Category: Review

The Furies

  By

★★★½
“The Most Dangerous Game (mixed doubles edition)”

There has been a whole slew of films over the year which have been based on the theme of “hunting humans”. Initially, this Australian entry seems to be going straight down the same line. Kayla (Dodds) has an argument in the street with her best friend. After the latter storms off, Kayla hears her shout for help, but while investigating, is herself abducted. She wakes to find herself in a crate in the middle of some very remote woods. She discovers other women in the same situation, and that they are being chased by beweaponed, masked men with very unpleasant intentions. The area is ring-fenced with electronic barriers which block any exit: survival is going to require Kayla to tap into her inner savage.

All of which is largely as standard, save for some eye-poppingly intense gore. This starts early on, with someone losing the front of their face to an ax. Very slowly. [It was at this point I stopped the film until Chris got home, so she and I could watch it together. Yeah: our “date nights” are a little strange!] There were similarly impressive moments throughout, with a preponderance of practical effects, of which I’m always a fan. Anyway, back at the plot, the other twist also becomes apparent, in that the masked attackers are not operating as one. Indeed, the opening sequence makes clear that them attacking each other is also part of the “game”. And, it turns out, the same goes for the supposed victims. Not for nothing are the crates which hold them and the women labelled “Beast #X” and “Beauty #Y” as appropriate… 

This is a very smart move, adding a whole skein of twists to proceedings, and giving a set-up where Kayla doesn’t know who she can trust on either side. The resulting paranoia brings so much potential for conflict, it is actually a shame the angle doesn’t really blossom until the final third. It would have been more fun, and certainly more obviously “different”, if the ground rules had been established from the beginning. Perhaps with an induction video given by a hyper-perky presenter, as in Battle Royale. There’s definitely a sense of a bigger picture here, which is only glimpsed occasionally. Knowing more about it would have made for a different, and arguably better, experience. The same goes for the technological beats, which raise more questions than they answer.

Another interesting aspect is that there is not a single speaking role for a man in the film. That’s not something you see often, especially in the horror genre. Given the first time we see the heroine, she and her friend are graffiting “FUCK PATRIARCHY” on a wall, this is presumably not accidental, though the movie never puts the message ahead of its story. While men are seen and not heard, the movie makes it clear that women are hardly saintly creatures, inevitably relegated to the role of victim. It turns out, they can be just as malevolently vicious as men. And that, I feel, is true equality at work.

Dir: Tony D’Aquino
Star: Airlie Dodds, Linda Ngo, Taylor Ferguson, Ebony Vagulans

Truck Stop Women

  By

★★★
“Blood is thicker than water. But gasoline is thicker still.”

Ostensibly, Anna (Dressler) runs a New Mexico truck-stop, catering to drivers and ensuring they are kept fed and watered as they run their rigs across country. However, she has several more lucrative businesses. It seems that a majority of her waitresses, for example, moonlight as hookers in the brothel Anna runs. But the key side-line of work is sending her gals out to lure in unsuspecting truckers, typically with an alluring combination of fake breakdowns and tight shorts. When the truckers stop, their vehicles are hijacked, the contents stolen and the trucks themselves repainted and sold on.

It’s this which brings Anna to the attention of the East coast mafia, who send over a couple of goons to muscle in and make Anna an offer she can’t refuse. Not helping matters, Anna’s daughter, Rose (Jennings), is tired of being Mom’s servant, and wants her independence, so hooks up with Smith (Martino), one of the goons. When Anna gets word of a truck carrying bearer bonds passing through her territory, she starts to plan her biggest heist ever. But can Rose be trusted to play her part? Or will she be prepared to sacrifice her own family, in order to exchange roadside life in New Mexico for the bright, big city lights of Las Vegas?

This is generally a brisk, breezy film, which managed to beat Convoy to the punch by four years. The soundtrack is pure country-and-western cheese, songs about the joys of trucks and trucking, and relentlessly upbeat [performed by Bobby Hart, at the time Claudia Jennings’s boyfriend]. This becomes horribly inappropriate at the film’s end: without spoiling it, there’s the death of one major character, and we immediately cut to the end credits, playing out over yet another relentlessly upbeat song about the joys of trucks and trucking. Ouch. In general though, this is entertaining nonsense. It’s particularly notable for the way it portrays working class Southern rednecks in a generally positive way. Ok, outside of the whole “career criminal” thing. For they are depicted as smart – Anna especially –  and certainly more moral than the mob muscle, who are trigger-happy from the very opening scene.

Things are spearheaded by the presence of B-movie queen Jennings, already present on this site for The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Unholy Rollers and ‘Gator Bait. Though getting less screen-time than her mom,. Rose is the highly watchable centre around which the plot revolves. For you’re never quite sure where her loyalties lie, right up until the final scene. Is she passing information from Anna to the mafia? Or the other way round? Or both? Throw in a healthy amount of female nudity (not least notably from Russ Meyer favorite Uschi Digard) and you’ve got a film which, if unable to spell the word “subtlety”, couldn’t be much more drive-in if it tried.

Fun fact: this film played a role in wrecking the presidential aspirations of Texas senator Phil Gramm in 1995. It came out that  in the seventies he had become “interested in investing in what he called ‘sexploitation’ films after a private viewing of the film.” Yeah, Jennings had that effect on a lot of people.

Dir: Mark L. Lester
Star: Lieux Dressler, Claudia Jennings, Dennis Fimple, John Martino

Book of Monsters

  By

★★★
“Killer party.”

Ten years ago, the mother of eight-year-old Sophie (Craine) was attacked and killed by what her daughter insisted was a monster – a claim to which she held, resulting in her being institutionalized. Now, a somewhat recovered Sophie is about to enjoy her 18th birthday, having organized a party with her friends. But she’s about to discover that the monsters were very real, and just waiting for her to reach adulthood. Fortunately, Mom was a bit of a monster hunter, who conveniently left a book of helpful tips as well as a secret vault of tools and weapons. Together with her pals, Sophie is prepared to make a stand and defend her home against the attackers.

This is, basically, rubbish, assembled on a budget which was clearly woefully short of the needful: the monsters, for example, are little more than blokes in masks. The plot is so hackneyed, it should be pulling a carriage, and the characters are a collection of stereotypes – even if the Goth girl is apparently unable to recognize a pentagram. I’m still unsure whether or not to be annoyed that Sophie’s a lesbian. On the one hand, it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. On the other… Well, it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Yet, I sense that much of this is entirely deliberate. As the sleeve (right) shows, Sparke wanted to make a British version of The Evil Dead 2, complete with a central character who goes from zero to hero.

And, despite all the shortcomings, there’s an energy here which can only be admired and appreciated. It’s very British nature is one of the factors which help skate past the flaws, and it manages simultaneously to be played tongue-in-cheek and dead straight. The fact the lead actress is the world’s least-convincing 17-year-old (I’m not sure how old Craine is, but she graduated university, never mind school, eight years prior to this!), can only be presumed to be part of the joke. Once things start, they don’t stop, and even when the end results are more than a little rough around the edges, you’re still be more inclined to laugh with the film, rather than at it. The demonic worms which turn into killer garden gnomes are a good example of this spirit.

Similarly, despite my qualms about Craine’s credentials as a teenager, she is by no means bad in the role, and has a nicely-developed character arc. Initially, she’s still damaged by the experiences of a decade previously, yet has largely put that behind her. When everything she thought was her imagination, turns out merely to be an appetizer, you can see her internal steel buckle, yet not give way. By the end, she’s kicking arse and wielding that chainsaw as if to the manner born – which, I guess, she was. For a budget of about £60 grand, Craine and his team undeniably do more than a little. Now, someone give them $5 million and let him remake his own film with the budget it needs.

Dir: Stewart Sparke
Star: Lyndsey Craine, Michaela Longden, Lizzie Aaryn-Stanton, Daniel Thrace

Mom

  By

★★★½
“God can’t be everywhere.” “I know. That’s why he created mothers.”

This strong Indian tale of revenge and (step)mother love was, sadly, the last major appearance for its star. Sridevi accidentally drowned in a Dubai hotel, a few months after the film was released. But it’s a wonderful monument to her talent. She plays Devki Sabarwal, a biology teacher who is having trouble in the relationship with her teenage step-daugher, Arya (Ali). But everything changes after Arya is abducted while leaving a party, raped and beaten, then thrown into a roadside ditch. The fact Arya had been drinking is used to discredit her testimony, and the absence of forensic evidence helps her attackers walk free. Blood relation or not, Devki isn’t having that. With the help of private eye DK (Siddiqui), she starts to impose her own kind of justice, despite the increasing suspicions of Detective Francis (Khanna).

At 146 minutes, it’s certainly too long, though this is par for the course in Bollywood. And, at least, the makers wisely abstain from any musical numbers (there are some songs which are a little too foregrounded for my tastes). Despite the length, you’d be hard pushed to call any of it dull, and it’s effective stuff – occasionally, very much so. The assault, for example, isn’t seen. Instead, we follow the car in which it happens from above – pausing as the perpetrators get out to swap sides – before Arya is dumped. Despite, or perhaps because of, such restraint, it packs an undeniable punch. Similarly, the dialogue, such as at the top, between Devki and DK, is sharp and makes you sit up and pay attention, and it’s generally smarter than you’d expect.

In particular, the sequence where she poisons one target with apple seeds, then frames another for the crime. Initially, I was, “Wait, what?” But, some Googling told me seeds contain small amounts of a compound called amygdalin: when chewed or (as here) ground up, this turns into highly toxic hydrogen cyanide. Who knows this stuff? A biology teacher like Devki, that’s who. It’s an interesting exercise to compare and contrast the approach here to Revenge, which covered a not dissimilar topic of a mother seeking justice after the gang-rape of her daughter goes unpunished. Both film and TV series lean heavily on their lead actress, and in each, they are up to the job.

Revenge has the advantage of greater length at which to explore the idea, and when the vengeance comes, it’s considerably more satisfying and brutal. This is perhaps a little too restrained, and the subplot of Arya being Devki’s step- rather than biological daughter feels a bit unnecessarily tacked-on. Mother’s mad skills at breaking and entering are a little unexplained, too. However, I did appreciate the cops’ underestimating her, initially believing her husband to be responsible, and letting Devki get about her work. And if you aren’t standing on your chair and cheering at the end, after Arya calls her “Mom” for the first time…

Dir: Ravi Udyawar
Star: Sridevi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Akshaye Khanna, Sajal Ali

The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang

  By

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

“Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”

There can’t be many fantasy novels based on the events of World War II. But here we are, and Kuang has done an amazing job of taking historical events and weaving them into a saga of gods, magical powers and monsters, that works very well, even if you have no clue about the background.

At the beginning, Rin is a young orphan girl in a remote village in the South of the empire. Abused ceaselessly by her foster parents, they’re about to sell her into marriage. Her only hope of escape is to pass the exam which grants admission to the military academy of Sinegard. Even though she succeeds, she remains an outcast there, except to the equally derided Master Jiang, professor of lore. He helps her tap into powers largely forgotten by the Empire, but warns that if she doesn’t control them, they will control her. Her studies are brought to a sudden end when the Federation invades, laying siege to Sinegard. With the city about to fall, desperate measures have to be taken. But some doors, once opened, are an awful lot harder to close.

“This is what you have to tell yourself,” Qara said fiercely. “You have to believe that it was necessary. That it stopped something worse. And even if it wasn’t, it’s the lie we’ll tell ourselves, starting today and every day afterward.”

The above quote is a good depiction of the dilemma at the core of the book. Is it permissible to do evil deeds to stop evil deeds? But that’s just part of the moral quagmire in which Rin finds herself, where a desire to protect her country merges with a quest for vengeance – both personal, and for previous genocide. There’s no denying the abilities into which she can tap are increasingly powerful, bordering on the divine. But she’s no “Mary Sue”: the cost mounts alongside them, to the point where her humanity is in danger of being entirely scorched away when she uses them.

And even if it doesn’t, the drugs necessary – both to reach the Pantheon where the gods reside, and to numb the pain of life following her awakening – won’t necessarily help Rin retain her sanity. There’s a gigantic stone prison, inside which are entombed, in a state of living hell, the thousands of previous shamans, who were driven completely insane by what they unleashed inside themselves, and had to be contained or they could destroy the world. The dangers here are very real, and only escalate the further Rin develops.

“I will die on my feet,” she said. “I will die with flames in my hand and fury in my heart. I will die fighting for the legacy of my people, rather than on Shiro’s operating table, drugged and wasted. I will not die a coward.”

Kuang has constructed a great heroine in Rin. From the very beginning, she is driven to escape a situation many would accept as hopeless, and demonstrates enormous resilience, and an utter commitment to do whatever she feels is necessary. She succeeds, not through some innate ability (hello, Harry Potter), but by working her butt off. Yet it’s that same willingness which ends up taking her, both physically and mentally, to some appalling places and experiences. The descriptions of Federation atrocities are all, apparently, backed by historical fact, matching what the Japanese did during the occupation of China in the thirties and forties. Most notably, the sacking of one city is based on the Rape of Nanking, and even a hardened soul like myself had his stomach flip on occasion. Kuang doesn’t pull her punches. There also seems to be a scientist based on the infamous Unit 731, who carried out human “experiments” on the locals.

But it’s all severe unpleasantess which is very necessary to the plot. Because it’s the only way through which Rin can justify her own reactions, and the extreme measures which she unleashes, along with the rest of the Cike [the Imperial shaman troop to which she is conscripted, and who are used to take on the Federation by unconventional means] There’s certainly no shortage of awesome-if-horrific set pieces, such as the Cike’s luring in and destruction of an enemy fleet. I’d love to see Peter Jackson or Guillermo Del Toro take on a cinematic adaptation, though the entire $200 million budget would probably end up going on digital flames…

“She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of the Cike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding. And she would call the gods to do such terrible things.”

The general tone is one of increasing darkness, and by the end, I was as much scared of Rin as in awe of her or concerned for her fate. About the only weakness I can think of, is that she’s rather distant and unlikable. Not exactly fun to be around, shall we say, and given some of her later acts, the term “heroine” seems dubious at best. But she’s going to need to be an ultimate, supernatural bad-ass in future volumes – not least to deal with a potentially equally-lethal shaman, who escaped from the stone prison, partly through Rin’s actions. There’s also the little matter of the Empress, who may not be the honourable subject of veneration she initially appeared to be.

It all sets up very nicely, without needing to create an artificial cliff-hander. As time permits, I definitely look forward to reading the next installment, The Dragon Republic.

Author: R.F. Kuang
Publisher: Harper Voyager, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 3 in the Poppy War series.

Pickings

  By

★★
“Pap fiction.”

I am not a fan of Quentin Tarantino, outside of Kill Bill. Even as early as Reservoir Dogs, I found his style to be self-indulgent, and could never hear his characters speaking in their own voices, only QT’s. He seems to be capable only of cobbling together elements and influences from obscure, yet generally superior movies, and sprinkling them with pop-culture riffs and dialogue that’s so fake-sounding and artificial, it needs a warning label. So, while I appreciate the irony of someone ripping off the master of rip-off cinema, as Morgan does here, it’s not a world into which I willingly travel.

The influence here is palpable from the opening scene, when bar owner Jo Lee-Haywood (Price) is interrogating a thug she has captured and, it turns out, is tied up in a backroom of the bar she runs. Jo ends up talking about motivational speaker Tony Robbins, and how everyone is motivated by pleasure or fear, in a speech which couldn’t be more Quentin Tarantino, if it were licking the heroine’s bare feet. More or less from then on, it seemed painfully apparent this was the kind of film I was going to have to endure, rather than enjoy. And that was largely correct.

Jo, it turns out, is in debt to some rather nasty people, in particular a gangster named Sam “Hollywood” Barone (Urbas). He sends his henchmen to make Jo and her daughter, Scarlet (Vincent), an offer they can’t refuse, involving handing over the bar. Only, Jo is all, “Nah, we’re good, thanks,” and is having none of it. For she is not exactly the innocent bar-owner she seems, but came to the small Michigan town in order to escape a particularly brutal past. This isn’t her first time at the crime rodeo, shall we say – as we find out via another Tarantino-esque device, the needlessly convoluted time-line.

Morgan also appears to be a fan of Sin City, throwing in stylistic flourishes such as switching to rotoscoped animation at random. Most of these are more aggrandisements than art, save for Hollywood always being depicted in black-and-white. That’s a great way of indicating his status as a character straight out of film noir. The rest, though? Style for the sake of it, down to the cribbing of musical cues lifted from Morricone scored spaghetti Westerns, and a character who seems to have wandered straight off those same dusty streets. 

And it’s a shame, as in Jo, the film has a character which could have been a classic – even if the whole “left in a coma” thing is also cribbed from a certain QT film you’ve probably seen. Price plays her character like a velvet glove cast in iron (that’s one cult film not referenced!), and it soon becomes apparent that, when it comes to protecting Scarlet, Jo has no limits. Exploring this aspect, rather than making both story-line and players subservient to the movie’s look and feel, would have helped avoid this coming over like a fan submission to TarantinoCon 2018.

Dir: Usher Morgan
Star: Elyse Price, Yaron Urbas, Katie Vincent, Joe Trombino

Immortal Wars: Resurgence

  By

★★
“Let there be light!”

First, the good news. Whatever the issue was with its predecessor in the lighting department, it has been corrected. You can actually see what is going on. After spending the entire previous movie peering into murky darkness, trying to work out who was doing what and to whom, this was a blessed relied. Now, the bad news: it still falls some way short of interesting, so merits a mere half-star advance. Indeed, if anything, it’s a bit more tedious, not least because it clocks in at 112 minutes, without having anything like 112 minutes of content.

It does carry on immediately from Immortal Wars, so you might as well consider them as one single movie – watching one or the other would not provide anything close to a complete experience. Heroine Trikalypse (Gerhardy) continues her revolt against the evil Dominion Harvey (Roberts), with the help of her fellow rebel “deviants” – those who possess special powers. Apparently, this involves her escaping from Dominion’s facility… purely so she can break back into it. Not sure what that was all about. It certainly explains the expanded running time, with a lot of traipsing about, both through tunnels and across the (mercifully, well-lit!) desert, as Dominion’s henchwoman Hart (Alayne) tries to stop them.

There is no shortage of action, admittedly. It just isn’t very well-executed action, and for supposedly superpowered mutants, they seem to keep forgetting to use their superpowers much. We also discover the whole “fight to the death” thing from the first film was more true in the spirit than the actual observance, with Trikalypse’s BFF Iro not exactly as deceased as we were led to believe. Of course, as the rebels fight their way towards the inevitable confrontation between Trikalypse and Dominion, there are casualties, though it would be a stretch to say that any of them provided an emotional impact.

It’s all very predictable, such as the way that Dominion, despite his claimed aversion to deviants, has his own platoon of them. Yet, for someone who supposedly rules the entire United States, he can only apparently command a couple of dozen people. His actions also defy simple logic. If ever I become an evil overlord, and know the precise location of a group of my enemies who are coming to attack me, I will not send out a henchwoman to engage in banter and hand-to-hand combat. I’m taking off and nuking the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure…

And, again: Bill Oberst is listed second in the credits, yet barely appears. [He may not appear at all, but I did genuinely doze off for a bit in the middle, so can’t be 100% sure] At least this time, Lujan does have the good grace to provide something of a satisfactory conclusion: another area in which it does improve on the first part. Overall though, the plodding nature of the core narrative largely negates these improvements, and combined with the extended duration, you’re left with something which you need to be in a highly forgiving mood to sit through.

Dir: Joe Lujan
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Eric Roberts, Ben Stobber, Camille Alayne 

Revenge

  By

★★★★
“The mother of all vengeance stories.”

This is the first Thai TV series I’ve seen, and while I suspect it’s not exactly par for the course, I found it undeniably impressive. Behind a generic title, it’s easily the most intense of the telenovelas I’ve seen, regardless of location. [Note: various sources have different names for the characters: for consistency, I’m giving the ones used by Netflix] It’s a long, extended rampage of vengeance, in which the heroine, Maturos (Panyopas), goes after the perpetrators of a particularly vicious group-rape. The assailants are a local gang, who extract revenge on both Maturos and her daughter, Peung (Ruayruen), following their co-operation with the police. It’s an assault which leaves Matukron almost catatonic, and when half the gang are found not guilty in the subsequent trial, Maturos opts to find her own justice, adopting a variety of characters to get close to them. But the killing comes at the cost of her own sanity, which splits her personality into two: a caring and compassionate half, and an alternative persona which demands ever-more savage vengeance.

The story is told in the context of Maturos’s trial, so we know there’s no question of her getting away with it [that would probably have been a step too far!]. But will she get the death penalty, life imprisonment, or be found not guilty by reason of insanity? The show unfolds in flashback, occasionally interrupted with moments from the trial, telling the story of how she came to be facing multiple charges of murder. It begins with mother and daughter leaving their abusive husband and father. It’s the resulting precarious financial situation, moving them into a flat in a less than desirable neighbourhood, and bringing them into contact with the gang. They accidentally come into possession of a drug stash belonging to the posse, and hand it over to the authorities.

This triggers the brutal punishment on them both, on top of a building during a storm. It’s a lengthy ordeal, which occupies much of episode #4, with Maturos and Peung left lying on the roof. Though the police are able to arrest the suspects, the rain washes away much useful forensic evidence; only three of the seven are convicted, despite the best efforts of Inspector Patorn (Tangtong). He feels responsible for what happened, and had been somewhat involved in a relationship with Maturos before the attack. Afterward, however, that quickly proves to be impossible.

Indeed, it’s not long before Maturos’s alter ego, Roong, starts to show up. At first, she is subservient, appearing only in mirrors, but gradually becomes to dominate, taking control for much of the time. Not helping matters – though it is one of the most interesting angles – is the encouragement of Yuki Fukushida (Amratisha), who rescues Maturos from an abduction attempt by her ex-husband. Yuki runs a “victim’s support group”, for those abandoned by justice. It’s really more to do with helping them acquire the necessary set of skills to punish those who did them wrong. Needless to say, her encouragement doesn’t do much for our heroine’s sanity, instead letting her tap into her inner psychopath. The ex-husband is the first to experience that.

For the four unconvicted perpetrators, the pattern in the following episodes is similar. As shown on the poster (above, right), Maturos adopts a range of disguises – old woman, porn distributor, bar girl, human trafficker, or even a man – in order to get close to them. Having done so, eventually, she strikes, rendering them helpless, most typically with a sedative injection. She makes them record an apology to Peung, before finally dispatching them – albeit only after removing their genitals. Their deaths are never quick or easy, and are depicted at quite some length, as well as with a brutality which I found surprising. Thai TV may have severe limitations on sexual content, but violence is clearly seen as much less of a problem.

As the body count increases, the remaining gang members grow increasingly suspicious, and harder to track. Inspector Patorn is also beginning to put two and two together, and Maturos’s psychiatrist, Dr. Nattha, discovers her patient’s split personality, meeting Roong. Even after Patorn realizes her involvement in the murders, he agrees to let her act as bait to lure in the three remaining gang members, who have escaped from prison and, having reached the same conclusion, are coming for their own revenge.

But Maturos is playing a longer game, and it all builds to a final confrontation on the same rooftop where it began. As the image on the left suggests, she ends up going full Silence of the Lambs, wearing the face of one of her targets as a mask, and her final “disguise”. Though we still have to wait for the court’s verdict on her fate, with the case triggering a national debate regarding the death penalty, in addition to the question of Maturos’s culpability.

As on screen, so in real life, with the series proving a word of mouth hit in Thailand, and sparking similar discussions on the criminal justice system. The show’s ratings improved from as low as 1.3 in the early going, partly due to a late-night slot resulting from its content, reaching 3.7 for the finale. Deservedly so, because it was very effective: a real page-turner in televisual form. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches, and seems to be radically different from the typical “lakorn”, as the popular soap operas in Thailand are known. Though a 2014 study discovered that 80% of them depicted rape or sexual violence, I suspect few did so in such an uncompromising way as here.

It may, indeed, perhaps go too far occasionally. Chris largely lost her sympathy for Maturos, after watching her bring Peung along on one of her murders – even I have to admit, that is fairly questionable parenting, split personality or not. And watching the heroine don blackface in her prostitute character was perhaps something which didn’t transfer well, culturally. However, given the length of the series (24 x 50-minute episodes), such mis-steps are infrequent, and more than balanced out by a great performance from Panyopas. That’s especially so when she’s acting opposite her malevolent self, in a way which feels almost like a maternal version of Gollum.

It’s her portrayal which glues the series together; outside of sensei Yuki, the supporting cast of characters feel more functional than memorable, on both sides of the law. How successful you find the show as a whole is thus likely heavily dependent on how convincing you find her performance. Personally, I was more than satisfied with it, and while this may be optimistic, hope to find similar quality elsewhere in the lakorn genre.

Dir: Sant Srikaewlaw
Star: Lalita Panyopas, Pornsroung Ruayruen, Saksit Tangtong, Rudklao Amratisha
a.k.a. Lah (The Hunt)

Hooker With a Hacksaw

  By

★★
“Great title. Film? Not so much.”

There are times when I feel I need a ★¾ rating. Two stars here would suggest a degree of genuine competence, which this undeniably lacks. But on the other hand, ★½ suggests something which is largely unmemorable, and that isn’t the case either. You won’t forget this. In particular, you won’t forget the scene where the heroine yanks some (suspiciously sausagey) intestines out of a victim, rubs them over her face and then – there’s no other way to describe this – masturbates the intestines. That’s three words I never thought I would write in a row. On that basis (and that basis alone), I’ll err on the side of generous.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. S’funny, you wait ages for a movie about a phone-sex operator turned vigilante, and then two show up in a week. For after Barracuda, we get this  – despite the title, that’s the true day-job of Kirsten (Meltedhair, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here, presuming that’s a pseudonym). The problems do start when she agrees to meet one of her customers, which eventually brings her into contact with Raymond (Crowe) and his gang of ludicrously incompetent snuff-movie producers. After escaping from them, she tools up with the titular bit of hardware and vows to take revenge – especially after they kidnap her BFF, Ali (Herkert). As well as on any other abusers of women across whom she stumbles.

Farmer has been making cheap video flicks for over thirty years now, but on the evidence of this, he doesn’t seem to have learned much. Vast swathes of it are empty and meaningless padding, e.g. Kirsten goes to a “drive-in”. This sequence apparently exists purely so Farmer can insert footage of scream queen Linnea Quigley, going by her age, taken from a long-ago Donald Farmer movie. And it’s pretty clear Kirsten was just parked by the side of the road, not in an actual drive-in. So why bother, even if it does provide the only actual nudity here. For despite her supposed occupation, Ms. Meltedhair is clearly a serious actress, unwilling to pop her top for a cheap exploitation flick like this. I’ll leave the application of the appropriate amount of sarcasm to you.

Though, actually, she’s probably the best thing about this, not that it’s saying particular much. Kirsten has a likeable personality, once you get past a prickly exterior. And, in contrast to the heroine in Barracuda, she is justified in her vengeful actions, even if Raymond is never more than a caricature. When present, the gore is copious, yet also so amateurish to be much more amusing than horrific, and to the film’s credit, I think that this aspect is intentional. However, there’s far too much dead weight in the scenes between, for this to come close to passing muster. Any potential in the idea is all but entirely squandered, and even at a terse 70 minutes, this outstays its welcome. Hobo With a Shotgun, it most definitely is not.

Dir: Donald Farmer + Caroline Kopko
Star: Kasper Meltedhair, Jason Crowe, Colleen Herkert, Steve Guynn

Immortal Wars

  By

★½
“Batteries not included.”

For whatever reason – presumably misguided stylistic reasons – the great bulk of the film is buried in darkness. Seriously, three-quarters of the film feels like it’s illuminated solely by natural lighting. And given it mostly takes place underground, in rooms with no windows, this is a major problem. The movie reaches its literally darkest moment during an early scene where the camera pans over an underlit set to an even more underlit door where someone has entered to deliver a message. You cannot see who it is. You just hear a disembodied voice, before the camera pans back. It’s a horrible mis-step, whether due to poor shooting, a poor transfer, or a bit of both. It largely dooms the movie, to the point where even an energetic final third is unable to rescue proceedings. For how can you begin to enjoy something you can’t see?

The story takes place in a future world, now divided into ten sectors. A small fraction of the population, known as “deviants”, have developed superpowers, becoming the subject of fear and hatred by regular humans. For popular amusement, there’s an annual competition in which each of the ten sectors capture and nominate their top fighting deviant. They are then taken to a central location and made to battle each other to the death, in a globally-televised contest run by Dominion Harvey (Roberts), which is watched by just about everyone else. So, basically: The Hunger Games crossed with X-Men. On a very, very much smaller budget.

The main heroine is Trikalypse (Gerhardy), one of the ten combatants taking part in this year’s model. Though for the first hour, it’s more chatty, as she bonds with another of the fighters – inevitably, of course, one she ends up fighting later on. But it is refreshingly female-oriented, with both of the finalists being women, as well as the super-boss that the winner then has to take on. However, the film then ends – literally going to the end-credits – just as that fight starts. Fortunately, I didn’t watch this until after the sequel was also available, otherwise I would have been very annoyed. It’s the sort of cliff-hanger you expect from a free e-book on Amazon, not an actual feature film.

Despite the lack of originality, it’s a decent concept and I’d have forgiven this, if the fights had actually been better than mediocre. Instead, as well as the lighting problem, they’re not very well-choreographed, though do have occasional moments which are somewhat effective. I was most impressed with Cruz as bad bitch Dekay, who had the presence, the look and the apparent skills, to keep me at least somewhat interested. But this was small consolation for something which, far too often, crossed the boundary into being genuinely unwatchable. It even managed to waste the talents of Bill Oberst, who shows up for exactly one scene – though at least that’s in daylight – while Tom Sizemore also manages to cameo his way through the darkness. I’m not exactly eagerly looking forward to the sequel, but it’s there…

Dir: Joe Lujan
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Lindsey Cruz, Eric Roberts, Taylor Kilgore