A young, nightlife-intense ensemble reminiscent of Return of the Living Dead breaks into a warehouse in preparation for a rave they are running later that night. Amidst the setup, these clitorally electrified chicks and shitfaced guys just cant help but start the party themselves, and after a few drinks, the fucking, dancing, and bickering boils to inebriated heights. Boiling over sexuality like a horny 19 year old on ecstasy, these girls still have their own agenda. They are there to make money, and you aint gettin any pink or green. But faithful serial slasher fans can still rejoice.

Although there seems to be an endless line of mediocre, self-absorbed poser serial killers to choose from these days, extending to the distant horizon, all with their own reasons and methods to their madness, all with their own masks, make way for the killer that puts the ruthlessness behind the anvil. Cutting to the front of the pack is The Beast (Jeremy Sumrall) – a massive destruction machine that makes Jason Voorhees look like he’s back in the lake. Hundreds of pounds of red spraying, jaw breaking massacre is here to save the scene and get the job done right, slaughtering his way through this self absorbed clique, killing every self satisfied, popular kid you ever wanted to see destroyed.

For Charlie (worthy newcomer Ashley Kay) and her friends, this night has a high probability of ending in death before the party ever gets started. Director, writer and cinematographer Stacy Davidson debuts onto the scene with a script written by Ted Geoghegan, backed by a street-styled looking cast and special effects that brought home the top prize at the 2009 New York City Horror Film Festival (by Kristi Boul, Marcus Koch, and Mike Oliver) – driving home a frequently hard to balance example of how some films don’t need to have gripping stories, fleshed out characters, and meanings behind it all. Sometimes all you need for a good time is sex, drugs, and rock n roll – or as in the case with Sweatshop – sex, raves, lesbians, and some absolutely freakishly brutacular kills.

There isn’t much to analyze here. With the story of Sweatshop being snatched from the rejection bin of a Hustler horror-porn script inquiry, Davidson had Geoghegan do some quick surgery, removing the straight-up porn scenes and then stitching it back together with a thread of very strong and merciless kills similar to the kinds witnessed in the Midnight Meat Train. The Beast is filmed to look like he is circa 500 pounds and seven feet tall – donning a not-yet-genre-claimed welding mask, and a machined and self crafted anvil that has the ability to crush people like bugs on a windshield. Which he does, without mercy, and with a slight twist of surprising assistance. While its not all fully explained (intentionally) and left partially to your imagination (which is welcome), genre fans will be pleasantly repulsed by their Demons / Brides of Dracula homage presence.

While being far from perfect, Sweatshop delivers what you go out on a Friday night horror movie for. A loud, rave intense, strobed sex fest, which plays out like a night at the local club. The humor tongue in cheek, and the characters prepped for enjoyed expendability, the first 30 minutes are a bit of a stretch to get through, but thereafter is a blood wet dream of a slasher film waiting to finish you off like a generously paid-up john. The amount of bone and brain that gets ruthlessly ripped from these victims is beyond satisfying, and a good time overall when you blend the mix of what you have here together.

Final analysis: The Beast f*cking HATES ravers! Sweatshop is a truly genuine, bloody, fluidic mass of independent horror. Bodies crushed to the floor with a welded 300 lb block of condensed steel that makes his victims seem they have about the same chance as a bowl of Jell-O. Smut, gore, junk, – heads splattered beyond recognition, pieces of skull, mandibles, jawbones, molars swimming in coagulating blood. Sweatshop is a gore-filled, murderous, naked, strobe-flashing night out that delivers the graphic violence buzz and hormone stir stick you always wanted from a low budget horror film – just about better than anything else you’ve seen come from a one-man killing machine all year. Aside from some acceptable flaws (like massive idiocy and an annoying “killer-cam” that made it too shaky and difficult to soak the scenery up with the eyes), this is straight up horror fun. Leave your brain at the door – Sweatshop is the bloodbath rave party of the year.