Category: Review

Suspension

  By

★★½
“The night HE came home…”

Bullied by her peers at high school, Emily (MacNevin) takes refuge in drawing. Although, rather than high art, her preferred method of expression is horror comics: working on these in class is what gets her the titular punishment, imposed by a disapproving teacher. Emily’s strip depicts the havoc wreaked by a serial killer – who might (or might not) be inspired by her absent father. However, the line between imagination and reality becomes blurred, and on the night of a student party to which Emily has not been invited, someone starts stalking and murdering those who have tormented her. Looks like Daddy is out, and protecting his little girl – or, is he?

Oh, what the hell: when the sleeve (right) can’t even be bothered to avoid a major spoiler, why should I? Turns out Emily’s mind has snapped entirely, and she’s actually responsible for all the deaths. Otherwise, as my tag-line suggests, there’s more than a little of Halloween here, not least in the look of the killer, whose bland, white mask is more than an echo of the one famously worn by Michael Myers. Indeed, this feels as much of a homage to the slasher films of that era as anything; that’s likely the charitable way to view it, at least, since the supporting characters, situations and even specific kills contain little in the way of originality.

The most interesting thing is likely the effort put into fully developing Emily’s graphic art, beginning with the highly-stylized opening credit sequence. From here, it moves into a female masked killer – I’m guessing, intended to represent Emily’s idealized version of herself – who captures, tortures and dispatches other killers, recording it all on film. It’s a shame this angle isn’t sustained for, to be honest, it’s a good deal more imaginative and possesses a lot more potential, than the rehashed tribute to 80’s horror into which this quickly devolves.

It’s both too much, and not enough – the comic story occupies excessive screen-time in the first half, which could have gone to better development of the “real life” characters or setting. On the other hand, it could also have danced for longer along the line between Emily’s fantasies and reality. Instead, it occupies a mediocre middle, with only one plot element which surprised me – and it was almost a sidelight, not anything to do with Emily’s desire for ultra-violent revenge on her peers. MacNevin isn’t bad in the role; she has a nice, “everygirl” quality about her that generates empathy, along with the devotion she shows to her apparently mute kid brother.

The gore is plentiful enough, and Lando (veteran of many a shaky SyFy Original Movie) has a decent enough eye. The problem is mostly the script, hampered by its apparent unwillingness to commit to being one thing or the other. The result is not a slasher, nor a psychological exploration of homicidal imagination, and instead is a half-baked combo, which satisfies as neither. 

Dir: Jeffery Scott Lando
Star: Ellen MacNevin, Taylor Russell, Courtney Paige, Steve Richmond

One Armed Swordswoman

  By

★★★
“Mostly armless…”

Official disclaimer. I watched two seventies Taiwanese kung-fu flicks the past weekend, this one and Revengeful Swordswoman, and I’m having serious difficulty keeping them separated. You are therefore warned that some plot elements discussed here, may actually have seeped over from Revengeful, or vice-versa…

When we first meet heroine Li Feng (Chang), her count of functioning limbs does actually surpass one – it’s after she is poisoned by a blade wielded by one of her numerous bandit enemies, that the title comes true. She’s rescued from death by the mysterious, masked Black Dragon, albeit at the cost of her infected arm, before he leaves. Li wants to locate both the Dragon, to thank him, and the bandit responsible for her limb-deficiency. She manages the former first, eventually having a one-night stand with him, only to be callously dumped the next day (he more or less insinuates she’s a whore, giving her a pearl which she crushes, bare-handed).

She vows revenge on the man who took her chastity, and to this end, begins going after anyone wandering the countryside in his trademark hat and cape (looking like a sword-wielding beekeeper). Which, it turns out, is a surprisingly large number of people, only adding to the number of those who hold a grudge against Li. Admittedly, in this case, I can see their grounds for grievance, since they were guilty of not much more than an unlucky choice of couture. It turns out, too, that Li’s desire for vengeance is greatly misplaced, with her seducer only having been pretending to be the Black Dragon, in order to gain her confidence.

This 1972 film comes five years after Jimmy Wang Yu played the male predecessor to Li Feng in Chang Cheh’s seminal Hong Kong film, One-Armed Swordsman, which created a new bloody genre of martial arts movies, populated by anti-heroes. However, a more direct ancestor here is probably the Japanese series which included 1969’s Lady Sazen and the Drenched Shallow Sword; the protagonist there was also 50% short in the ocular department. [Though the character of the disabled female warrior dates back even earlier, perhaps to 1937 and Onna Sazen, played by Hara Komako] As such, there isn’t much new, but I did like the idea that the heroine spends much of the film looking for revenge on an innocent party.

Chang does a decent job of fending for herself, despite the arm shortage, even if the surfeit of trampoline work in the action scenes is disappointing, especially given her occasionally impressive skills. At one point, it looked as though the Black Dragon was going to end up saving the day. Doesn’t quite happen like that, and Li ends up by a river, having to fight solo against, not only the main villain, but also his sidekicks and their spears that spray acid. This isn’t exactly what you’d call a traditional martial-arts weapon – indeed, it appears more likely to have strayed in from a sixties 007 knock-off – yet we’ll just about give it a pass. The same goes for this overall.

Dir: Sheng-En Chin
Star: Ching Ching Chang, Ming Chiang, Ming Tien, Ming Lei

Abducted by T.R. Ragan

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

A largely uninteresting and occasionally tedious read, this begins when the 17-year-old Lizzy Gardner is abducted by a serial killer known as “Spiderman”, for his habit of using insects to terrorize his victims. Lizzy manages to escape, but Spiderman isn’t captured, until almost a decade and a half later, when someone confesses to the crimes. By then, Lizzy has become a private eye, and also giving lectures to young girls, on how to avoid falling victim as she did. She’s not convinced the right person has been caught, and she’s right: the real Spiderman is by no means happy that someone else has taken “credit” for his crimes. So he starts up again, with the eventual aim of recapturing Lizzy, the one who got away…

It’s really extremely contrived, with Lizzy fortuitously unable to recall any significant elements of her ordeal – even the place where she was held – which could have allowed the police to capture the perpetrator. Then there’s the convenient coincidence that her boyfriend of the time has grown up to become (what are the odds?) an FBI agent. Of course, when they reconnect, the old sparks still fly, and he’s also the only one who thinks she’s not a demented PTSD victim. Somewhat more engaging, to be honest, are the supporting female characters, including Jessica, Lizzie’s intern, who has her own reasons for interest in the case. Leading them is likely Hayley, an abused teenager and attendee at Lizzy’s lecture, who takes it upon herself to become bait for Spiderman, so that she can deal with him. If the whole story had been told from her point of view, it could have been a fresh perspective.

Instead, you could make the case Spiderman is given better motivation and characterization than the heroine. Although even here, it’s the usual mix of childhood trauma and hatred of women; the only unusual aspect is he seems himself as what could be described as a “social justice warrior,” punishing those he perceives as “bad girls.” Yet the prose devoted to him is one of the problems here: Ragan’s desire to show both sides of the story, almost inevitably, leaves both of them under-cooked. Despite its clear desire to be Silence of the Lambs, this most certainly falls short, on both sides of the scales of justice.

Part of the problem is that it feels like the characters are universally weighed down with the burden of a tragic past, from which they can’t escape. While I know tragedy is one of the driving forces of drama, this appears to be Ragan’s literary version of “If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The plot offers virtually nothing in the way of surprises or twists, meandering on to the confrontation between Lizzie and Spiderman, which you’ve been expecting since about chapter three. There’s precious little here to explain the series’s apparent success, and even less that would get me interested in reading any further entries.

Author: T.R. Ragan
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer, available through Amazon in both printed and e-book versions.

Camelia La Texana

  By

★★
“Approximately 900 times longer than the song which inspired it.”

“A woman, if she loves a man, can give him her life.
But you must be careful if this woman is hurt,
For betrayal and smuggling are incompatible.”
— Contrabando y Traición, by Los Tigres del Norte

I almost gave up after 20 episodes, as it had largely degenerated into a telenovela version of American Idol. [Seriously: the heroine had partnered up with a wannabe singer, trying to break into show-business] But literally in episode 20, Camelia finally got her act together. She gunned down both a corrupt Border Patrol officer, then pumped seven rounds into her boyfriend after he announced he was going back to his wife and child. Ok, I’ll watch a bit further. Turns out, the show seemed to operate on 10-episode arcs. Episode 30 saw a Godfather-like wedding massacre, which rewarmed my interest. By part 40, we had a former Interpol agent, who had taken the veil and was hiding out in a convent, while still having her “very particular set of skills” And at the 50th show… Well, we were close enough to the end – the series had 60 episodes – it seemed kinda pointless to stop.

The problems were the nine episodes in between, which were much more a chore than a pleasure. The basic story has Camelia (Maldonado) being seduced away from her family in San Antonio, Texas, and ambitions of a career in dentistry, by hunky Emilio Varela (Hayser). He’s working for drug lord Antonio Treviño (Gama), who is actually Camelia’s father, and who wants her to join him in Mexico. Emilio’s mission diverts badly off-book, and ends up dying in a Californian back-alley. Thereafter, it’s a meandering tale involving the battles for turf between Don Trevino and his rival, Arnulfo Navarro, as well as the extended families on both sides, and various other elements, such as corrupt Army officer General Urdapilleta, who may (or may not) also be a serial killer.

This will happen: significant expansion is obviously needed when you adapt a three-minute song into about 45 hours of TV drama. For the inspiration here was 1972 song Contrabando y Traición, by Los Tigres del Norte. While colloquially known as “Camelia la Texana,” the original title of this narcocorrida – a genre once described as “gangster rap with tubas and accordions” – translates as “Smuggling and Betrayal.” That’s a fairly accurate summary of both the song and the series. It tells of a couple who drive from Tijuana to LA with marijuana in their car tires. There, as in the show, Emilio tells Camelia he’s breaking up with her after they cash in their cargo. The result? “Seven gunshots rang out, Camelia killed Emilio/All the police found was a discarded pistol/Of the money and Camelia, nothing more was ever known.”

The song had previously been adapted into a 1977 film, starring Ana Luisa Peluffo and Valentín Trujillo – though the dynamic was rather different there, with the leading lady being a couple of decades older than her lover. (More than 20 years earlier, Peluffo had caused a significant scandal, when she appeared nude in 1955’s La fuerza del deseo, the first such scene in Mexican cinema) The song was also adapted into an opera in 2008, and has been acknowledged by Arturo Pérez-Reverte as a significant inspiration for his novel, La Reina Del Sur. The author said, “The day I heard Camelia La Tejana, I felt the need to write the lyrics of one of those songs myself.“

It’s an interesting decision to set the series in the seventies, at the time the song was released, rather than in the contemporary era. Though, outside of the cars and the preponderance of vintage facial hair, it’s easy to forget this is a period piece. The story is little more than a hodge-podge of telenovela cliches, semi-randomly stitched together. Emilio has a twin brother! Unexpected pregnancies! Long-lost siblings. And vengeance. Damn. So much vengeance, to the point that it was more of a surprise on the rare occasions when somebody didn’t have a deeply-held grudge. Emilio’s wife Alison against Camilla, for killing her husband. Don Trevino’s current wife, Lu, against the previous occupant of the position, Camilla’s mother, for rendering her infertile. Navarro against Camilla, for burning his face at a cockfight. And so on.

Hell, even ten-year-old blind girl Alma (Ana Paula d’León) is seeking revenge on those who killed her parents, before her adoption by Don Treviño. She’s actually one of the more interesting supporting characters, because she seems to have second sight, able to see things before they happen, and act to prevent them. It’s a shame the story lose sinterest in her entirely during the second half, because this concept could have developed in a number of intriguing ways. Someone with Alma’s talent would be a great weapon for any drug cartel, effectively keeping them one step ahead of their enemies. She’s not the only decent supporting character: “Queens of the South” La Nacha in the first half, and Concepción “La Cuquis” Olvera during the latter stages, both demonstrate it’s not just a man’s world.

Unfortunately, these delights are all rather minor. The great bulk of the episodes are unaffecting, not least due to a heroine whose middle names appear to be “Questionable Life Choices”. If there’s a poor decision to be made… Camilla makes it, with an inevitability previously associated only with characters from 19th-century Russian novels. Up until the very last episode, she’s less an action heroine than a reaction heroine, and you would probably need two hands to count all the female characters elsewhere in this show, who are more interesting than Camelia. The series seems tacitly to accept this, hence falling back on a tangle of subplots in which the supposed heroine is only tangentially involved.

The series ended as it had consistently done throughout: another 10-episode arc, ending in interest being piqued once more. [Spoiler warning] Camelia became the head of the Treviño family, and took her revenge on Navarro, spitting out the line, “No man made me a legend. I chose my own life, and I’ll choose my own death.” But there was also a schism, with Alma and Lu heading off, suggesting they would go up against Camelia in a second series. However, it has now been more than three and a half years since the first season ended, and the chances of any sequel seem increasingly slim. It isn’t too surprising. Adapting a three-minute pop song into a movie can be done: Convoy and Harper Valley PTA come to mind as examples. Stretching it into something of this length, however, is likely a remix too far.

Star: Sara Maldonado, Erik Hayser, Andrés Palacios, Dagoberto Gama

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Zenabel

  By

★★½
“A comedy, from the director of… Cannibal Holocaust ?”

I’m not kidding. Director Deodato is best known as the man behind one of the most notorious of all “video nasties,” a film which created such a furore, he had to produce the actors to convince the Italian courts he hadn’t killed them. But in almost fifty years of work (he’s still active today), Deodato has done everything from spaghetti Westerns to science-fiction. And more than a decade before Holocaust, back in 1968, he directed this bawdy action-comedy.

Set in the early 17th century, the titular heroine (Love) is a peasant girl who discovers she is actually the daughter of a duke and duchess, overthrown and killed by evil baron, Don Alonso Imolne (Ireland). She sets out with her “virgin army” – initially consisting of two other local women, but growing along the way – to take revenge, with the help of the local rebels under Gennaro (Parenti, the film’s producer and also Love’s husband). However, the baron has his own plans, which involve burning Zenabel at the stake.

The main problem is Deodato’s inability to pick an approach and stick with it. Love actually makes for a very good heroine: she’s feisty, brave and smarter than just about anyone else in the film. However, these positive aspects are perpetually battling against the chauvinistic or flat-out elements of sexist comedy. These have not aged well – and, indeed, hardly seem less than Neanderthal, even by the dubious standards of sixties Italy. Let the rape jokes and blatant homophobia flow! Though the latter is at least defused somewhat by Stander (best known as butler Max from Hart to Hart) as a randy villager who pretends to be gay, in order to come along with the all-female army. Hey, I laughed, even if subtle, it certainly ain’t.

As the salacious German poster, and title which translates as “Countess of Lust”, likely suggest, there is no shortage of nudity from Love and the rest of her recruits. That’s likely because it’s an unofficial adaptation of Isabella, Duchessa dei Diavoli, an erotic comic which ran for a decade, starting in 1966. This beat the official film version, starring Brigitte Skay and directed by by another cross-genre veteran, Bruno Corbucci, to Italian screens by a year. I’ve seen that, under its US title of Ms. Stiletto, and it’s tilted significantly enough to the sex side, not to qualify here [though not so far as the 1975 French re-release of Zenabel, under the title La Furie du Desir, which had hardcore scenes inserted!]

This take is still an almost schizophrenic film. The wild swings from the empowering to the crude make it feel like two directors were involved, with sharply contrasting visions, and the poor editor was caught in the middle. Similarly, the viewer will be pulled in a number of different ways from scene to scene, and the end result for me tilted somewhat toward the negative. Though as far I know, at least Deodato didn’t get hauled into court this time, it perhaps does show his talents are not in the comedy genre.

Dir: Ruggero Deodato
Star: Lucretia Love, Mauro Parenti, John Ireland, Lionel Stander

Ro’s Handle, by Dave Lager

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆

Although I didn’t set out to, in roughly the past year, I’ve read no less than three novels, and one short e-story, that feature female cops as protagonists: this one, “The Academy” (the short e-story that’s the teaser for Robert Dugoni’s Tracy Crosswhite series), Tami Hoag’s A Thin Dark Line, and Justin W. M. Roberts’ The Policewoman. It occurred to me that an instructive way to open this review might be to compare and contrast the four works.

Like Tracy Crosswhite, Lager’s Rowan (everybody calls her “Ro”) Delahanty is a state champion in pistol shooting, who goes into law enforcement as a career. (Ro also has a black belt in judo.) And like Hoag’s Annie Broussard, she becomes a sheriff’s deputy. (Her milieu is a county dominated by a mid-sized city, sort of a median between Tracy’s Seattle and Annie’s backwoods south Louisiana parish.) The principal difference here is that both Tracy and Annie started their careers with ambitions to become detectives, and they’re protagonists of mystery series. This book has no mystery elements as such, and Ro’s vocational interest is strictly being a uniformed beat cop. She’s also younger than Tracy, and had already decided to become a cop as a fifth grade kid (whereas Tracy switched careers after teaching high school chemistry for several years), and she doesn’t carry the emotional baggage of a sibling who was murdered and a parent who committed suicide. (Instead, the Delahanty family is impeccably wholesome and normal.) So Ro’s definitely her own person, not a Tracey Crosswhite clone. And where “The Academy” focuses on the theme of sexism and sexual harassment as a challenge female cops have to face, those elements are very limited in this book, only show up near the end, and manifest themselves only in comments that aren’t made to Ro’s face.

Both Roberts’ Sarah and Ro are basically gun wizards (who, of course, have to put in a lot of training and practice to get and keep that level of skill, in addition to their natural talent!) formidable in combat, and drawn in such a way that some readers will view them each as something of a “Mary Sue” –that is, a heroine who’s too perfect to be realistic– though I didn’t see them that way. But although I classified both this novel and The Policewoman as action-adventure, the action elements in the latter are a LOT more prominent than they are here. This one has only one action scene, and that starts only in Chapter 22 of a 29-chapter book. Some readers (though I wasn’t in that number) of Robert’s book took issue with the first four chapters of character introduction/development and stage setting as being supposedly too slow-moving and boring. Those readers would really have an issue with the first 21 chapters here. And the shooting itself is actually over very quickly, as it would be in real life. Fans who have to have unremitting slam-bang action and a high body count will find this aspect limited and tame here. (Again, I’m not in that number myself, and I actually found that aspect of the book very well done.)

All three of the novels compared here provide the heroine with a “love interest” and have some “romantic” elements, including some unmarried sex. But (though I won’t include any spoilers) the overall handling of the “romantic” aspect here was, for me, highly unsatisfactory and off-putting, and would not, IMO, generally appeal to “romance” fans either. It should also be noted that the relationship escalates to sexual intercourse on the first date (which is the third time the couple have seen each other!), so has very marked insta-love issues. And Ro’s lover here is a divorced dad 13 years her senior, who has a 15-year-old daughter (Ro’s only 21).

You might ask, if this isn’t a mystery, a full-blown action novel, or a real romance, what IS its appeal? What sort of novel is it? I’d describe it as very much an intensive character study of Ro, and a very realistic “slice of contemporary life” novel describing the world of a rookie female cop. Lager obviously has a practically exhaustive knowledge of police equipment, organization and procedure, which gives the work a great deal of authority. Ro is a round, three-dimensional protagonist with a lot of depth to her development, and does exhibit some admirable, heroic qualities. (Frank is developed well too.) As his fascinating blog entries indicate, Lager has a mental picture of Ro’s entire life history from childhood on and a comprehensive understanding of all her characteristics as a person. He doesn’t feed us ALL that information here (the novel only covers the time beginning with her winning the Iowa state shooting championship in April 2003, shortly before joining the sheriff’s department, to September 2003, when she earns her “handle,” or nickname for radio identification purposes, and sort of becomes one of the guys -she’s currently the only female deputy). But we get a lot of it, including a thorough introduction to her family, a few glimpses of her childhood, her orientation week, her habits, life and dislikes, stuffed toy panda, etc. By the time this is over, we know her like a real person (and probably like her –I did, and do!)

This is not, of course, the stuff of high drama. Some readers will feel that the plotting and development of the story is way too slow-moving. The heavy accumulation of detail and description, including things like the menus for people’s breakfasts, description of Ro’s underwear, the specifics of what she and other characters are wearing, etc., contributes to that impression. Related to this, there tends to be a lack of meaningful conflict in the story-line until towards the end. (For instance, both Ro and Tracy Crosswhite are champion competitive shooters, and we see them both in competitive settings. But where Tracy is being scored on her pistol shooting in “The Academy,” it’s at the climactic moment of the tale, and the outcome is in doubt until the end, making for genuine suspense and tension. In Ro’s championship competition, on the other hand, I never really felt any element of suspense or tension, and her win is almost anti-climactic.) Only near the end is there a situation where Ro is in real danger and engaged in actual combat; only near the end is there any real sense of possible conflicts in her relationships with other deputies, and only near the end is there any real question about the nature of her relationship with Frank. Most of the story is pretty much a matter of day-to-day life (with the exception of starting a dating relationship). As might be expected from a college speech teacher, Lager’s technical mastery of prose style is quite professional; there are just a very few places where minor editing would have helped.

For me, this book was difficult to rate, because there are aspects I really like and aspects that I really dislike. I didn’t mind the slow-paced build-up quite as much as some readers probably will, because I was interested in learning about Ro and what makes her tick, and about the workings of a modern sheriff’s department (I learned much that I didn’t previously know, and I think most readers would). IMO, the action scene was good, the handling of the psychological aspects of the aftermath struck me as true to life, and the ending worked very well for me. The Ro-Frank aspect of the plot ultimately proved to be a major liability in my estimation, which dragged down the rating. If the book were written with no “romantic” element at all, just as a straight police-life and action story, I’d probably have given it five stars. As it was, the romantic-erotic parts earned one star. Overall, I decided to split the difference and give the book three, since I liked much of it. (And yes, I will read the sequel!)

I was gifted by the author with a review copy of this book, but no guarantees that I’d like it were offered or expected. Nor did World Castle Publishing (which also publishes my novel) put any pressure on me to write a favorable review (and I would have canceled my contract with them if they had!).

Note: This novel has only one explicit sex scene, but it occupies a very prominent position in the strictly-linear story arc, and it’s extremely, graphically detailed, with a “you are THERE!” immediacy. There is a certain amount of bad language, including f-words, religious profanity, the c-word to describe part of the female anatomy, etc. (Some, though not all, of this reflects real-life cop culture.)

Author: Dave Lager
Publisher: World Castle Publishing, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Contract

  By

★★½
“We’re from the government. We’re here to help.”

I bumped into this one on a stand of ultra-bargain DVDs, at a truck stop on the way home with Chris from an anniversary trip to Las Vegas. The cover, understandably, piqued my interest: the film didn’t manage to make such an impression, except in intermittent bursts. Hannah (Black) is an assassin, working under the tutelage of her father, Luc (Imbault). He spurns a lucrative contract, smelling a rat: Hannah goes behind his back and takes the job, only for Dad to be proven right, when the hit goes wrong. Luc is killed, leaving Hannah and her oblivious artist boyfriend James (Oliver) on the run from Senator Harmon (Williams). He’s a CIA honcho, who has just announced his plans to run for higher office, and needs to clean up certain elements of his past – now including Hannah and James.

Some of the action here is not bad, particularly a well-staged brawl in Hannah’s apartment while James is out for food (or something). It’s an impressive bit of hand-to-hand combat, which packs a wallop and leaves the apartment in severe need of redecoration. The hotel hit which starts the ball rolling is another highlight. Unfortunately, there are just not enough of these scenes, with the bulk of the movie being Hannah and James running away, or trying to find out what’s going on. This includes a spectacularly bad bit of technological babble. James suddenly reveals hacking skills, we discover that “You can trace the email using the graphic code,” and watch as the text of the message changes into numbers. Wot, mate? Do you even computer? I know this was back in the primitive days of 1999, but still…

The plotting is, in general, equally underwhelming. It took me a while to realize Luc was supposed to be Hannah’s father – I guess I should just have looked at the British DVD cover (right, and a bit spoilery)… Quite what Harmon is trying to do is also somewhat vague: it seems to be related to a long-ago black operation, which begs the question, why did he wait so long before deciding to tidy up all these loose ends? Williams makes for a half-decent villain and Black is also solid and watchable as Hannah. That isn’t enough, however, as the bland predictability of the storyline, one we’ve seen rather too often before, drags down the positives.

It all builds to the inevitable face-off, after Hannah tracks down the only surviving person who knows the truth about Harmon, who is now working as a school janitor. I guess being a government sponsored assassin doesn’t come with a decent pension plan. The final battle is actually the most disappointing bit of action here, swapping out the close-combat fights showcased earlier, for opponents standing some distance apart and popping off rounds at each other. You’re left with a solid appreciation for why this has been consigned to the discount racks at gas-stations.

Dir: K.C. Bascombe
Star: Johanna Black, Matthew Oliver, Billy Dee Williams, Laurent Imbault

Babes With Blades: The Flower of Sarnia

  By

★★★
“Not QUITE what the cover would suggest…”

I’m unsure who the woman is on the DVD sleeve. I can only presume it’s Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. For what we have instead seems to be a real labour of love for British stunt-woman Cecily Fay. Though calling her a mere stunt-woman would be selling her short: she also wrote, directed, starred in, edited and scored this feature, plus did the fight choreography and sound re-recording, while sewing every sequin on the costumes herself. Okay, the last might be a bit of a stretch, but since she is also credited as the costume designer… perhaps not. Hell, even Robert Rodriguez doesn’t have such a large collection of hats, and this overwhelming multi-tasking might help explain why it took close to five years between the start of filming and its eventual release. The main problem is that Fay’s talents, while considerable, are not equally spread.

The issues are particularly apparent in the writing and editing departments. The first is kinda forgivable, and hardly a rarity in low-budget cinema, But I still find myself always hoping for something better – in this case, than an ill-considered mash-up of Star Wars and Gladiator. Azura (Fay) is the last survivor of her planet, Sarnia. She has been captured by Section Commander Sorrentine (Simpson), the ruthless dictator responsible for wiping out Azura’s people, and is made to fight for the amusement of the masses. While Azura plots her vengeance, a small rebellion (very small – like, it has four people in it, tops…) is brewing under the leadership of Viridian (Burniston), and is preparing a devastating strike against the Empire.

The whole SF angle is just not very well thought-out. These people have interplanetary travel, yet haven’t made a gun that takes less than five seconds to reload? I know every non-historical martial arts film has to handle it somehow, but this is close to the feeblest excuse I’ve heard. Given how little the future has to do with the rest of the plot, Fay would have been better off abandoning it entirely, making Sarnia an island instead of a planet, and setting it in the past to wipe out the firearm issue entirely. But worse, still, is the editing. You’d think Fay would know how to assemble an action sequence. Apparently not, for the movie adopts the Moulinex approach of choppy editing, which makes it so much harder to appreciate the skills of the fighters. There is one scene – here’s a GIF taken from it, to give you some idea – which is awesome (even if rather cribbed from Kill Bill), simply because Fay the director steps back and lets Fay the stunt-woman do her thing. It’s just a shame the rest wasn’t shot similarly.

More positively, we have Fay’s acting and directorial talents. The former isn’t much of a surprise, as I enjoyed her performance in Warrioress, and she brings the same sense of conviction to proceedings as the heroine here. You may not believe any number of things about this world, but you can always believe Fay could be the last survivor of her species. The rest of the performances are.. a bit of a mixed bag, shall we say. Some appear to have strayed in from a fashion show at a steampunk convention, but punk veteran John Robb is clearly enjoying himself enormously as the arena MC [I got a vaguely Michael Rooker vibe off him!] 

Given this was also Fay’s directorial debut, it’s acceptably solid. She avoids the obvious pitfalls, and if more functional than stylish, she has clearly been a) around enough TV/film sets, and b) paying attention on them, to handle things. I’ve seen far worse efforts from people with far longer IMDb resumes to their names. However, the bottom line is that you will still need a solid tolerance for low-budget cinema, and all that entails, for this to be acceptable viewing, though accepting its status as an obvious passion project will help mitigate the flaws. And this may be unprecedented, but I almost wish they’d gone for a less gratuitous title and sleeve; they both suggest something I should probably save for when Chris is out of the house, when the reality is considerably more restrained.

Dir: Cecily Fay
Star: Cecily Fay, Michael Collin, Joelle Simpson, Cheryl Burniston

A Demon Bound, by Debra Dunbar

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

While the cover image is certainly striking, I should mention that it is inaccurate in one significant point. At no point do I recall the heroine ever wielding a gun. While such false advertising would normally be a sore point, in this particular case, we’ll give them a pass – since the reason she doesn’t, is because she is simply too bad-ass to need one. For Samantha Martin is an imp: a demon who has chosen to spend a chunk of her substantial life-span (measured in centuries) among us mortals, rather than in the underworld. Why? Largely because it’s more fun up here.

Who needs guns, when like Sam, you possess a broad range of powers, including regeneration, transformation and the ability to manipulate energy? However, she has to be very, very careful about their use, because her kind is not supposed to be prowling the Earth at all. To prevent this, angels are continually monitoring for signs that indicate demonic abilities, and enforce the prohibition with extreme prejudice. A large, glowing sword may be involved. So, Samantha keeps her talents in check and manages her property business, or hangs out by the pool, generally keeping a low profile.

Things are rudely interrupted, however, when her hellhound returns home, much the worse for wear. Turns out he had got into a fight with a werewolf living on a nearby farm, whom Sam ends up having to kill. The local lycanthropes are not happy about this, and demand a service from her as reparation. Turns out a rogue angel, Althean, has been carrying out a one-man program of genocide against the werewolves, and they need someone to stop him. Unfortunately, Sam’s efforts bring her to the attention of Gregory, the angels’ chief enforcer on Earth, who is also on Althean’s trail – but is none too happy to discover Sam’s presence.

This was a tremendous amount of fun to read, mostly because of the heroine, who is unorthodox, to put it mildly. Foul-mouthed and unrepentantly immoral, Sam is a big fan of both sex and violence, largely bemused by human notions such as loyalty and affection, and treats our species as an amusing plaything, put on Earth for her enjoyment. Yet, over the course of the book, it appears there’s more to her than this. The fact she prefers Earth to Hell is just one of the various hidden depths which emerge, and we get to learn about the back-story of this struggle – not least that the angels and demons are not as far apart as either might prefer to think.

While Sam is clearly the book’s core, with it all being told from her first-person perspective, I also enjoyed Gregory and his conflicts. He has issues of his own, with some among his kind endorsing Althean’s murderous mission, as they believe werewolves to be Nephilim, the offspring of angels with humans, and deserving of extermination. It’s all surprisingly complicated, and I’m highly curious as to where the series goes. Credit Dunbar too, for telling a complete and well-rounded story here, albeit with an epilogue to leave the reader intrigued.

This is comfortably R-rated, since Sam has absolutely no problem with using violence, though most of it is against other supernatural entities. Not out of any moral scruples, however, just because we humans aren’t worth the effort! I’d love to see this made into a movie, though given her fondness for nudity – partly for practical reasons resulting from energy transmutation, partly to wind up the more prudish members of society – it would require a particularly broad-minded leading lady. In the meantime, I’ll certainly be investing in further installments of the Imp Series, of which this is the first volume.

Author: Debra Dunbar
Publisher: Inked Entertainment, available through Amazon in both printed and e-book versions.

Viral

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★★½
“Facebook status: feeling infected.”

Firstly: it’s not a frickin’ virus at all! The threat here is a blood-borne parasite, which is completely different, so I have no idea where the title came from. Glad I got that off my chest. Where were we? Oh, yes… The Drakeford family have just moved in to a suburban community in California. Daughter Emma (Black-D’Elia) is trying to settle in at their new school. something at which her more extrovert older sister Stacey (Tipton) is better. This distraction is why they don’t notice the growing concern about a disease that’s spreading across the globe – until a classmate succumbs to this nasty ailment, which makes the infected highly aggressive.

From there, the siblings’ safe, stable world disintegrates rapidly. Mom is stuck at the airport, and when Dad goes to try and find her, he doesn’t come back. Matters escalate after Stacey drags the reluctant Emma to a particularly ill-advised house party [Maybe it’s just me, but in the event of any communicable epidemic breaking out, I would not exactly be attending social gatherings], where they get to see the effects of the illness first hand. Scurrying back to the sanctuary of their home, and hot local kid Evan (Tope), the sisters are thrust back on their own resources, as martial law is declared and the area comes under strict quarantine. This means fending off not only the infected; the military, too, pose a threat to what remains of the family.

Despite its title, the film makes a credible effort to ground its epidemic at least somewhat in real science. Specifically, it references the toxoplasma gondii parasite, which does affect the behaviour of its rat hosts. Of course, this is taken to extremes here, and you end up with something closer to what was seen in 28 Days Later: fast, neo-zombies, driven by hunger. Disappointingly, this is spun into a teen-centric story, which feels as if it might not be out of place on MTV. And, like most MTV shows, anyone older than the target audience will have to suppress a frequent urge to yell at characters for their poor life skills, e.g. the frequent removal of their face-masks (see Evan, above). Stacey fares especially poorly here, to the extent I suspect her brain being controlled by a parasitic worm might increase her IQ significantly.

The effects work is light, yet solid enough, and there is a shudder or two to be had, not least from the creepy parasites. If you can watch Emma hone her amateur surgeon skills – remembering a lesson given by her teacher father – without flinching, you’re tougher than I. Yet such moments are the exception, rather than the rule they need to be, and the lack of any real escalation is surpassed only by the underwhelming ending. Despite the unexpected death of one major character, as apocalypses go, this one feels more a moderate nuisance than life-threatening peril. “OMG, I can’t update my Instagram. This totally sux.” The movie certainly won’t be getting a “like” from me.

Dir: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Star: Sofia Black-D’Elia, Analeigh Tipton, Travis Tope, Colson Baker