Gone the Way of Flesh | Digital Retribution Movie Review

Gone the Way of Flesh

By: Devon Bertsch on February 1, 2007

Poster Art

Credits

Directors Jordan McMillen, Jason Martinko Starring: Jimmy Haynes, Jesse Fitzgerald, Matt Kostovny, Joshua Fandry, Brett Fiegel, Jason Wooten
Screenplay: Jordan McMillen, Jason Martinko
Country: USA
Year: 2006
Duration: 56 minutes

Gone The Way Of Flesh is a new film that looks to combine horror with a rock and roll band. Don't get too excited though; this ain't Wild Zero, and The Jason Martinko Revue sure as fuck ain't Guitar Wolf. No, Gone The Way Of Flesh ranks with other winners in the rock 'n' horror sub genre like Trick Or Treat, Black Roses, or Slash.

The story involves an indie band, The Jason Martinko Revue, playing some SMALL shows. Despite an average turn out of like six, the band has a killer stalking the gigs and managing to always find females to abduct and torture from the audience. That's a hard sell in the plausible market, but even if I bought that, it should be an EASY case for the police, as how hard would it be to find out the identities of everyone on the premises in each instance? But the cops are obviously very stupid, because they wait till the fifth time this happens before bothering to stake out a gig. And when they finally do make it to a show, they get distracted by an unrelated stabbing (which the bouncer handles by merely saying "Break it up" and taking the stabber out of the club). Anyway, the police don't catch the killer as he nabs girl number five, so hoping to prevent a number six, they decide to set up a sting.

Gone The Way Of Flesh is certainly a sex, drugs, and rock and roll film, but unfortunately, the drug use is clichéd and stupid, the rock and roll is mostly boring, and the sex… actually, some of the sex was all right, I guess.

The film was made for $700, and it shows. The sets leave a lot to be desired, some of the footage has electronic lines like you get from dirty VCR heads, and the gore's very low rent. Acting levels vary, with no one as bad as the boyfriend on the beach in Blood Feast, but no one as good as Montag from Wizard of Gore. Gone The Way Of Flesh is not very long but needs tightening, and the torture sequences are pretty dumb. The women, who all appear to have shopped at the same place for underwear, are scantily clad, yes, but that's the closest any of these sequences come to having anything going for them.

I think the main problem is that Gone The Way Of Flesh doesn't really know what it wants to be. It's part 70s style exploitation, to be sure, but it's also a vanity promo project for The Jason Martinko Revue. There are quite a few live songs, sometimes featuring inserted footage that makes the scenes play more like a video clip than live footage. Worse, there is fan interview footage, like what you find on live concert releases, which was so out of place I thought maybe the movie was over and the filmmakers had abandoned their plot to just film the band till the credits rolled. The whole thing seems like a live video that turned into a nonsense long form. My understanding is that The Jason Martinko Revue provided all the music, so your enjoyment of the film will probably directly correlate to your enjoyment of the band. I found them pretty bland overall, but the score, not the live stuff, is very grating, so if they did that music, I hate them.

From the promo material, it would seem people think this movie pushes boundaries, but I really can't see anyone being offended by this. The only scene that might raise eyebrows is a live lesbian sex show that appears to have some actual, but not overly graphic, dildo insertion. That's not even as full on as I Spit On Your Corpse, I Piss On Your Grave, and the torture stuff has all been done better and nastier, so I'm not sure what boundaries Gone The Way Of Flesh is pushing. Maybe I'm just jaded and Gone The Way Of Flesh really is offensive. I mean, I wouldn't recommend watching it with your grandma, unless maybe she has dementia, but to anyone that's delved into underground horror, this isn't very original.

The movie really only hits the heights (or depths) it was reaching for during the climax. The band plays the film's theme song, which is much better than anything that preceded it, while strippers wiggle around with them, intercut with a girl being tortured elsewhere. That bit was good, but watch the trailer, and you'll get a sense of that without having to put up with the rest of the movie.

Really, with a plot this ridiculous the film needed a sense of humour, but that really only comes from a few one off lines and some newscasts, and those crack lame jokes like "girls are dying to see this band", so it'd be better if they WEREN'T trying to be funny.

Evidently Gone The Way Of Flesh has been picked up by Troma, where it can sit along side the similarly crap Slaughter Party.

Cristina on 04/01/2010 @ 12:11

Comment # 1 of 1

This review is very nice and polite. To me, the movie was the worst I have ever seen. Aside from low production value, bad image quality, horrible acting, and over done story, it all does not even make sense. It's just bad bad bad all over. I have appreciation for real actors and good movies now :)