Carl Sturgess is the producer, editor and director of the classic 2005 inline roller skating movie, Killerboots. Sturgess is a pretty big name within the skate community, having directed four skate films featuring some of the sport’s biggest names. The excellence of this feature-length film is one of the many reasons he’s so appreciated within the extreme sport crowd, even as he’s gone on to work with different subjects.

Killerboots was shot in California, Arizona, Seattle and Kansas, among other states. Like all of Sturgess’ action sports films, this classic features some of the biggest names within blading, including full-length profiles of Chris Haffey, Jeff Stockwell, Brian Shima, Brandon Campbell and JC Rowe.

The film’s opening is a horror homage: fake blood lines the walls and spells out the production company, followed by hand prints and the spooky music one normally associates with B-Roll gore fests as the opening credits roll. This is all a preamble, though. After the eerie sound effects and the deliberately amateurish lighting of the blood-splattered walls intercut with ominous woods, it’s on to the actual video, which is a lot more upbeat. Sturgess also stops with the horror music and incorporates more pop tunes, as is his trademark.

The blading itself is of course out of this world, as you could probably tell by the lineup. Brandon Campbell jumps a blind gap in the opening that’s astonishing and Brian Shima travels so fast during his insane jumps and tricks it’s a wonder Sturgess’ camera could capture it at all.

This film also wouldn’t be nearly as accomplished and fun to watch if it didn’t feature Sturgess’ great timing, which means he spent quite a bit of time editing hours of  footage. Combined with the awesome soundtrack and some real gnarly shots of the skaters in a variety of different locales performing all manner of street tricks, we’re not complaining about any of it.

Killer Boots is for people that love to skate and want their skaters grimy and unfiltered and for non-skaters that just want to get in on some pretty epic street blading action.

The whole film is free online now. You can watch all of it above or in four installments on YouTube. Hit play… now.

Cover Photo Credit: prosto photos – flickr.com