Gummo | 
| Actors: Wendall Carr, Charles Matthew Coatney, Bryant L. Crenshaw, Darby Dougherty, James Glass (ii)
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.98
Buy New: $10.94
You Save: $14.04 (56%)
New (40) Used (18) from $8.88
Rating:  336 reviews
Sales Rank: 14750
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 6 x 0.6
MPN: TRNDN5236D
ISBN: 0780634594
UPC: 794043523625
EAN: 9780780634596
ASIN: B000059HA8
Theatrical Release Date: October 17, 1997
Release Date: March 20, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Portrait of small-town middle america life that is both realistic and hauntingly dream-like--startling strange hilarious tender & poetic. Features: widescreen photo gallery with directors comments cast & crew filmographies. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 03/20/2001 Starring: Chloe Sevigny Run time: 89 minutes Rating: R
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| Customer Reviews: Read 331 more reviews...
 B R I L L I A N T May 27, 2009
L. Stefanie (Australia)
It has more to say than some people suggest.
Watch it. It will affect you in some way. And that is what good art is supposed to do.
AN ACQUIRED TASTE May 14, 2009
W. Hemeter (New Orleans)
Granted, Gummo is not for everyone. But I bought it because I find it oddly fascinating. I used to screen my dates for suitability by having them watch Gummo--the "Gummo test". This didn't work out real well. Most bailed withing the first 15 minutes.
You've never seen anything like this. May 4, 2009
Skyclad (Michigan)
If you go into this movie expecting a masterful story with a typical Hollywood caliber budget, you'll be let down because you'll find none of this in Gummo. Gummo doesn't really try to beat you over the head with a storyline as much as it tries to literally transport you into the messed up world that exists in the lives of these people from Southern Ohio. Some of the stuff that goes on in the movie is not that far from reality either. There are people and towns like this out there. This movie has an atmosphere all its own.
 "Life is great. Without it, you'd be dead." April 22, 2009
trashcanman (Hanford, CA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Gummo" is a rough film to rate. It's got no plot or story, appears to have been almost entirely improvised, and seems to exist pretty much just to exist. It's little more then a half-amusing/half-disturbing collage of scenes/vignettes that border on skits chronicling life in the rural town of Xenia, Ohio. If I lived there, I would be seriously bent after watching this. There are two primary themes present: country hicks are crazy, and all cats must die. Seriously, this flick is like torture porn for cat haters. While a lot of reviews I read hail this piece of highly independent cinema as everything from an artistic interpretation of rural culture to science fiction to inspirational faux-documentary, they are pretty much all wrong. "Gummo" is just "Gummo". Any artistry found in several minutes of homophobic ranting from young children or drunk adults wrestling a chair while their buds cheer them on like it's the greatest thing they've ever seen is nothing more then what the viewer ascribes to it. And that is what makes this a worthwhile film: every person who watches it will get something different out of it, good or bad.
The segments are so loosely connected and inane that I wish the director had used title cards to begin each one. Titles like "Parents Huff Chemicals With Their Children", and "Girls Rip Tape Off of Their Nipples To Make Their Breasts Look Bigger" tell you everything you need to know about a given scene. That's as deep a story as you're going to get. Xenia is one of those trailer park towns where it's still acceptable to say things in public like "I hate ni$%ers" out of the blue for no reason and the explanation you need to offer it "they just pi$z me off". Feral cats are all over and local kids use techniques ranging from BB guns and broken glass in a can of tuna to physical drowning to kill them for fun and profit. Profit? Yeah, they sell them to a guy who's got a connection at a Chinese restaurant. Yum. If your humor is black enough, you'll find some chuckles, but more then likely you'll just be sickened.
Now, I came from a place more rural then Xenia and I can assure you that not everything you see in "Gummo" is fictional. In fact, it may not go far enough as far as exposing the true deviancy of this down-home fantasy ideal that America has cooked up. In the country where the only way to tell people where you live is the name of your street (assuming it has a name and isn't just a dirt road) you practically live outside of society mentally as well as physically. The culture that often arises from a lack of education and social norms coupled with sheer boredom is not nearly as pleasant as moronic country music songs make it out to be. "Country boys and girls getting down on the farm" is probably closer to this film then the crummy tune. In the city we turn on the news and see child or animal abuse and violent beatings and think "oh my god, how horrible". In rural America, that's just part of the landscape, not news at all.
The critics who praise "Gummo" as a refreshing look at the culture or deride it as an elitist mockery of it are both wrong and have likely never lived in the country. It's neither. The film is definitely a freak show, and one with a lot of truth to it, but to somebody whose lived amongst ditch bank Okies, it's hardly refreshing. Nor is it a realistic account of rural life. While it appears to be almost documentary in nature, it has a lot of indie weirdness that baits critics into attaching deep artistic meaning to what a shirtless boy in pink bunny ears represents or a mentally retarded girl in a Krokus shirt who runs around singing her ABC's. Every character appears to be inbred or mentally handicapped and apparently also gain a healthy sexual appetite by the time they hit grade school. A lot of this stuff appears to be there just for the indie kookiness/WTF factor. So it's not really fact and it's not entirely fiction. What is it? It's somewhere in the middle, which is to say it accomplishes very little.
Now, my biggest factor in rating anything is how much I enjoyed it. I can't really say I enjoyed watching dead cats getting hung and beaten with sticks or shot over and over with a BB gun. Gay hick trying to make out with a deformed midget on the couch? Sorry. Young children having sex with a mentally ill prostitute? Ummmm, no. Just not my cup of tea. Chicks taping their nipples? Okay, I can dig that a little. The movie isn't wretched and the audacity of it along with the black humor gives it an energy that will certainly appeal "Gummo" to many cult cinema enthusiasts, but at the end of the day it's not really my thing. The soundtrack rocks, though. My childhood was not a happy one and this felt to a degree like revisiting it. I don't put dead animals in people's mail boxes anymore (not that I'm admitting to such a thing) and it's been a long time since the cops chased me for throwing rocks at moving cars with my friends in the middle of the night. I've no need to further explore the doings of middle America. But if you are curious about what a semi-authentic country song would be about or just want to see some really messed-up random hillbilly sh!+ then give this film a try.
2 1/2 stars, rounded up for uniqueness.
This Movie is Bizarre,Entertaining,Scary,and Disgusting,All at the same Time. April 9, 2009
Silky Greensleeves (Northeast,Ohio USA)
Gummo is A look at A group of backward people,living in A small Ohio community.These people are weird,demented,disgusting,and obviously racist.These people are so screwed up,you actually feel kind of sorry for them.Kids going around killing cats,and selling them to restaurants and stores.Handicapped girls being forced into prostitution,5 year old kids,cussing like sailors.A mom sniffing glue with her son,and A bizarre kid(dressed in A pink bunny costume).This movie is entertaining,and in some parts truly captures A bizarre fascination.I give it 3 stars,while the movie is interesting,many people may have A problem with the cat butchering.If you can get past the cat scenes,you might find this nightmarish film,curiously entertaining,in A morbid way.
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