Gut (2012)

• Year of release:2012
• Director: Elias
• Genre: Psychological Horror
• IMDB Page

'Gut' is a Psychological Horror movie directed by Elias, who directed the fairly well-known (for a low budget movie) LovecraCked! The Movie. Gut is screened on film festivals all over the world and is planned to be released Oct 26th in New York and other places.

The movie starts with one guy probably choking somebody but we don't see who. Then the title rolls in and we get to see what happened before. An interesting way to start a movie.

So the story is about two friends, Dan and Tom who are colleagues but also childhood friends who made movies together. To renew their friendship Dan invites Tom over to his place to watch a movie, turns out its a snuff film that Dan received from somewhere.

We see that Tom is disgusted by this, while Dan plays it off as a joke.
Slowly Tom gets more and more depressed with his life, he takes no more interest in his family.
At night all he can think about is the snuff film he saw, daydreaming about it and neglecting love to his wife and kid.

The tape itself shows a naked women getting her stomach cut open and somebody putting his hand in there. Hence the title of the movie.

Dan being the bachelor that he is gets a date with a hot waitress, they go back to his place to make the beast with two backs. Later on Dan receives a new snuff movie, this time it turns out the victim is the waitress he slept with. Obvious this now creates a lot of tension since Dan is freaked out and Tom is suspecting Dan. I will not spoil the ending but it's clear to say that it turns a bit in a whodunnit that keeps you guessing even after the movie has ended.

There is some suspense being created during the movie but it takes a while before it starts working. (read as: the movie starts out slow). Until before the murder everything went along quite boringly, the first half hour could be skipped and you wouldn't really mis a lot.

The acting is pretty good, definitely does not feel like a real low budget thriller, and while I did not really like Dan. I think that's more about how the character was written (not very lickable) than because of the actor.
While 'Gut' can be a drag sometimes, if you manage to ignore that there is a pretty suspenseful thriller underneath.
The music is some sort of eerie electronic vibe that does creates some tension and was a good choice, affordable but a bit haunting.

All in all not the best movie from 2012, but if you like low budget films, give it a try.

Score: 5/10 gutted bellies.