the killer and frighten her. Unfortunately, the plan succeeds a little too well, and the two of them end up with a dead body on their hands. Travis keeps his cool, but the blood and gore entices more and more of Lane’s violent tendencies out of him, which sends him on a murderous rampage in his quest to deliver the perfect horror movie.
One of the worst things about this movie is that the idea is actually interesting and could have made for a great, scary little film. A crazy person really killing people to make the special effects in his movie seem realistic is great! Why, then, did Rountree have to take all this potential and toss it out the window while stomping on any bit of fun or suspense that was leftover? He also tried to make the whole thing more meta than “Scream 4” with his movie within a movie within a movie premise, and while “Scream 4” is a pile of crap, it’s head and shoulders better than this
To go along with the disjointed story, there is also some of the worst camera work and editing I’ve seen in years. The look and tone of the film varies between scenes, and sometimes even between shots, and it makes it feel like he worked on five different movies and then blended them all together into one incoherent jumble. I almost wonder if part of it was shot on an old iPhone because the cinematography is so horrible it looks like something I’d expect to find on YouTube.
There is also no one to root for in “Cut!” since even the “good guy” wavers between being a milqetoast and a dick while the killer is already an abhorrent human being before he ever picks up a knife. The acting is shoddy as hell, and while that’s kind of expected in a B horror film, this was below porno acting. At least in an actual porno there’s an eventual payoff; all I got here was the credits to roll.
I won’t discuss the twist(s) in case anyone actually wants to go see it, but needless to say it was telegraphed about 10 minutes into the movie. Yes, they tried to be clever by adding a twist upon a twist, but it didn’t work and came across as a desperate ploy to be edgy. When will filmmakers learn they don’t need to rely on cheap tricks when the source material they are working from is solid? Spend some extra time getting your script ready and lose the gimmicks.
It’s difficult for a movie to make me legitimately angry for wasting my time, but “Cut!” managed to do that. It’s stupid, boring and a complete disaster that will steal almost two hours from your life that you can never get back. This is cinematic cancer; stay as far away from it as possible.