★★★
“Houston, we have a problem…”
You’ll probably understand why that cover picture got me to pause my casual scrolling through Amazon Prime. Well played, movie producers. Well played… Likely inevitably, the film didn’t quite live up to the advertising, mostly due to a significant lack of plot. The film barely runs 65 minutes, before we get to a sloth-like end-credit crawl, and there’s probably not enough story-line to fill a music video for one of the gangster rap songs which pepper the soundtrack. Yet, in terms of atmosphere and setting, it feels authentic. I can’t state with certainty it is, never having been a) to Houston, b) black, or c) involved in large-scale criminal enterprise. But in cinema, feeling authentic is a large part of what matters.
Candy (Adams) can check all three of those boxes, being in charge of an urban Texas group whose business is apparently equally involved in drugs, and robbing others in the same line of work. She’s rather hands-on: with three other women, including her cousin, Dody (Caliste), they go invading homes, and the residents usually come off very much the worse for it. Though sadly, those exploits aren’t the main focus of the film. Indeed, it’s kinda hard to say what is. Most of it seems occupied with a series of vignettes; narrative drive is very much secondary, though these episodes are good at portraying the two sides of a criminal life: both the glamour and the brutality.
For instance, there’s a scene where the women go into a convenience store and Candy shoots the breeze with the owner, an OG called Mr. Mack (played by rapper Bun B), who’s now retired from the game to become a shopkeeper. Though Cody does meet someone significant there, in terms of the film, it’s not very important. However, it’s just a nice exchange, and the film has a number of others. They’re rarely dull, and it generally avoids getting bogged down in cliche. Eventually, we do find out that corrupt cop Soso (Smith) is planning to take out Candy and her crew, as they prepare that mainstay of gang films: a big score. In this case, shipping tons of drugs to St. Louis.
It’s just a shame the plot hadn’t been there from the beginning. Perhaps I’m too used to my narconovelas, which go to the other extreme, arguably cramming in too much. But even the way in which the climax here is resolved, is rather unsatisfying, relying on what feels like a bit of a cheat, and being based on information withheld from the audience. It’s a shame, as the framework is in place for something better than most of these urban films I’ve seen, such as Jack Squad or the cinematic hell which was Hoodrats 2. On the basis of this, how Candy came to be where she was, for example, might have been a more interesting story than what she did once she got there.
Dir: Nahala Johnson
Star: Sheneka Adams, Gina Caliste, Kendrick Smith, Jessica Kylie


This was among the very last of the “pinky violence” films made by the
While ultimately hamstrung, not least by its limited resources – this cost a mere five thousand dollars – it does what low-budget films should generally tend to do. That is, go where their better-off siblings dare not tread. In this case, that’s the forbidden territory of religion. Two young, female missionaries, Amber (Durand) and Martha (Crosland) are going door-to-door, seeking souls they can save and bring into the body of their church – clearly Mormon, going by the reference to Salt Lake City among other things, though operating under a pseudonym here! While their attractive shape proves successful at getting them in the door, the residents who don’t live up to the ladies’ high moral standards are in for a shock. For the two kill non-believers, with Amber in particular, having a zero tolerance policy. And she considers herself “saved”, basically giving her a free pass to do anything necessary in the name of the Lord.
When I first put this on, and saw it was only 41 minutes long, I thought there had been some kind of mistake. 41 minutes later, it was clear the mistake had been all mine. Additionally, I was now thoroughly grateful for the abbreviated running-time. A feature length edition would have constituted cruel and unusual punishment, and may be forbidden by the Geneva Convention. This blatant Buffy the Vampire Slayer knock-off is missing only two things: a budget, and everything else.
Natalia Nicolaeva in a 19-year-old, living with her parents on a farm in Transnistria, which I imagine most people would be hard-pushed to find on a map. Per Wikipedia, “it is a breakaway de facto state in a narrow strip of land between the river Dniester and the Ukrainian border that is internationally recognized as part of Moldova.” Now you know. She lets her friend, Sonia, convince her into taking up a job offer overseas which – probably inevitably – turns out to be the gateway to them becoming the victims of sex traffickers, imprisoned in a Turkish brothel. Natalia manages to escape, though pays a heavy price, and the man in charge of the gang, Goran Zigic, has not forgotten her either.
Jesse (Finochio) is a Long Island cop on the edgeTM. Since losing custody of her kids, she has gone into a downward spiral of drinking, casual relationships and taking her anger out on any perps unfortunate enough to cross her path. She has driven her captain (Vario) to the edge of distraction, and is perpetually feuding with her mother and brother. The latter dies in a road accident – only his foot is found! – but when Jesse and Mom go to cash in his life insurance policy, they get a shock. The beneficiary has been changed to be Ralph Sirna (Trentacosta), a notorious local gangster. Suddenly, the accident seems rather less accidental, and nothing – not her boss nor Sirna’s “godfather”, Vince (Forsythe) – will be able to stop her.
Originally a series of three novels by Tow Ubukata, then a manga series published from 2009-12, I can only presume that something was lost in the translation to these three short (~65 minutes each) movies. Actually, make that just about everything. For after a promising first entry, I can’t think of a franchise that fell so completely off the rails. Okay, maybe The Matrix, with which this shares similar problems: taking itself far too seriously, and diverting into social commentary for which no-one was asking. I gave serious consideration to bailing and make this a rare “Did not finish,” which I’d not even bother writing about. But perhaps if my experience can serve as a warning to others, the tedium will not have been experienced in vain.
There are indeed, six reasonably attractive ladies here, and they do indeed spend most of the film in a warehouse. Can’t argue about that. The problems, unfortunately, are numerous, and start with the fact that 6HCiaW is not, in itself, a concept sufficient to sustain a feature. The half-dozen women in question are models, hired by moderately creepy photographer Adrian (Malam), for what he announces will be his final photoshoot before retiring. Which is a bit odd, since he looks no older than thirty. Whatevs. Unfortunately, after he overhears the models making fun of him, Ade goes a bit loopy – a situation not helped by the steroid-like substance “Pump ‘n’ Gro'” which he has been ingesting. So he locks the models up in cages, injects them with the same stuff, and makes them fight each other inside an electrified cage. As you do.
Newbie climber Rose (Maddox) is on her first trip to do some “real” climbing, rather than on a rock wall at her local gym. There, she meets and falls for the insanely rugged good-looking Bret (Lyman, who appears to have strayed right off the cover of a romance novel entitled “Love in the Surf”). After a couple of successfully, but relatively simple climbs, the pair head to take on something more challenging: the infamous “Killer pillar” of the title. Half-way up, a hand-hold used by Bret breaks, sending him tumbling down the cliff-face. Though the rope stops the fall from being fatal, he suffers a torn shoulder and head injury, leaving him unable to lead, and unable to descend. As the poster tagline says, “The only way down is up.” So, it falls on Rose, despite her lack of experience, to take over and forge a route up the near-sheer escarpment, that Bret will be able to navigate in her wake.
Is it possible for an action heroine film to still be chauvinist? While that criticism was frequently levelled at