Alright, so Hatchet had some pretty sweet gore scenes, especially for a low budget horror movie. I never thought another film in the indie film arena could beat its gore sequences…but I think I may have found one!
100 Tears is an independent film from director Marcus Koch that packs more graphic violence and gruesome gore into its first 15 minutes than most films do in their entire running time! Gorehounds delight, because 100 Tears is destined to become the next cult hit!
The blood-drenched film begins with Gurdy the Clown (Jack Amos) slaughtering a group of halfway home teens with the biggest cleaver I have ever seen!! After some brutal killings, we are introduced to two tabloid reporters, Mark (Joe Davidson, also the film’s writer) and Jennifer (Georgia Chris), who are sick of covering the same alien abduction stories and want bigger fish to fry. They decide to investigate the Teardrop Killer, who has been chopping up people for nigh on 20 years without getting caught. As the two begin piecing the clues together (and realizing how incompetent the police really are), they discover the killer’s carnival past and who his next victim might be. Can they stop the Teardrop Killer before he finds his next victim?
100 Tears shows that amazing special FX can be achieved with a small budget. Hell, some of the effects look better than what their big-budget counterparts could do! It doesn’t hurt that director Marcus Koch also specializes in special FX, either (for Oddtopsy FX). The opening scenes had me shouting, “whoa!!” every two seconds, and, folks, I’ve seen my share of grue over the years. I usually don’t get this excited over it, but the gore is truly the highlight of this film and what sets it so far above others.
The story was also well done, with an intriguing backstory given to Gurdy the Clown. There is plenty of material for a sequel (or prequel) should the filmmakers decide to go that route! Kudos must be given to writer Joe Davidson for the plot as well as the character development. The characters of Mark and Jennifer were well fleshed out, and even the secondary characters (such as the carnie folk) were adequately developed. My one complaint with the story was that it didn’t flow very smoothly. We were constantly jumping back and forth between killings and the investigation. Some smoother transitions could have helped.
As for the acting, I really enjoyed watching Joe Davidson and Georgia Chris play their characters. Their characters were just friends, but they had the exactly right kind of chemistry. They weren’t too flirty or too distant, just REAL. They both sucked me into the story and really made me care about what happened to them. It also helps that (with a few awkward exceptions) the two are naturals in front of a camera! Also enjoyable to watch were Raine Brown in a twisted role as a blossoming young serial killer and Jack Amos who plays a very frightening clown!
However, the film does have flaws. Besides the jumpy narrative and awkward transitions, there are some scenes that drag a little too long (especially a slapstick scene with Mark and Jennifer chasing around a midget that gets old fast), a few instances of bad dialogue, bad lighting, plot holes and inconsistencies (weren’t the cops supposed to show up at the end? Or did they just get lost?) and a rather out-of-the-blue (and into the grue) ending. Not everything works in this film, but when it does work it’ll have you cheering and cringing!
Despite some flaws, 100 Tears is still an entertaining film that boasts a killer that I would gladly welcome seeing again in a sequel. With his humongous cleaver that chops body limbs off left and right, Gurdy the Clown is a very memorable, even iconic, horror character.
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