So gorehound savy that it’ll make old school sleaze fans everywhere wet their LUCIO FULCI LIVES underpants. Cullen Carr’s “Golden Age” celebrates the era in horror history when movies were rough, raw and took no prisoners – movies like “Cannibal Holocaust,” “I Spit On Your Grave,” “Nightmares in a Damaged Brain” and “The Beast in Heat.” Plain and simple, these flicks are piles of filth that serve no good whatsoever…apart from making the most hardened splatter freaks do a happy dance. Cullen Carr is one of these fine people and his short gives a big sloppy kiss to an age of sleaze that has treated him so well. It’s enough to make you all teary eyed and droopy drawered.
After getting canned from his job and coming home to find his wife boning his best friend, Burton (played by filmmaker Carr) does what any sensible guy would do – he burns down his trailer park home and hits the bar hard for his new gig as career drunk. It’s during one of his finer days at the office that he runs into the sexy and mysterious woman who works at his local video store. They make nice and wind up going back to her place for another drink and a little poke in the whiskers action. Not long after the festivities, Burton finds himself in the company of a gang of creeps reminiscent of the blood-thirsty moviemakers in “Last House on Dead End Street.” This gang wants to make movies, too and they’re not the purty kind.
Set in glorious 1986, the golden age of VHS madness when horror fiends could feast on an ever growing collection of filth flarn flarn filth, “Golden Age” is grainy and dirty looking, just like a video nasty should be. The look of the film helps to submerge the viewer in the depraved snuff movie element which was also present in many films in the 70s and 80s. Gore effects had also become more intricate and over-the-top during this era, leading many to believe that the violence committed on screen contained actual blood and guts. Such was the case with Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodato and his film “Cannibal Holocaust.” Deodato had to go to court and prove that a certain special effect featuring a woman paled all the way through her body with a large wooden spike was fake. This certain special effect can be seen proudly recreated in “Golden Age,” a short that does a helluva job making sure that the snuff movie legend never dies.
There are plenty points of interest in these here 30 minutes, but one of the major highlights is Birmingham, Alabama’s own Kyle Holman playing a total sicko as he does so well. This guy’s a major creepy force to be reckoned with. Also, cannibal movie aficiandos will appreciate the haunting disclaimer at the beginning of the film that’s a nod to the disclaimer found at the start of “Cannibal Ferox.” Cullen Carr, deviants everywhere salute you.
