Extreme Eric (Michael Adrian Palermo) is a porn director, producer and
distributor known for his rather extreme content - but his latest shoot
goes a bit too far when the father (Stan Yombo) of his lead actress (Trevi
Williams) storms onto the set, kills one of his male actors (Jesse
Lincoln), hacks off the hand of Johnny (Jack Spralja), the regular stud in
Eric's films, then threatens Eric with a machete - but luckily, Eric is
packing heat and shoots the angry dad before he can do him any harm. Then
he shoots his actress too, because she could testify against him. When the
sirens signal the arrival of the police, he gets Johnny and they make an
escape ... This experience has somehow changed Extreme Eric, because
from now on he's no longer content with shooting extreme porn, he now
wants to shoot snuff - and really ugly snuff too, films filled with
full-on shots of guts and dismemberment. And Johnny, his longtime sidekick
through his porn career who now wears a hook for a hand, becomes a willing
accomplice. In a seemingly unrelated story, we meet Stuart (Randy
Tobin), a loser if there ever was one. He works in a dead-end job at a
hamburger joint and isn't even good at that, is being bullied by pretty
much everyone, and the closest thing he comes to having sex is watching
porn, including films by Extreme Eric of course. Stuart falls in love with
Ember (Aurelia Scheppers), a girl he only knows from Eric's movies, and he
is so serious about this that he writes her a love letter. To even his own
amazement, she calls him back and wants to meet him. The date ends with
the two of them fornicating in Stuart's bed, but the next day she's gone,
and is eventually found murdered in some park. Extreme Eric and Johnny
catch up with Stuart and beat him up, basically because Ember was Johnny's
ex. Eventually, they stab Stuart and leave him to die ... but Stuart
survives, and once his wounds are healed, he takes martial arts lessons to
exact his revenge ... and ultimately, he kills Johnny and Extreme Eric in
just the same gruesome way they have killed all those girls (and almost
him as well). Definitely not a film for the faint hearted, A
Few Screws Loose is a gritty tale from the seedy underbelly of Los
Angeles and its film industry, where the road to success leads via porn
and ends at snuff - and while A Few Screws Loose might in no way be
pornographic, it doesn't shy away from extreme violence: In best Herschell
Gordon Lewis tradition, we see characters being dismembered, guts pulled
out of open corpses, and faces being beaten to a pulp (literally) in every
gory detail. And the film's ending isn't carthatic either since it only
shows its protagonist having grown just another wheel in a clockwork of
violence. So no, the film isn't for the faint-hearted, but if you are into
extreme gore and can take this films rather bleak worldview, this
one might be just for you.
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