Machete Joe (2010) User Reviews

Machete Joe ain't no Candyman.

[Hey_Sweden · 4/10 · 30 June 2012]

But then, anybody who decides to go ahead and watch this will find that out. As a devoted watcher of horror movies of all budgets, I would have liked to have enjoyed this one a little more. Overall, it's just way too routine to really work, and any moments that could conceivably be pinpointed as the highlights are few and far between. A pity, because this is the first genre film that I've seen since 1990's "Def by Temptation" that had a predominantly black cast (with a few token white guys on hand here). Written by Gordon Greene, one of its actors, it tells the story of a deformed murderer who as a child had seen his mother, a prostitute, slaughtered by a john. This same individual then makes life miserable for a film crew attempting to tell his story. Unfortunately, it's too hard to really care for many of these characters; by the end, one can start liking them a bit more, but by then it's too little, too late. The makeup effects and gore are decent enough, so if the prospective viewer is a gore junkie, they at least can get some entertainment out of this. The cast does feature some familiar faces, but they're basically just picking up a pay cheque: the great Ernie Hudson is reduced to a thankless cameo role as the local lawman, who flirts with his sexy young deputy but who doesn't do much else. One will also recognize character actor Art Evans, as the aged driver Sammy; he's been in such things as "Fright Night" and "Die Hard 2". As for the other actors, they're tolerable at best, but one good thing is that some of the ladies are quite attractive; too bad there's no sex or nudity in this thing. This is particularly tough going in its first half, which mostly consists of the characters arguing and fighting with each other. The horror quotient finally picks up in the second half, but the final body count may be too small for some tastes. The killer, played by Paul Campbell, just isn't that interesting overall. This is the kind of thing I couldn't really recommend to anybody, unless they're die hard horror fanatics willing to try out anything they see in a store, and even they might come away disappointed. Proceed at your own risk. Four out of 10.

This actually could have been good

[gellerche-48-851856 · 3/10 · 22 October 2016]

Summary is that this movie isn't worth watching. But the really bad thing is that it could have been good if they taken the same care throughout the whole movie. The camera-work was decent and showed that they cared enough to try. Others have said the acting was terrible, but there I disagree. I found the actors believable, it's just that their dialogue (1) didn't tell me anything to get interested in them so that they were all generic characters and (2) the script had the characters doing unbelievable things and didn't flesh out the story of Machete Joe at all. He's just sort of . . . there.

If the script had been written so that the characters had something to say and were doing things that were believable it would've been interesting. As it is, it's not worth a rental.

Lackluster slasher outing

[Woodyanders · 3/10 · 9 October 2013]

Outside of the novelty of having blacks in predominant roles, this slice'n'dice opus offers nothing really new or surprising. The premise is formula stuff: A group of aspiring filmmakers find out the hard way that a local urban legend that they are making a movie about is real. Director Sasha Krane, working from a talky and generic script by Gordon Greene, not only relates the familiar story at a sluggish pace, but also crucially fails to generate any much needed tension or creepy atmosphere. Worse yet, the annoying characters spend the bulk of the screen time bickering and arguing with each other, thereby ensuring that they are decidedly less than appealing and sympathetic. Paul Campbell as the hideously disfigured titular killer just ain't that scary and the attempts to make him a pitiable tragic figure fall flat. Ernie Hudson as the amiable local sheriff and Art Evans as van driver Sammy are both wasted in minor nothing roles. While it's nice to see "Assault on Precinct 13" star Austin Stoker in a decent sized part, he's alas saddled with playing an obnoxiously pompous and arrogant jerk. The rest of the cast are passable at best. Fortunately, this movie does deliver on the gore, so it's not a total wash-out. That said, both the limp dissatisfying ending and Vincent Gillioz's standard hum'n'shiver score also leave something to be desired. However, the sharp cinematography by Christopher Wailings gives this picture a pleasing crisp look. A pretty blah and forgettable flick.

What a pile of garbage!

[slatromhsiloof · 1/10 · 12 February 2012]

Anyone who would give this movie 10 stars is either part of the production crew or severely brain damaged. This film has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Do yourself a favor and avoid this steaming pile of feces. Two grade school children with a webcam could put together a better production than this. I've seen videos on U tube that were far more entertaining. I would imagine they pulled the script from a Universal Studios port-a-potty, then enticed a few homeless people to act in the film by offering them day old donuts as payment. The rest of the budget probably went to hookers and blow. Take a hint producers of this turd: If you are going to make a movie this horrible, you had better switch to pornography as those movies don't depend on stories or acting ability. Sorry for spoiling your scam of throwing up fake 10 star reviews in an effort to sucker people into paying money to watch your horrible waste of time. If you want to put up these fake reviews you should probably put up a more believable 4 stars, as even that is far more than this movie deserves. Just so you know, I saw this movie FOR FREE and it was turned off after the first ten minutes. It was that bad.

Just another awful made for 10$ horror flick

[Robert_duder · 1/10 · 6 February 2012]

I find it very hard to review movies like this. I am a huge horror fan and I watch a lot of B Movie crap and you can't really say its horribly bad and to avoid it because you have to know what you're going into. The movie is bad...its just horrible...and its mind blowing to think that at least one of the IMDb reviews was a perfect 10/10 because that's just utter stupidity. There isn't anything redeemable about this. The acting is awful, its not even acting, the special effects are ridiculous, its not even gory because the kills are done off camera so that they could spend no money on special effects. But the cast has to know what they are doing is bad, they may even act bad on purpose, hoping they will making something so bad that it'll be good...a cult classic perhaps but Machete Joe will never reach that because its just plain stupid. I won't even spend time talking cast because they are all awful. I can't even imagine why Ernie Hudson (easily the biggest name in the film) would even have a cameo in this but he does. The only redemption for this is that you might get some chuckles out of how bad it truly is and for what its worth the story isn't a complete loss. Essentially a young boy watches his mother being raped, and then out of torture has his face brutally scarred and thus becomes a serial killer. The setting is awful, looks like plastic rocks and trees. Machete Joe isn't even a movie...its literally a joke. Even fans of the truly bad horror movies won't even find this watchable. Just steer clear of it. 1/10

Machete Joe may be scarred but NOW I'M scarred for life!!!!

[toyman1967 · 1/10 · 6 March 2012]

I haven't written a review for a film in quite a while but after watching this movie I feel compelled to do so!! I have NOTHING good to say about this movie at all!! The big stars of this film are Art Evans and Ernie Hudson but they only appear in this film a TOTAL of about 5 minutes COMBINED. The acting is horrendous, some of the worst I've EVER seen and I've seen MANY bad-acted movies. I would even put the movie "The Room" above this one in terms of better acted bad movies. There are NO redeeming qualities about this movie so I'm going to stop now because I just realized that I'm wasting my time reviewing a film that ALREADY wasted my time!!! Just stay away from Machete Joe!!!!

reviews on IMDb and ratings are a fraud

[eddyhate · 1/10 · 24 October 2012]

this movie is the worst movie you can ever watch the only reason i'm sure some reviews give 10 as a rating it's because it's an almost all black casting and let me tell you they took the worst of all the black actors that are out there they act worse than samuel L. jackson in "snakes on a plane" and that's pretty hard to beat and the movie is even worse than "snakes on a plane" and the 3.1 rating is completely false no one can watch this movie and think it's good the story is bad the actors are bad the SFX are bad the camera work is bad damn they most of meant -3.1 stars that would make more sense if that's the best movie an almost all black casting and probably crew can make please don't do it again you make the wayans bros look bad

if you want to lose an hour and a half of your life go buy a bottle of prune juice you'll have a better time with that than watching this shflickt

THEY'RE ONLY PLAYING

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 5 December 2018]

This is an African-American slasher film within a film. A group of actors are making a low budget slasher film based on a true story at a large home in the California desert. A mentally handicapped girl was raped by 2 men. All she could remember was a man standing and watching with a machete. Later the boys disappeared. The crew is making a film inspired by the incident, with "Machete Man" being a slasher hero.

The 2 writers of the script haven't finished it. They are counting on the actors to come up something. They have promised the same part to different people. There is a lot of internal conflict as the film makers make Ed Wood look like a genius. Gwen McGee plays the production manager who hits on all the stereotypes for an angry black woman. There were some light scenes toward the beginning which showed promise.

This is certainly not the worse slasher film out there. The acting was what one would expect for a "B" horror. The film had a lot of potential, but didn't capitalize on it. There was too much conflict within the crew with a mediocre script to hold your interest.

Parental Guide: No sex, or nudity. Rape scene.

Machete Joe

[dukeakasmudge · 1/10 · 28 February 2017]

***Spoilers Ahead, Maybe?*** The only thing memorable about this movie was the opening murder scene.It was straight up brutal & after watching it, I wondered if I should've just turned it off then & there but as you already figured out, I didn't.The rest of the movie is forgettable.After you watch Machete Joe, you'll probably forget everything you watched in a couple hours.Oh yeah, the only other thing you might remember is the way Scooter was killed & dragged off (Gory & Brutal) Why did they have to kill off Scooter? He was funny & the best thing about the movie.Anywayz...... Was it just me or did everybody's voice seem like they were dubbed in English? Weird.I can't recommend anybody go see this movie unless nothing else good is on & you're BORED out of your mind like I was.Most importantly, ONLY watch Machete Joe if you can see it for free.If you have to pay or are thinking about paying to watch it, give that $$$ to me!!!

A very good low budget horror thriller.

[qisys · 10/10 · 2 July 2011]

I've seen several films in this genre. Most of them, with the exception of this well done work, are badly lighted. In effect, in other horror films, a viewer often gets bombarded with flashing lights and dark scenes where most of the actors cannot be seen well. This film, in my opinion, is well written, the actors are fine, and the thrills are well paced, and the lighting is excellent, sometimes, even beautiful. In closing, I comment on a previous review by someone called, 'TheBeardedWonder': This person indicated "... I don't want to spend more time than I have to here..." yet their piece was relatively lengthy, and "...nothing is good about it..." using universal quantifiers, like, "nothing is good". All this seems to me to be a bit disingenuous.

Diverse Canuck Horror Sweetness, Baby!

[TONYWATT3000 · 10/10 · 2 February 2012]

I saw this movie on Netflix Canada and very much enjoyed the stylish great opening scene and the movie-making-within-a-movie theme.

As a fellow low-budget horror b-filmmaker, I enjoyed the scenes of a sleazy Caucasian filmmaker character bringing his bimbo-type girlfriend for a horror movie role, and witnessing the discussion of of his worries (to a fellow producer) of the white Mid-west USA audience not buying tickets to see a black person chopping up white folks...gold! The actors know how to act. Great Sets. Great music fx and filmic visual fx. I very much enjoyed the fact that the cast was ethnically diverse, as it's impossible to believe that all white casts exist in the real world. The art vs. commercialism battles were real smooth. Oh, and there is also a good, suspenseful gory horror movie there too...but I just wanted to make my point; as a fellow artist. Also, I enjoyed the fact that although this movie is shot very professional; that these aware (real-life) Canadian filmmakers also make fun of their amateur roots cinematography-wise with film some film shots (by the filmmaker characters' biographer w/ a mini-cam), to show we cinephiles that they (the real filmmakers) know what audience expectations are up against ( since b-movie usually look very amateur) & that they know how to make a great looking film (that looks 3 times the budget) & the problems actors and filmmakers have with each other....Oh, did I also mention this is a good horror film?... Machete Joe is one gruesome mutha-shut-yo-mouth!