Watching “Massacrator” is frantic, jarring and violent, and in the end you feel very violated. I had every reason to love Pierre Ayote’s ode to Grindhouse silliness but instead I just couldn’t jibe with what was happening on-screen. Being a simultaneous ode to everything from Grindhouse to science fiction we meet Massacrator, a borg sent in to the present (or future?) to… kill a girl, I think. After decapitating a few poor suckers, he makes his way to a young woman who manages to get away just in time to avoid his super punch.
How did he know where she lived? Not important. Because Ayote moves the film in to such a frantic and mind-numbing pace that it’s almost impossible to make out what’s actually happening. So the woman somehow resurrects Elvis who comes to the rescue and takes on the killer borg. I know, that sentence makes no sense, but the movie is pretty much a big bag of senselessness. Ayote, obviously an Elvis fan, stages much of the fight scenes between the killer robot and the king with such a rattling choreography that it’s almost impossible to make out what’s happening ninety percent of the time.
While Ayote does indeed seem to want to pay homage to Grindhouse, the movie contradicts what the atmosphere brings to the screen. So while the tone is that of a sleazy seventies actioner, the actual story is a melange of fan boy references and homages to classic movies and pop culture. Ayote seems to have the right grasp on the surreal, it’s just too bad it’s lost in a haze of choppy editing, and shaky direction that will assuredly induce a migraine or two. I wanted to like “Massacrator,” and by all accounts I should have, but in the end the shaky direction, frantic pace and awfully nonsensical plot left me apathetic to its appeal.