If you're in the mood for cheap and splattery and aren't too concerned with things like story and characters, Taeter City will scratch that itch. It's almost knowingly devoid of any sort of reasonable story. When one police captain-ish guy is essentially laying out the plot of the film, he says ""Don't ask me how, or why, because this is fucking nonsense - fucking nonsense!"" Which yeah, pretty much sums it up. It's just a loose concept that allows writer-director-star Giulio De Santi to do as much gory shit as possible. Faces/heads getting blown-up/smashed/melted seem to be De Santi's calling card. It's all so over the top and cartoonish that it practically begs you to never really take it seriously.
The story? Taeter City takes place in... Taeter City, in a sort of dystopian-ish near future. The Authority rules things with an iron fist. Criminals are executed and turned into food for the hungry populace - namely at the ubiquitous Taeter Burger restaurant, which has ads everywhere gloating about how delicious human innards are. And people are generally cool with this. And in order to form a more perfect union, the Authority has found a way to identify criminals *before* they commit any crimes (something about brainwaves and microwaves or something), and can zap them into goo before they can cause any trouble. But an unfortunate effect of these waves is that it turns one guy into an unstoppable killing machine - and he's only getting stronger. And, there's this kind of biker-gang/task force that works for the Authority that tries to take out unstoppable killing guy. Much violence ensues. And oh yeah, just about everyone in Taeter City wears a mask. I'm guessing because it looks a lot better when their heads explode (which is the fate of many, many heads in this film).
So, based on those last two paragraphs you should have a good idea of whether or not this film is for you. The overall tone of the film is part goofy and mostly tasteless. I think it's a little less offensive than it wants to be, but there are certainly some nasty bits here and there. But generally speaking, you get desensitized to the violence pretty quickly, and it becomes more of a "oh, that's creative" kind of thing rather than "oh, that's disgusting."
Taeter City is certainly a low budget film, but there is some real creativity in the way De Santi creates the futuristic quirks of the titular city. You get the standard CGI stuff, some traditional animation (by way of Taeter Burger advertisements), some craftily used stock footage, and some good use of props and camera work for our heros. (I loved the smoke coming out of one of their helmets, and the little pods covering their bikes.) Now, don't get me wrong - it's not a slick-looking film by any means - but the overly digitized look actually plays to it's favor. It's a shitty future, and I have to imagine (at this rate) that much of the shitty future will be digitized. Taeter City is certainly a low budget film, but it's clear that the bulk of the money went to where it counts - the gore. But there's still some crafty and solid filmmaking on display here.
But what about that gore? It's hard to judge Taeter City as a horror film. I'm not too much of a splatter fan myself, and it's pretty evident that smooshy gore is the main focal point of the film, rather than any sort of tension or scares. But it does deliver cheap gore aplenty - lots of heads exploding/getting smashed, some nasty slashings, and gross gunshot wounds. So if that's what you're looking for, Taeter City won't disappoint. And even as a non-splatter guy, it's short enough (listed at 70 minutes, but the credits must run a full 10) that it doesn't drag. There's some fun and creative stuff in here - both gore- and normal filmmaking-wise.
Overall, I'd say Taeter City succeeds wildly in what it sets out to do - create an intriguing looking world (if not a particularly realistic one) and deliver gore. And it doesn't really even try to do anything else. But it's still a decent enough watch, provided you're up for that sort of thing.
I would recommend this film.
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