The cinematic equivilent of being trapped in a rough hotel reception overnight. I am honestly struggling for words as to exactly what I sat down to tonight as part of a double feature with some friends. Im only vaguely familiar with the works of Scott Shaw, and this really was an unfamilliar ‘dipping of the toe’ into his works…Honestly; I dont really feel like I understand his methodology any better for having seen this.

The broad BROAD plot follows a being who is sent to earth by an alien race to take out a great evil known as a ‘Chupacabra’. In the opening moments of the film, he’s warned that he’ll face ‘Angels and demons’ who will both try to aid, and halt his mission. And that it’ll be down to him to decide which are truthful, and which are there to decieve.

That however is a 15 minute plot stretched VERY thinly over an 80-90 minute long film that predominantly consists of people running around semi and FULLY nude in the desert firing guns, people chasing each other in small towns and subway networks and lots and LOTS of border incoherent monologues both in the back of cars and in the desert too.

Both Shaw and director Donald G. Jackson subscribe to an art known as ‘Zen Film making’ basically they’ll maybe start with a VERY basic idea, and then they’ll just film and film and film anything and everything that comes to mind until they feel they’re ‘done’…No matter how incoherent the end product.

And thats basically the best way to sum up this film. It doesnt feel like there was much in the way of planning or a script present here. Instead, its more a series of ‘happenings’ that are largely all unrelated VERY rarely cutting back to that 10-15 minute plot I mentioned earlier. By the 3rd act, the whole things gone meta and we’re watching the film makers filming and making the opening half hour of the movie.

Chracters have almost no backstory, no depth, no reason even BE in the movie, but they waddle on, say there adlibbed lines and then things move on to something else with almost ZERO physical presence.

The tone is inconsistent, its clear this was supposed to be light hearted for the most part, but there are long stints of semi serious dryness that means your never entirely sure as to what the intentions of the film are.

Theres no planned pacing present here, nothing resembling an act structure, and no indication of a beginning, middle OR end. the film starts in the middle of a scene, and ends in the middle of a piece to camera.

The dialogues messy, full of flubs and border incoherent (because theres no planned plot and the cast members come and go depending on how available they were to shoot the damn thing) you find yourself in situations where stuffs mentioned in detail, and then abandoned never to be spoken of again.

The directions basically non existent. they set the camera up for a mid wide in almost every scene, do an adlibbed take, and then shoot B-roll (if they remember to) for bits they enjoyed. there are little to no retakes, if an actor messes up the delivery…tough. and because of the crews reliance on ‘Zen film making’ to produce the goods, your constantly in the ‘vibe’ that no communication was being made between the cast and crew.

The cine is a mess, apart from the HORRENDOUS framing issues which render about 75% of the film an unfocussed, non traditional slurry. someone forgot to do the colour balancing on set for a significant chunk of the footage. Meaning to compensate they’ve cranked up the saturations levels making everyone look an ill shade of ‘Gammon’ pink and the desert positively satsuma orange. its sickly, motion sickness inducing and really lacks any kind of personal touch.

The edit feels poorly constructed, badly planned and almost like it was cut together simply by grabbing what footage ‘felt right’ between beers 5 and 6. theres not rhythm, no structure to the squences. theres random ‘flash’ breaks which were distracting and cuts are 99% of the time too early or too late. Equally, whereas most edits help refine the footage into a decently paced end product. here, it feels like every single scrap was used without ANY kind of pushback. resulting in a film that felt like it ended 20 minutes off its ACTUAL end point, but somehow had just kept on going.

The performances are stilted, stale and uninteresting, theres a few campy moments here and there, but theres almost no physicality in the performances with most of the cast just kind of standing about, a bit confused, delivering whatever their heads conjur up…usually nude.

and the score consists of 3 songs that are played on a near continuous loop that made me long for the sweet release of death at the 30 minute mark…letalone the 70 minute mark.

DESPITE its flaws, ‘Guns of El Chupacabra’ has an oddly compelling vibe to it. Not a GOOD vibe by any stretch. but there are moments pitted throughout this that I feel, in the right mindset, with a beer and some friends could be actually quite a fun time. I could (in theory) see myself watching this one again sometime. But definitely not solo and DEFINITELY not without abusing some substances before hand.

Not for the feint at heart. this was a bit of a challenging watch even for myself (and I’ve seen some rubbish in my time) I think if you go in KNOWING this thing is gonna drag from around the half way point till the end, you’ll probably have an okay time. But GOD help you if your approaching this thing blind.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/guns-of-el-chupacabra/