At its heart, They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is a film about class. We’ve got the richie riches with their grand suburban homes, perfectly manicured lawns, and cocaine. And then we’ve got the psychotic, mush-mouthed hillbillies who hate them. Battle ensues between those with too much and those with too little, save an axe and a pair of grimy overalls.
But They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is also a movie about beauty, death, destruction, and the endless cycle of human suffering. It’s about how we are all society’s victims and puppets of the system. We are all murderers, we just don’t know it. At least that’s what the voiceover says as we stare at a bloody Barbie with its arms and legs pulled off.
I suppose They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is about all these things, and they are all legitimate reasons to watch the film. But you and I both know that this is the go-to movie to watch a massacre of a blow-up doll filled with meat. It’s the go-to movie to watch an issue of Town & Country get decimated. Never has a magazine been subject to this level of hate—not even when Time declared the Person of the Year was literally you because you put shit on the Internet.
Shot on beautiful Super 8 on Long Island, the film follows hillbilly gardeners Billy Bob and Jacab [sic] as they skulk around a well-heeled community. They’re tired of serving the rich; they’re treated like lower lifeforms just because they’re shirtless, toothless, and wear a rubber fright mask. So it’s time to wipe those smug, elitist grins off these yuppies’ faces. Billy Bob and Jacab slaughter the rich as they sit around their pools grilling hot dogs, reading magazines, and snorting rails. As one couple makes out, the guy comments on how nice her lawn is, which really sounds like it’s code for something, but it’s not. The grass is indeed an “emerald green” and well cared for, thanks to the gardeners. But soon blood ruins the landscaping, with a little help from a spear and the dude’s butt.
Writer, director, and producer Nathan Schiff got inspiration for They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore after working at a hotel in Manhattan. I don’t know what happened at that hotel, but it sounds wilder than anything that went on at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. I, for one, am glad he worked there. This film is a triumph of backyard special effects, from firecrackers exploding heads to a torso filled with rotisserie chicken that the family dog just can’t get enough of. Entrails are excavated, eyeballs are popped out, and limbs are gloriously sawed off. The scoops of goop and piles of guts are all set to a score ripped from the same library H.G. Lewis and Doris Wishman used. The orchestral cues are an homage to the 60s exploitation films that clearly inspired everything Schiff has ever done. And of course Long Island is a character in this film, just as it is in Long Island Cannibal Massacre. We’ve got big hair, white sneakers, and thick accents—the word her sounds like huh, only with two syllables. Welcome to Strong Island.
I love this film for the ambition, not just in the effects, but also in the concept. Filmed when Schiff was just old enough to drink legally, he created a goopy horror film in his literal backyard that also made a social commentary on class as well as a statement on race, though the latter doesn’t quite land. The message and themes in the film are incredibly heavy handed and simplistic, sure, but they’re also sincere. Schiff had something important to say and he really wants us to listen. They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is like watching a sheltered Long Island kid begin to understand that the world is a nefarious, inequitable place and trying to make meaning of it all.
But the most disturbing part of the film is watching a guy eat beans out of a can. It will haunt you.
