★½
“Nice title. Shame about the film.”
I must confess I have not seen Confessions of a Homicidal Prostitute, to which this is a sequel. It’s marginally possible, I suppose, that the character development, story and nuance were present there, and explain why these are all but entirely absent in its successor. I would not, however, be prepared to bet on it. I suspect the original was every bit as mean-spirited as this: and “suspect” is all I’ll ever do, because I won’t be making any effort to track it down. In fact, I probably wouldn’t watch it if my aged mother begged me to on her death-bed. Too harsh? Perhaps. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flat-out uglier film, in terms of largely repellent people being extremely unpleasant to one another, shot in a way that exacerbates its grimness. In its defence, that may be the point. Again: may. It could also just be torture porn of the lowest-rent kind.
From what I can gather, Lilith (Baun) is the titular hooker; I’m not sure if the weird contact lens she wears in one eye is a tribute to Christina Lindberg and her eye-patch in Thriller: A Cruel Picture? Anyway, she apparently got pushed over the mental edge by abuse, and responded to violence with violence. Here, she introduces gal pal and fellow prostitute Eve (Shenk) to the lair where Lilith carries out her torture and slaying. Eve is remarkably blasé about the whole, potential “accessory after the fact” thing, and politely declines to get involved, saying “I don’t think I could stomach it… Not for me!” This reluctance lasts about 30 minutes into the film, where she gets brutalized by the vicious Jackson (McGinnis). All of a sudden, she’s rather more gung-ho, a tendency encouraged by Lilith (“The empowerment you feel after you kill this bastard, will be indescribable”). After initially both being caught and tortured by Jackson, the pair are able to turn the tables on their captor, taking their revenge and sodomizing him with a metal pole.
They then begin a two-woman killing spree, washing the scum off the streets. There’s a montage sequence here, which is quite effective, and rescues the film from receiving the dreaded one-star rating. But otherwise, we’re dealing with content which is cheap and poorly-executed, and possesses little or no emotional impact at all. Weirdly, given the topic and grindhouse-oriented title, the only nudity present is extremely fake penises being abused. Otherwise, it’s remarkably chaste. Though, to be honest, I’m fine with the lead actresses keeping their clothes on. No worries there. I’m good. With special effects that are largely unconvincing, this doesn’t even work as a gore flick, and there’s no sense of development of plot or characters. I got to the end with no sense of.. well, anything. I was neither entertained, educated or appalled. Overall, it’s the kind of film where I wonder if I’ve spent more time writing this review, than was actually spent making the movie.
Dir: Emir Skalonja
Star: Casey Baun, Krystal Shenk, Paul McGinnis, Richard Ruiz