Tag: USA

RWBY

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rwby★★★★
“Harriet Potter and the F-sized Weapon”

There are occasionally times where our book reviewer Werner’s “split scale” of grades for both artistic merit and action, would come in handy. This is one of those times. For the action scenes here are as glorious as you would expect from the man behind Dead Fantasy, virtuoso symphonies of exquisite hyper-violence, meted out and absorbed by characters and monsters without fear or bias, in ways limited only – and not very much, at that – by the creator’s imagination. Probably inevitably, this overshadows a fairly perfunctory plot, and characters whose characterization is largely defined by the shade they wear. On a split scale, this would merit five stars for both the quantity and quality of action, but likely three or three and a half for artistic merit.

It takes place in the world of Remnant, in a three-cornered struggle between humanity, the monstrous Creatures of Grimm, and the Faunus, who are part-animal, part-human, and largely perceived as second-class citizens, despite their own talents. There’s a substance called “Dust” which has magical powers, and an academy where young men and women train as Hunters and Huntresses, to do battle with the Grimm. The focus is on four teenage girls who are part of this year’s new intake, and who end up forming team RWBY [pronounced “Ruby”]: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long: the last is yellow-themed, you should be able to figure out the others. The main nemesis is Roman Torchwick, a terrorist who is working with a group fighting for Faunus’ rights, yet who had entirely his own agenda – as well as some high-powered minions and skills of his own.

Originally a web series, the first and second seasons have now been collected into feature-length collections, and while their episodic nature is occasionally apparent, they probably work better that way. The opening takes a little while to hit its stride, as it has to create the world, introduce the characters and establish the situations. The animation style takes some getting used to: it’s done in CGI, but trying to look like traditional cel animation; some of the resulting movement is almost too smooth, and I find the lack of noses on some of the characters, a bit unsettling. However, the script is well-written, sometimes sharp and witty, occupying a good place between self-awareness and parody. Even the characters that are largely superfluous – and some of the hunters in training could be so described – are less irritating than they might be.

It is, however, all about the action, and it’s clear that all of the other aspects – the plot, the participants and the world they inhabit – exist merely to facilitate the fight scenes, which is where all the work, imagination and energy become truly apparent.  The highlight, for me, in volume one, was a battle at a temple against a series of Grimm, while the second part climaxes with a running fight in, on and around, a train as it hurtles toward the capital city. You forget they are animated, while simultaneously wishing someone would throw $200 million at the studio behind it, Rooster Teeth, and let them make a live-action version. Sadly, creator Oum died of a severe allergic reaction in February this year, although it has been announced that Volume Three of the series will continue. Hopefully, the quality will not suffer, and will be a fitting monument to Oum’s sadly-missed talents.

Dir: Monty Oum
Star (voice): Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Barbara Dunkelman

The Miss in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

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mirn11It has been a good summer for undercover action heroines at the cinema. And, by “undercover”, I mean films where they are not necessarily the lure, but once you get in there, the makers deliver above and beyond what was expected. First, there was Mad Max: Fury Road, in which, despite the title, Max was more a supporting character to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. And now, we get M-I:RN, which does something very similar; by some standards Ethan Hunt is not, apparently, the protagonist, in that it is not necessarily his actions which drive the film. It can be argued that position belongs equally to Rebecca Ferguson’s improbably-named MI5 operative, Ilsa Faust, who rescues Hunt from apparent certain death on more than one occasion, and whose mission to stop the mysterious “Syndicate” allows the nominal hero to come along for the ride.

While I’ll admit this site might just have a bit of a bias in regard to such things, I have to mention it isn’t just my prejudice which thinks so. A number of writers think Ferguson “stole” the movie from Tom Cruise, was “every bit the equal of Ethan Hunt”, or is straight up, “a badass goddess.” I can’t argue with any of that at all, and will add the significant bonus of there being basically zero romantic chemistry or sexual tension here. While the latest entry in the series does have much in common with classic 007 – globetrotting, gadgets and one-liners – the script, also written by director McQuarrie, simply isn’t interested in the hero bedding anyone, and the film is all the better for this, because it’s a hackneyed angle, which has absolutely been done to death. I have no clue (and, to be honest, don’t care) whether Cruise’s Scientology or alleged sexuality are in any way responsible for this chastity, or if it’s more to do with his character supposedly being happily married – at least, he was in the last film, since curiously, there is absolutely zero mention of Julia Hunt in this one, dead or alive.

mirn03We first meet Ilsa after Hunt has been lured in by the Syndicate, and drugged in a London record-shop. He wakes to find himself dangling in the Syndicate’s torture-chamber, and about to be interrogated by someone with the ominous nickname of “the Bone Doctor”. Faust is there too, as another operative, but helps Hunt to escape, taking out more than her share of bad guys, since the hero spends most of the scene hanging from the ceiling like a well-muscled piñata. She stays behind to maintain her cover, and a somewhat confused Hunt escapes. He next encounters Faust at the Vienna Opera House, where she is one of a number of assassins sent after the Austrian Chancellor, as part of the Syndicate’s plans to destabilize the world and… something something world domination. Look: they’re the bad guys, m’kay? Motivation is not the script’s strong suit: we eventually find out they’re after a large chunk of money, which is a bit of a surprise, considering they apparently aren’t short of a dollar or two for operations. Guess you can never have too much.

Turns out the head of the Syndicate sent Faust to kill the Chancellor to test her, suspecting her of involvement in the escape of Hunt. So, when she fails there too, she has to team up with Hunt, on a mission to track down an electronic ledger supposedly containing the names of all the Syndicate operatives. This is held in the depths of a Moroccan secure facility, which gives Hunt a chance to show off his skills – except, he isn’t able to get out in time, and has to be rescued by Ilsa yet again. If I were Hunt’s employer, I’d look at downgrading him from impossible missions, to somewhat tricky ones. Faust absconds with the file, giving it to her MI5 handler, only to be told her job is not over, and sends her back in again – though inexplicably, the head of the Syndicate appears to have a far laxer policy on employee failure than most evil overlords, and does not execute her on the spot for her multiple failures and apparent reckless disloyalty. Still, it seems fair to say that it is Faust’s choices, more than Hunt’s, that drive the plot: she acts, while he reacts. It wouldn’t take much in the way of a rewrite for this to become the long-awaited Modesty Blaise film, with Hunt converting into trusty sidekick, Willie Garvin.

In terms of action, there’s a particular nod to the 007 franchise in Faust’s signature move, which appears to echo Xenia Onatopp from Goldeneye, albeit seen through the lens of Lucha Underground. I’m not sure which is more impressive: that’s it’s Ferguson actually doing it (she says, “I thought it was never gonna happen, then I nailed it. I remember the excitement and the kick that it gave me. I asked them, ‘Can I do it more?’ It’s such a good move.”), or that she does it in a freakin’ ball-gown. On the other hand, Ilsa is smart enough to kick off her high-heels when they impede her. While Internet chatter had this as perhaps a sly poke at the heroine of Jurassic World, who appears to be nailed into her shoes even when being chased by velociraptors, it appears the scene in MI:GN was shot independently.

It’s also interesting to note the way the movie’s plot in some aspects mirrors that of Turandot, the opera being staged in Vienna. Per Wikipedia, the story “involves Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot still refuses to marry him.” [Or, for non-fans of classical music: it’s the one with that song by the fat guy with a beard] Hmm: might those riddles be, escaping from custody, surviving the theatre assault, and retrieving the ledger? Have to say, I’d go to the opera more often, if I was convinced it would resembled the film, rather than being more like watching sofas get re-arranged. Perhaps a more directly relevant inspiration came be seen in more recent cultural history, Ferguson saying, “Tom, Chris, and I had talked about bringing in this old starlet idea. If you look back at Veronica Lake and Ingrid Bergman, that style of the ’40s and then roughing it up with a 2015 sort of fuck off attitude.” It’s a combination of old-school grace and new-school ruthless efficiency which helps make for a winning product.

mirn07It’s always nice to see a new potential franchise pop up. Even if it has now been almost 50 years since Mission: Impossible first hit the TV screens, this is certainly a new direction for the franchise (though we acknowledge previous candidates, such as Maggie Q in the third film). Ferguson’s star is likely the biggest beneficiary of the film’s success, and I’m sure she’ll now be in demand; a career as an action heroine could be hers, should she want it  If Ilsa Faust shows up in the next entry – or, better yet, gets spun off into her own series – I’d have absolutely no complaints. Fingers crossed that’s a Mission which will prove Entirely Possible some day.

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Star: Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner

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Miss Nobody

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★★★
“Climbing the corporate ladder can be murder.”

missnobodySarah Jane (Bibb) has been working for years as a unassuming secretary in a pharmaceutical company, and egged on by colleague and best friend Charmaine (Pyle), eventually gets up the courage to apply for an executive position. With some embellishment of her resume, she gets the post, only to have it yanked from under her when a new hotshot arrives. The hotshot makes a pass at her, leading to his accidental death; Sarah Jane has her position restored as a result of this untimely demise, and discovers her late rival had the plans for a wonder-drug with the potential to reverse Alzheimer’s. However, she soon realizes that further deaths will be necessary, both to keep her secret, and also continue her rise up the chain of command. Complicating matters, she starts dating one of the policemen (Goldberg) involved in the investigation of the slew of suspicious corporate deaths, by train, photocopier, gas explosion, etc.  Worse yet, someone clearly knows what Sarah Jane has been up to, and starts trying to blackmail her.

The film could have gone a number of different ways in terms of its approach, such as black comedy – Heathers would be the best example of that approach. However, Cox strenuously avoids the darker tone, opting to keep things frothy and light: there’s little or no doubt, for example, that Sarah Jane’s victims deserve some kind of retribution [although you can certainly argue whether their crimes reach a level where the death penalty is merited]. It does, of course, rely heavily on the stupidity of just about everyone beyond the heroine, the rest of the characters behaving in ways that would only happen in this kind of film. However, the cast are good enough to pull this off, with Bibb endearingly perky in the lead, and getting good support from Pyle (Cleaners), as well as Vivica A. Fox (Kill Bill) as another corporate rival, plus Barry Bostwick as the local Catholic priest, who has some difficulty coming to terms with the heinous crimes to which Sarah Jane confesses.

I was, however, unconvinced by the ease with which she slides from mouse-like secretary into serial-killing predator. Especially given – or, depending on your view of religious zealotry – even allowing for, her devout faith [she prays nightly before a shrine to St. George, a statue of whom played a formative role in her youth], it’s a slippery slope down which Sarah Jane less slides, than cheerfully sprints. The bubbly approach also seems awkwardly at odds with the subject matter, though the performances help deflect attention from this while the film is in motion. I’d likely have preferred a sharper edge to the corporate satire; there’s no shortage of potential targets there, yet this has about as much edge as a letter-opener, and that limits the impact, turning this into little more than a competently fluffy time-passer.

Dir: T. Abram Cox
Star: Leslie Bibb, Adam Goldberg, Missi Pyle, Kathy Baker

Final Girl

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★★½
“Hannah and her sister…”

horrorThe ‘final girl’ is a concept familiar to horror fans, being the last survivor who confronts the killer at the end, and typically defeats them (until the sequel, anyway!); mostly chaste, intelligent and resourceful, examples could include Ripley from Alien, Laurie Strode in Halloween, and one we’ve previously reviewed here, Erin in You’re Next, which somewhat subverts the concept. This movie, boldly claiming the trope for its title, goes further down that road, but I’m not sure it does so with as much assurance or wit. Set mostly in a deliberately-indeterminate time (judging by the fashions, the fifties seems a reasonable guess), it begins a decade or so earlier, with new orphan Veronica being quizzed by William (Bentley) as to whether she’d like to learn a “special” job. Fast forward 12 years, and she is about to go on a mission: taking care of four thoroughly unpleasant, upper-class young men, who have formed a “killer’s club,” that takes young, blonde women out to the woods, then hunts down and murders them. But in Veronica, they’re going to find themselves taking on a victim more than capable of handling herself.

It’s the annoying gaps here that manage to derail a potentially great idea. We never know who William is, or quite what happened over the following 12 years; in some ways, Veronica is remarkably ill-prepared for the events that unfold, so it doesn’t seem like she was training full-time. Nor can this have been the goal all along, given the killers are hardly any older than Veronica herself. And once she is finally taken into the forest, having successfully “flirty fished” for the gang of four, there is an overlong scene of them sitting around playing Truth or Dare, which sheds zero light on proceedings, and offers no insight into the characters on either side. It’s a good example of a film not being as smart as it thinks. However, good to see Breslin, whom we’ve wanted to adopt since Signs, shifting into more mature roles, and she does well, adding credibility to some of the more ludicrous plot elements e.g. a drug that causes you to hallucinate your worst fears. C’mon, that’s barely even trying.  It was also nice to see Cameron Bright as one of the killers; I think the last thing I saw was him playing the carrier in Ultraviolet opposite Milla Jovovich.

The forest scenes is lushly photographed, and once things finally kick off, the payback is decently delivered. It just takes too long to reach that point, and of all the ways the concept could have been used, Shields and the four writers apparently chose the least interesting path. You can tell it’s the director’s first feature, and while his background gives him a good handle on the visual aspects, the script is too weak for any amount of style to cover up the cracks.

Dir: Tyler Shields
Star: Abigail Breslin, Wes Bentley, Logan Huffman, Alexander Ludwig

Legend of the Red Reaper

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★★
“Putting the ‘myth’ in myth-takes.”

E9_DB9_A2_F463_F4_E83974065_EB26_B06842This received a certain level of notoriety before even being made, after Legendary Pictures rejected the script, citing a whole raft of (entirely legitimate) reasons, yet also saying, “While I am personally drawn to the presence of a female action hero, it is currently a tough sell with the less than stellar way Sucker Punch was received.” Creator Cardinal went public with the rejection email’s content: seems like a good way to ensure no-one will work with you in Hollywood again, but that’s her decision. However, the film did eventually get made, albeit (or so the story goes) only after a production company embezzled 40% of the money, she worked as a pro wrestler to raise funds, a post-production company lost her footage, and Uwe Boll bailed her out. You can only admire her dogged determination to complete the project she wrote, produced, directed, starred in and edited. Unfortunately, when I say “you can only admire”, the emphasis is on “only”, because the end result isn’t very good.

Interesting Boll became involved, since there’s more than a hint of Bloodrayne, another film series of his. Except, rather than an immortal half-vampire redhead heroine, hacking and slashing those who created her, this is about an immortal half-demon redhead heroine, hacking and slashing those who created her. In this case, it’s Aella (Cardinal), the offspring of a human mother (Swenson) and the demon Ganesh (Eddy), who was sold as a slave to the latter by Mom, only to escape later and become a Reaper, part of a clan who protect humanity from these demons. She has fallen in love with a human prince, Eris (Mackey), who is betrothed to another, and also has to handle getting porcupined with arrows by hunters who want her blood, which has magical properties. Though not nearly as magical as Ganesh’s, and it turns out it’s the only thing keeping her mother alive. She’s running out fast, especially after donating some of her precious stockpile to Aella – albeit with some nasty side-effects, triggering an internal struggle between the two halves of her ancestry. Still, the solution is pretty simple: head for the best source of the blood. That would be Ganesh himself.

It’s all over complex, not very interesting, and plagued by just about every faux pas you have ever seen in low-budget cinema. Excessive voice-over? Check. Gratuitous use of slo-mo and strobe effects? Double check. Thoroughly unconvincing day-for-night photography? In copious quantities. I suspect Cardinal’s “Jill of all trades” approach worked against the film: when you’re wearing all the hats, who’s left to take a step back and apply a coolly critical eye to proceedings? That’s really what the film needed, and at 101 minutes, trimming would have helped as well. It strikes me that, if you combined the production values of this and the action choreography from Warrioress, you’d have a good crack at something impressive. Although both demonstrate that passion isn’t enough by itself, Warrioress was at least outstanding in the combat department. Here, there’s much banging of swords together, and little else, leaving the end result all but forgettable.

Dir: Tara Cardinal
Star: Tara Cardinal, Ray Eddy, David Mackey, Eliza Swenson

The Last Survivors

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★★★½
“Oregon, after the rain…”

lastsurvivorsThe Pacific North-West is now a blasted, bone-dry desert, in which a few survivors eke out a precarious living, drawing what water they can from their wells. Intent on taking over the entire area is Carson (Gries), who bullies landowners into joining up with his posse, so he can take their water, or simply fleeing – and kills those who won’t comply. Hiding out is Kendal (Richardson) and her sick brother, Dean (Stewart – seriously, who calls their kid “Boo Boo”?), who needs lots of water to help his failing kidneys cope. She is seeking a distributor cap, so the plane they have stashed in the barn can be used to fly them to safety, but will she find that before Carson figures out their “deserted” farm actually holds both them and a functioning well?

There are a lot of strong elements here, but they are counter-balanced by a number of weaknesses. To get the latter out of the way first, Dean’s character arc is painfully obvious; five minutes in, Chris turned to me and said, “You know he’s going to die, right?” Also, the kid who lives next-door, Alby (Charles), doesn’t serve much purpose at all, until the very end, when he simply steps into Dean’s shoes as someone who needs Kendal’s protection. And speaking of Kendal, she is remarkably well-kept, considering she’s living in a world where every drop of water is a precious asset to be conserved. Long, luscious locks, apparently shampooed daily, fresh-faced complexion, etc. In terms of styling, Kendal needs to be much more Charlize Theron in Fury Road, and less Aeon Flux.

While these negatives are more or less severe, they don’t outweigh positives that are equally apparent, and greater in number. Kendal is an unrepentant bad-ass, prepared to do absolutely whatever it takes, for her and her brother to survive, whether it’s with her pump-action shotgun or a katana – the latter seems to be preferred on the video sleeves, although it’s actually the former she uses more often. The almost complete lack of romance, often seen in YA novels and films, is very refreshing; there’s no hero over whom Kendal goes all moist-eyed, and the only real love shown is for her sibling. The supporting cast is very good too, highlighted by Gries, who seems about a million miles from his best-known character, Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. The rest of his crew are little less scary, and there’s a nice, albeit very minor supporting turn from horror legend Barbara Crampton. The Mojave Desert stands in for drought-stricken Oregon well, with the photography making heavy and effective, use of sepia filters.

It is a bit of a steady climb through the foothills, before things start to kick off, so you do need to be a little patient. However, the payoff is largely worth it, even if the final batter, between Kendal and Curtis’s daughter, Brooke, leaves a little to be desired, mostly because Brooke has never been established as much of a credible antagonist beforehand. Like the rest of the film’s flaws, I can’t say it damaged our enjoyment beyond repair; there’s still plenty to enjoy, and Richardson carries the film with an assurance beyond her years.

Dir: Thomas S. Hammock
Star: Haley Lu Richardson, Booboo Stewart, Jon Gries, Max Charles
a.k.a. The Well

Serena and the Ratts

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★★
“Look what the RATTs dragged in…”

serenaA somewhat jumbled mix, this sounds like a film about a punk-rock band but certainly isn’t. It actually starts off playing as a WW2 version of The Terminator, then morphs in the middle to become a mongrel crossbreed of Leon and Nikita, more or less abandoning the whole time-travel aspect entirely. The reasons for this do eventually become clear, yet still leave you feeling like the first third of the film was an entire waste of effort. To begin in the middle, Serena (Marie, who as you can see from the left, even looks like early Anne Parillaud) is a young woman, plucked off the streets by the Boss (Thomson) and raised in his image to become an assassin. She and her boyfriend, Leonard (Neal) are given a very strange mission. A group of scientists have discovered how to manipulate the space-time continuum, allowing them to travel in time, and they have sent someone back to kill Hitler as a child. A counter-group, the RATTs – Researchers Against Time Travel – believe this will just make things worse i.e. allowing someone else, more competent, to rise instead, so through Boss, hire Serena and Leonard to kill the assassin. So how do you stop someone, when those behind them have the ability to control time itself, and counter every move?

By coincidence, I watched this the same week as Predestination, and that film demonstrates how time-travel, altering past effects and the resulting paradoxes, should be handled. Here, the film never gets a firm grasp on it, and nor does the budget allow for anything approaching the credible depiction of a previous era that is necessary. The performances are all over the place too, mostly under-emoted and flat, though there’s also the worst apparent attempt at a British accent I’ve heard in years: Dick Van Dyke snorts derisively from the corner. [Look, I know we make great villains and all, but if you don’t have someone who can do it properly, and the Britishness isn’t necessary to the plot, I have to wonder: why bother?] As noted, there’s a sudden switch in focus, and it’s quite jarring, although I suppose it kinda makes sense for a story (nominally) about time-travel to have a fractured structure. Here again though, it doesn’t add anything to the plot, and a more linear retelling might perhaps have allowed the makers to build more empathy with Serena.

It wouldn’t have impacted the plot much, since it’s only at the end, when the Boss does the whole “let me tell you the entire plan for no good reason” thing – a staple of movie characters since early Bond flicks – that it makes sense. However, please note the sharp distinction between “sense” and “compelling viewing”, since the latter is never even approached here. Technically sound, with some interesting camerawork and a decent soundtrack, this remains just marginally passable as entertainment, mostly thanks to a script in need of at least two more rewrites.

Dir: Kevin James Barry
Star: Evalena Marie, Jonathan Thomson, Dave Neal, Marek Tarlowski

Winter’s Bone

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★★★½
“A grim fairy-tale.”

Ashlee Thompson as Ashlee Dolly (left), Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly (centre) and Isaiah Stone as Sonny Dolly (right)Not perhaps our traditional fare, but there’s a good case to be made for its inclusion, with a strong, single-minded heroine who is prepared to do whatever it takes, including putting herself at considerable risk, to keep her family together. Certainly, you can see why Lawrence went on to stardom, and knowing her subsequently as Katniss Everdeen makes going back to her breakthrough role interesting. For you can see echoes of Katniss’s steely determination in 17-year-old Ree Dolly, trying to cope with a mentally-ill mother, two young siblings and an absent father. She’s just about coping, until she discovers that her father has skipped out on an impending court date for cooking meth, and put up the family home as collateral for his bail bond. If Ree can’t track him down, the bail company will be able to seize the family’s property and turf them out. Tracking him down is going to require Ree poking her nose into some very unpleasant corners of rural Missouri, where some intimidating characters have good reason for the missing man to remain that way.

It’s a disturbing glimpse into a world that seems barely part of America. I haven’t been so unsettled by a film’s location for a long time – the only comparable movie I can think of, is the East European gypsy slum in Import/Export, which looked more like a bomb site than a functioning residential area.  Outside the natural surroundings of the Ozark Mountains, beauty is rare here; happiness, even rarer: survival is a full-time occupation, leaving no time for anything else. Outside of Ree, and her young sister and brother, who are too little to know different, there is hardly anything approaching a sympathetic character here. They virtually all pose a threat of some kind to Ree’s mission, and she has to navigate her way through them as if they were wolf-infested woods, knowing the right time to push, and the right time to back down. Except, even Ree isn’t fallible, which is how she ends up on the floor of a barn, beaten to a bloody pulp. Yet that’s when help arrives, from an unexpected source, and I guess, almost everyone lives happily after. Or as happy as possible, given the circumstances.

Lawrence is great, convincing and sympathetic, resilient and focused, a heroine who is credible without being incredible. Indeed, all the performances hit the required spots, to a degree where you wonder if Granik simply put out a casting call for meth dealers. However, the script isn’t as convincing, relying too much on people who have behaved one way, suddenly switching tack, for no obviously apparent reason beyond it being necessary for them to do so. It’s not exactly light entertainment either, and if you’re expecting flashy set-pieces, definitely look elsewhere. Falls more into the category of films which are to be respected, rather than enjoyed, yet Lawrence’s portrayal takes the viewer along, on a trip into the heart of Missouri darkness.

Dir: Debra Granik
Star: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Lauren Sweetser, Garret Dillahunt

Lady Avenger

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★★½
“Big hair, big sunglesses and a little budget.”

ladyavengerDeCoteau gave us one of the all-time worst GWG films, in American Rampage. Made the same year, 1989, this is surprisingly… Well, while I wouldn’t go so far as to say “good,” it looks like Citizen Kane beside Rampage; let’s settle on “surprisingly semi-competent.” The heroine, Maggie (Sanders), is serving time in jail, when she is let out on furlough to attend the funeral of her murdered brother. Maggie escapes, and sets about tracking down those responsible, working her way up the chain of command, wielding everything from a baseball bat to a flamethrower(!), and with a fetching line in 80’s wraparound shades, which she wears even when exploring a dimly-lit warehouse. Hey, it was the eighties, man – the decade that gave us Miami Vice! How you looked was at least as important as what you did… The trail of those responsible ends up a good deal closer to home than is comfortable; the character in question is not exactly unexpected, so that doesn’t count as much of a spoiler.

There’s probably only one person in the cast you’ll recognize, and you have to be a B-movie aficionado even for that – scream queen Bauer (under her name at the time, Michelle McLellan) shows up as Maggie’s two-timing friend, who delivers a copious amount of entirely gratuitous nudity and lingerie, to liven things up. Sanders was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for January 1990, which tells you just about all you need to know regarding her acting ability. Wisely, the script opts not to test the limits of her thespian ability, giving her a bit of low-tier emoting early on, as she gets told of her brother’s demise and attends her funeral, before she heads into stone-faced machine of vengeance mode. The villains are a curiously preppy-looking bunch of drug-dealers, all white, mostly with nice teeth, and many wouldn’t seem out of place at a frat party.  Still, they all go down like ninepins, though the action is of widely varying quality; some of the car chases are pretty good, yet on the other hand, the less said about the grenade sequence, the better.

Given how much I was braced for something irredeemably bad when I discovered who had directed this, I will confess to being pleasantly surprised. This is, however, at least as much a result of my low expectations, as any reflection of the film’s quality, and you’d be well-advised to follow suit. If you’re looking for a slice of cheesy, straight-to-video 80’s goodness, from a time in history not long after the question “VHS or Beta?” was still being asked, and with a lurid sleeve to match, this and a couple of beers will represent a throwback to a more innocent era. The trailer below offers a perfect appetizer for it.

Dir: David DeCoteau
Star: Peggy Sanders, Tony Josephs, Jacolyn Leeman, Michelle Bauer

Blood Soaked

  By

★★
“Zombie Women of the S.S.”

bloodsoakedIt’s nice to see a horror movie which has women on both sides: not just the “final girl” trope, but as the entirely deranged pair of antagonists. This is equality at work, folks! In this case, the villains are sisters Sadie (Grendle) and Katie (Derryberry), who were apparently left orphaned by the unexpected death of their father who was… Well, if I’d to guess, I’d say he was trying to continue the work of Nazi scientists, with the aim of creating an army of undead slaves through the use of a resurrection serum, who can then be used to bring about the Fourth Reich. I’m kinda assuming this, from the use of copious public-domain Nazi footage during the opening credits, and the swastikas hanging around their desert bunker. Meanwhile, peppy student Piper (Wilder) is starting at college, and before long is exploring her sexuality with fellow student, Ashley (Corona). The pair head out into the desert, but a roadside encounter with our psycho sisters kicks off the horror part of proceedings, with Piper in particular being stalked, captured and dragged into the Naziettes lair where even worse things await.

There are two main problems here: one stylistic, and the other an issue of pacing. The former is the decision to switch into high-contrast black and white, when it first becomes clear to Piper, the trouble she’s in. While it certainly adds impact to the that moment, the film-makers apparently forgot to flip the switch back on their camcorder, and any impact is lost. You give your film a title like Blood Soaked, and we expect to see… well, blood. Here, however, it might as well be chocolate sauce, as used by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho. That’s when you can see it at all, as the high-contrast mentioned tends to wash everything into the two ends of the spectrum: all or nothing.

Equally problematic, is the film taking too long to get to a point where it is even attempting to justify the title. It barely runs an hour between opening and the end credits rolling, which should be an incentive to get cracking and have things moving on at a fast pace. We do not need to see Piper showing up to college with her mom. We do not need to see Piper and Ashley meeting and building their relationship. We do not care. I’d have been a lot more interested to see what Sadie and Katie were up to over the decade after their father died, though quite how such a pair of certifiable loony tunes were able, not just to survive but flourish, escapes me. In the end, it commits the single, unforgivable sin of both original grindhouse cinema and modern films which attempt to reproduce its philosophy: it’s mostly dull. By the time the mayhem eventually showed, I was already trying to figure out if I could do household chores, while leaving this on in the background. Never a good sign…

Dir: Peter Grendle
Star: Heather Wilder, Rachel Corona, Hayley Derryberry, Laina Grendle