★½
“Not even worth it as scrap.”
This should be right up my alley. For it’s a grungy, post-apocalyptic story of revenge, which is heavy both on the carnage and the nudity. Throw in disapproving reviews containing lines like, “Downright nasty movie that takes all the worst bits of exploitation cinema and proudly puts it on display,” or “Scavenger is truly appalling,” and you’ll understand why it was fast-tracked for viewing. However, the weird thing is… those reviews aren’t wrong – it is a bad movie, just not for the reasons they espouse. The bigger problem is simply poor execution, in a way that manages to take the sex ‘n’ violence, and make it all painfully dull. Of all the cinematic sins, that’s one I find hard to forgive.
It takes place some years after a non-specific apocalypse, which has left cannibalism as the sole source of meat. Muscle cars, lingerie and cassette tapes are, apparently, still plentiful. Roaming this wilderness is Tisha (Churruarin), part bounty-hunter, part nomadic butcher. She accepts a commission from an old woman, to hunt down the scumbags who made her a whore and ruined her life – the usual. Tisha accepts, even waiving her normal fee. However, on arrival at the house of ill repute run by Luna (Lanaro), she quickly finds herself on the staff. She’s going to need to find a way out before she can complete her mission. It’s also going to get considerably more personal before all is said and done.
I suspect the above sounds more fun than it really is. Part of this may be the dubbing, which appears to be both written and performed by people for whom English is a very distant second language at best. However, the main issue is simply far too many periods when zero of interest happens. Basically, after Tisha arrives at Luna’s, absolutely nothing of importance happens for a good half hour. Unless you consider the heroine being subjected to various indignities, up to and including being peed on, as “important”. In a film which runs only 71 minutes including credits, it’s a criminal waste of time, and the film has little or no chance to recover thereafter.
Its death nerve twitches feebly down the stretch, with some enthusiastic gore, Tisha wielding a bizarre weapon like a giant mixer to disembowel people. Yet it could do no more than provoke a slightly raised eyebrow. There are a couple of elements I did like: the heroine is not your typical post-apocalyptic babe; Churruarin has a rough edge to her presence that works in this setting. Generally, the set design is good too, selling the scenario effectively. These both need to be in the service of a considerably better script – one apparently less dedicated to enacting the bizarre sexual domination fetishes of the film-makers, which I do not share. ‘Truly appalling”? I probably wouldn’t give it that much credit, to be frank.
Dir: Eric Fleitas, Luciana Garraza
Star: Nayla Churruarin, Eric Fleitas, Sofia Lanaro, Jose Manuel Solis Vargas
a.k.a. Carroña