#554. Sweatshop (2009)

Directed By: Stacy Davidson

Starring: Ashley Kay, Peyton Wetzel, Brent Himes




Tag line: "One Hammer. No Prisoners"

Trivia:  The character "Enyx" is named after The Enix Corporation (now Square Enix), publishers of such video games as Dragon Warrior and Xevious

Sweatshop is a 2009 indie horror film with loads of blood and gore, and a killer you won't soon forget. 

Charlie (Ashley Kay), Enyx (Naika Malveauz), and a group of their friends break into a seemingly abandoned warehouse and start fixing it up it for a Rave scheduled later that night. But somebody else is there as well, a giant in a mask (Jeremy Sumrall), who's none too happy to see them. Wielding what can only be described as a hammer the size of an anvil, this beast of a man begins taking his frustrations out on the revelers, tearing them, one by one, into tiny little pieces. 

Simply calling Sweatshop “violent” doesn't adequately prepare you for how bloody this film gets. The first kill occurs in the opening scene, though this particular victim, a girl named Brandi (ViVi Sterling) who was sent ahead by the others to check out the warehouse, isn't finished off by the “Beast”, as he's called in the credits, but a policeman (Michael Gingold), who spotted her vehicle in the parking lot and decided to investigate. Spooked by a series of strange noises, the nervous cop unloads his gun into poor Brandi, who came running towards him, bare naked and screaming for help. Yet despite being shot a number of times, including once in the head, Brandi still fared better than some of her friends. Like Lolli (Krystal Freeman), for instance, who gets herself cornered by the Beast's two ghoulish “sisters”, a duo of freaky looking women that follow him wherever he goes, then gets the bottom of her jaw ripped off, or Kim (Danielle Jones), who's captured, tied to a table, and, after having two of her fingers snipped off, loses both legs when her captor brings his humongous hammer crashing down on them. Both Lolli and Kim tried screaming for help, but their friends couldn't hear them over the music. 

Which, along with the convincing gore, is another of Sweatshop's strengths: the fact that none of the Beast's potential victims ever know he's there until it's much too late. In spite of his size, the killer moves pretty quickly, and leaves no survivors to run and warn the others. From start to finish, he remains a force to be reckoned with, and the cruel manner in which he dispatches his victims will stay with you for a long, long time. 

Believe me when I say, “Brutal” isn't a strong enough word to describe Sweatshop.