Tag: 2023

Boudica: Queen of War

  By

★★★
“Fury woad.”

The latest take on one of Britain’s greatest historical heroines has come in for a fair bit of critical flak. But I really did not think it was all that bad. Sure, it plays fast and loose with historical accuracy (Christianity wasn’t a thing in Britain at the time). However, we’re dealing with someone about whom there is very little reliable record. Why not throw in chunks of the Arthurian mythos, if it might make for a more interesting end product? The usual basics are there. Queen of the Iceni Boudica (Kurylenko) loses her husband (Standen), and subsequently falls foul of the occupying Roman Empire. She raises an army, leads a rebellion, kicks Roman butt for a while, but eventually goes down, fighting. That’s the Cliff Notes version. 

The variations are in the details, and the  versions previously reviewed each take a different approach. For example, Warrior Queen (2003) leaned into the drama. This goes the other way, coming to life most in the battle sequences. It should be no surprise: Johnson is a former stuntman, who has turned to directing action films. He’s best known for excellent Scott Adkins vehicle Avengement, but here we previously reviewed his war film, Hell Hath No Fury. There isn’t the budget here for the necessary scale – the Iceni army reportedly numbered well into six figures, but when Boudica is giving her inspirational speech, it’s more like a soccer mom offering half-time motivation. Yet it makes up for this in gory intensity: this is certainly the most blood-drenched version of the story ever told.

It does take its time getting there. Initially, Boudica is not a warrior queen at all. It’s only after she gets a sword handed down from previous generations that she begins to head in that direction. She encounters a female fighter (Martin), who regards Boudica as the fulfillment of prophecy. It’s when the Roman’s take over, flogging and branding her, then doing worse to her daughters (an angle which is handled weirdly,  yet not ineffectively), that Kurylenko becomes the bad-ass Brit bitch we expected from the likes of Sentinelle. She paints up her face and takes the battle to the enemy, in a way which is up-close and personal.

At least for the first few battles, the Romans won’t know what hit them, and this absolutely doesn’t soft-pedal the brutality of hand-to-hand combat. It’s a shame there’s some stuff around the periphery that doesn’t work so well, such as a mercenary called Wulfgar (Franzén), who speaks modern-sounding French – was that even a thing in 61 AD? – and appears to have the hots for Boudica. There’s also the way her sword seems almost magical, which does perhaps take away from her intrinsically heroic nature, and doesn’t add much. I think if you took the best elements of both this and Warrior Queen, you might have something close to definitive. This can provide Kurylenko and a solid eye on the action. That’s still good enough for me. 

Dir: Jesse V. Johnson
Star: Olga Kurylenko, Clive Standen, Peter Franzén, Lucy Martin

Good Ol Girl

  By

★★★
“It’s… complicated.”

This documentary takes a look into the lives of three women in Texas, who are all operating in the male-dominated world of ranching. Some were born into it, while others came to it through choice. In particular, Mandy Dauses falls into the latter category, having left her East-coast home because she felt that Texas represented the best chance to fulfill her ambition of becoming a ranch manager. On the other hand, Sara Lemoine Knox is struggling to balance what she feels is an obligation to carry on in the family business, with her own goal of becoming a lawyer. Meanwhile, Martha Santos is looking to find work in that line, but without her own property, is finding it a challenge.

It’s a way of life which is gradually becoming more endangered for both men and women. For example, Martha’s family used to own land near Laredo, but they sold it to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite for land on which homes and businesses could be built. Similarly, Sara’s heart really isn’t in farming, even though she was given her first property, covering 160 acres, at the age of 12. Even beyond their chosen (or imposed) profession, they have other ambitions. Mandy desperately wants to start a family, but at age 37, time is running out for her. Though during the course of the documentary, she does discover she is pregnant. These are all imperfect lives, and that’s probably the point, offering an non-idealized take that’s radically different from the fictional, romantic version of cowgirls.

Dauses likely represents the most interesting and complex of the characters. On the one hand, she’s clearly a strong, independent woman, who moved half-way across American in pursuit of her dreams. On the other, she still cooks dinner for her long-term boyfriend, John, who expects a meal to be ready on the table when he comes home (regardless of the fact that she has her own job, too). Outside of the story of her pregnancy, however, there is not much sense of development. This is more a snapshot of the three women’s lives at this moment in time, without any narrative. When the end credits roll, nobody is particularly in a different place from there they were at the beginning.

This is not to say there’s any need for forced drama, but there’s not even much sense of time passing. Contrast, say, documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, which had a much more compelling narrative, simply through covering an entire year. Of course, it had the advantage of more time to tell its story, but the dramatic moments here, such as coming across a dead cow in the middle of giving birth, have no particular emotional resonance. Instead, it’s most interesting when you are shown the difficult task the women have to balance the various forces (internal or external) in their lives, looking to achieve harmony. The film probably needed to do a better job of that itself, if it wanted to have a lasting impact.

Dir: Sarah Brennan Kolb
Star: Mandy Dauses, Sara Lemoine Knox, Martha Santos, Joyce Gibson Roach

Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire – Part One

  By

★★★
“Don’t call it Star Wars…”

Despite critical derision, this is actually perfectly serviceable pulp SF. Sure, it’s derivative as hell. But the critics getting all huffy about the similarities to Star Wars seem to have forgotten George Lucas only made his film, after failing to acquire the rights to Flash Gordon. This is Snyder’s equivalent to The Fifth Element, in that it’s a long-gestating SF idea, originally conceived well before he became a director. “The Dirty Dozen in space” was the high concept, although there is no denying the SW similarities, especially in the early going. I mean, young orphan on a backwater farming planet gets sucked in to galaxy-hopping adventures, joining a rebellion against an evil empire? Yeah, a little more originality would be welcome. 

It is a bit more “adult”, though the PG-13 certificate holds it back. I still want to see a hard-R take on the concept. Here, it’s limited to stiffer violence and a sprinkling of sexual assault. [An R-rated cut will follow: presumably with more blackjack and hookers.] The heroine is Kota (Boutella), rescued from a crashed spaceship and now living a quiet life on Veldt. That ends when Admiral Atticus Noble (Skrein) and his forces arrive, hunting rebels against the Motherworld. We know they’re the bad guys, because they shop for clothes at some kind of Nazi Outlet Mall. Soon, Kota and fellow farmer Gunnar (Huisman) are on galactic tour, seeking warriors who help defend Veldt, and joining up with the rebels.

If all fairly basic, that’s not a bad thing. I got significant Chronicles of Riddick vibes, though it had a stronger central character. This isn’t necessarily Boutella’s fault, more a result of there being so many to handle here. Editing would have helped: for example, there’s one lengthy animal training scene which feels like it wandered in from Avatar. As you would expect from Snyder, it looks very nice, certainly an improvement in this area over Army of the Dead. There is a similar theme – you could call it’s predecessor “The Dirty Dozen in Vegas, with zombies”. But outside of Kota, not many of the characters here make much impression. Save perhaps the regrettable Oirish accent sported by mercenary pilot Kai (Hunnam).

It does suffer from part-one-itis – the inevitable lack of any conclusion, with nothing of significance being decided. Even the apparent death of a major character ends up being a fake out. But it does rather better than, say, Dune, in terms of narrative division. The action is generally nifty too: Boutella has had her moments before, and gets to build on that experience here, especially in her final battle against Admiral Noble. Doona Bae makes a good impression as cyborg swordmistress Nemesis, not least in a hellacious fight against – and this is a phrase I did not expect 2023 to bring me – an arachnid Jena Malone. Bottom line is, I was entertained for two hours, and have enough interest in seeing part two in April. Good enough for me.

Dir: Zack Snyder
Star: Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein,  Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman

[This review originally appeared on Film Blitz]

Wingwomen

  By

★★
“A wing and not much prayer.”

Netflix describes this as “Charlie’s Angels meets Lupin, with a dash of Killing Eve.” Um. About that… While I haven’t seen Lupin, I can confidently state any similarity to the others is tangential at best. For example, the only thing this really has in connection with Charlie’s Angels, is that there’s three of them. But here, it’s more like 2.25, since the third member is largely useless. It’s almost entirely the story of Carole (Laurent) and Alex (Exarchopoulos), two thieves who work for the enigmatic Marraine (Adjani). But Carole has discovered she’s pregnant and wants out of the business. Marraine is not happy, but agrees, providing Carole does that hoariest of film clichés: One Last Job.

This involves stealing a piece of art from a church, and they ordered to bring a getaway driver on board. She is Sam (Bresch), and is entirely pointless. Carole does the actual thieving, and Alex is a crack shot. But Sam? I can only presume she’s there to fulfill some kind of diversity quota. Because she has no talent past driving, and at no point in the movie subsequently is a quick getaway required. The same goes for other elements. There’s a John Wick-like thread where Alex’s bunny is killed. But the film forgets all about it for an hour, before suddenly remembering. Only to dispose of it in a scene, that seems to exist more so Carole and Sam can do a spot of flamenco.

Laurent has been here before, albeit a while ago. Back in 2011, we reviewed Requiem pour une Tueuse, in which she played an assassin who goes on… [all together!] ONE LAST MISSION! So it’s ironic to see her now directing a movie based around the same trope. It is very focused on the Alex/Carole dynamic, and that might be where the Killing Eve comparisons come from. But there’s nothing remotely adversarial about things here. It is nicely handled, the pair possessing the easy dynamic that only results from long familiarity and comfort with each other. However, this arguably sits closer to Thelma & Louise than anything, and certainly is more intense than you’d find on the male side of the genre. 

To be honest, Laurent seems to prefer this aspect to the action. For instance, she cuts from the meat of a fight between Alex and an assassin, to (presumably!) his tarpaulin wrapped corpse being dropped into the ocean. The stuff which is present, is not especially memorable. Even the art heist turns into more of a comedy of errors, as the target has become the location of a movie shoot. While there are some cool ideas – the stunningly well-disguised hideout in the middle of a forest being one – this feels like a relationship drama disguised as an action movie. It’s especially so at the end, when it almost topples over into hysteria. Give me an Alex solo film instead, and I would probably have been more interested and entertained.

Dir: Mélanie Laurent
Star: Mélanie Laurent, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Manon Bresch, Isabelle Adjani
a.k.a. Voleuses

Xanadu Hellfire

  By

★★½
“Olivia Newton-John not included.”

I went into this braced for it to be terrible, having sat through the same film-makers’, largely irredeemable Bloodsucka Jones vs. The Creeping Death. Fortunately, this is considerably better. Still very cheap and flawed, yet is at least aware of its own limitations, and tries to work inside them (albeit with mixed success). It’s about eight-year-old Ruby (Surrec), who lives with her single parent Dad, Steven (Thomas), and is obsessed with comic-book heroine, Xanadu Hellfire (Minear). For her birthday, Ruby wants to stage a ritual from the comic, and bring Xanadu back from her post-apocalyptic future. Dad humours her – at least until the ritual works, and Xanadu arrives, with wicked stepsister Raven (America) on her heels.

From here, things progress more or less as you expect. Xanadu has to adapt to life in contemporary society (I did laugh at her going to Ruby’s school, where the battle-bikini clad warrior princess is described as “an exchange student from Canada”). She bonds with Ruby, partly because she reminds the moppet of her absent mother. Conveniently, Xanadu and Mom take the same size in clothes, as we find out during a dress-up montage. Raven shows up, and “wreak havoc” as she and her sidekicks search for Xanadu. Xanadu, Ruby, Dad, some of Dad’s loser friends from high-school team and Ruby’s best friend, Becky, team up to take on Raven and Co.

It’s a super mixed bag of elements that are fun, and stuff which borders on the cringe. Sometimes, both are in close proximity. For example, Minear looks really good twirling her staff. But as soon as she goes into hand-to-hand combat, she slows down to about one-tenth of the speed. While I admire the avoidance of hyper-kinetic editing, the lengthy shots only exacerbate this problem. The comedy which doesn’t hit, misses by a mile, such as an extended joke about characters walking about in slow-motion. It doesn’t help that Ruby’s lines never sound like something an adorable eight-year-old would say e.g. “Eat shit, Frankenhooker!”. Yet some elements are genuinely funny, such as the way Raven’s minions team up with the local Goth girl. This leads to the exchange, “I thought you were dead?” “Only on the inside…”

It’s at its best when obviously not taking itself seriously. For instance, Becky going up to a minion before the final battle, and saying, “I like your make-up. Do you need a hug?” Sadly what follows is far from the climactic conflict the movie needs, and at 107 minutes long, this is in serious need of significant trimming. There was also surprisingly little difference between the post-apocalyptic world and the modern one, though this might have been a deliberate joke. Or it might not. The ending teases a sequel, which I’m all in favour of, providing it stops the makers from doing another Bloodsucka Jones movie. For I would be at least cautiously interested in seeing Xanadu’s further adventures, as despite the flaws here, there is genuine heart at its heart.

Dir: Justin Armao
Star: Macy Minear, Aria Surrec, Ryon Thomas, Arianna America

Ballerina (2023)

  By

★★★
“It is very chilly in Korea.”

I should be clear, this is not to be confused with next year’s action movie about a female killer called Ballerina. That one will be part of the John Wick universe. This South Korean film isn’t. Indeed, it’s very much its own creature – perhaps too much so. It feels like a hit-woman film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn: it’s all neon lights and understated emotions, to the point of coldness. For some reason, it feels as if everything past getting out of bed is a chore for the characters here, with almost every action feeling as it it were preceded by an imaginary sigh. The ennui is overpowering, to steal a line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galazy.

The heroine is Okju (Jeon), a bodyguard whose best friend Min-hee (Park) kills herself after being abused by serial predator and sex trafficker, Choi Pro (Kim). Okju makes it her own, personal mission to take revenge on Choi. It’s a difficult job, due to the protection he’s afforded by being part of a larger criminal enterprise, run by Chief Jo (Kim). Min-hee realizes edged weapons aren’t enough, and needs a firearm – something which proves considerably more difficult to obtain locally, than in your typical action movie. On the other hand, Jo is increasingly tired of Choi’s attitude, as he becomes more trouble than he’s worth. Still, giving up a member to an outsider isn’t something any gang leader does casually.

It does feel like this is very much a case of style over substance. After an opening which sees Okju utterly unfazed when wandering through a convenience store robbery in progress, you will have quite a while to wait for the next slice of action. That takes place after she has convinced Choi to take her to a seedy motel, after she has discovered the horrific truth about his activities. The subsequent set-piece illustrates an odd tendency for the film to shift into comedy, as someone attacks Okju with a chainsaw, only for an unfortunately timed door opening to derail the attack. More successful is the later scene where she buys weapons from a travelling husband and wife, which has a quirky charm that’s endearing. I’d watch Adventures of the Gun-Running Van.

The rest is occasionally successful, and occasionally not. The action is over-sharply edited, though does stay on this side of coherence. However, there just wasn’t sufficient emotional connection for me. Admittedly, this may have partly been deliberate. It felt we were never given much reason to get on board with Okju’s guest for vengeance: her revenge seems more of a job than a passion project. She shows up, does what’s necessary, then clocks out and goes home, to stare blankly off into the distance, illuminated by a pastel glow. I’m hopeful 2024’s Ballerina – the title here refers to the best friend, incidentally, not the protagonist – will be more memorable than than this well-crafted piece of neon fluff.

Dir: Lee Chung-hyun
Star: Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Ji-hoon, Park Yu-rim, Mu-Yeol Kim

Queen of Cocaine (2023)

  By

★★★★
“Just the facts, ma’am.”

We’ve written about Griselda Blanco before. In particular, we reviewed telenovela La Viuda Negra, which was loosely based on her life and compared it to the facts. We also covered Cocaine Godmother, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones took on the role of Blanco in a bio-more-or-less-pic. She remains a fascinating character, so you won’t be surprised that when I heard about a new documentary concerning her life, it went straight to near the top of my watch-list. I was a little concerned, since it came out as a “Tubi Original”. I’ve been burned by some of these before, and so was expecting a lurid, shallow TMZ-style expose which played fast and loose with the truth. 

To my pleasant surprise, that’s not the case at all. Obviously, there’s a certain allure here, but it doesn’t needlessly glamourize or condemn its subject, and instead manages to do a good job of painting both sides, and depicting Griselda as a surprisingly complex character. This is particularly clear at the end, when her youngest son – named, amusingly, Michael Corleone – says of his mother, “Yes, it’s a legacy of violence. But she was a woman that had to become savage in a world that wasn’t made for her.” Then Detective Diaz, who headed the Miami task force charged with bringing her down, counters, “We have this bitch from hell who decides she wants to be meaner and more powerful than anybody else… Violence. Arrogance. Greed. That is her legacy.” Take your pick!

It covers Blanco’s entire career, from growing up poor in Cartagena, through her (illegal) emigration into America, where she got into the drug business, and built an empire which brought her a fortune estimated (likely conservatively) in hundreds of millions of dollars. With this came enemies on both sides of the law, but Blanco almost seemed to feel she was invulnerable, and continued acting with impunity, until first the authorities and then her foes, eventually caught up with her. They’ve got some very good interview subjects, with Michael in particular standing out. His description of how he witnessed his father being gunned down on a Colombian street is chilling.

Cops, journalists and even other criminals also chip in, and it’s edited skilfully together to tell a complex story with clarity. Another interesting character I’m going to have to look into is Jemeker Thompson-Hairston, the “Queen of crack” who served time alongside Blanco in federal prison. One of the key players in the eighties crack epidemic, she’s now an evangelist, and came over as very well-spoken and thoughtful. I do have to say, something about narrator Elena Hurst’s voice kinda grated on me. Perhaps it was the way she’d apparently adopt an outrageous Spanish accent, any time she said the subject’s name: “Greez-hel-dahh”. Overall though, this manages to be both informative and entertaining, even if it is perhaps helped by having a story it would be difficult to screw up.

Dir: Victoria Duley
Star: Michael Corleone Blanco, Bob Palombo, Raul Diaz, Dr. Amy Shlosberg

Homestead

  By

★★★
“Home on the (gun-)range”

This one does take a while to reach the necessary threshold: probably only truly qualifies for the final twenty minutes or so, though it does talk a good game until that point. Also, it’s a decent enough combination of Western and home-invasion genres to that point, to pass muster. Nothing special, mind you. It just knows its limitations and is careful enough to work within them. It takes place in the Old West. whee Beth (Bernadette) and her twin children, Brian and Irene (Betsy) now live with her new husband, Robert (Krause). The trio appear to have escaped an abusive relationship, and it’s not long after a railroad surveyor pays a visit, before Irene is cheerfully telling him, she’s going to go back and kill her father some day.

Turns out she doesn’t have to wait that long to carve some notches on her gun-belt. Because the “surveyor” is actually the advance scout for a gang of outlaws. for Robert wasn’t exactly an angel in his previous life either. He was part of a gang led by Ezekiel (Scurlock) and absconded with their loot. This bit of treachery has finally caught up with him, an his old associates are now ready to make him cough up the location of what they consider their rightful, if ill-gotten gains. They arrive one night, taking the family hostage in an effort to use them against Robert. However, they’ve forgotten about Beth, who has clearly had enough of this male nonsense, and in particular. Irene, who embraces wholeheartedly the opportunity to get some practice in for her future paternal reunion.

As mentioned, we do have to take a detour before the distaff side of the family take centre-stage. Robert and Brian are more or less useless. The former’s efforts to negotiate with his former pals go about as well as you would expect, and Brian is just no good for anything, especially after getting shot in the leg. This is retaliation for his sister stabbing one of the outlaws in the foot: in hindsight, they would have been much better off shooting Irene, considering she is the one who causes them no end of trouble, the deeper we get into the movie.

Eventually, for different reasons, Robert and Brian are no longer of significance, with first Beth and then Irene, finally getting the chance to show it was a fate mistake to overlook them. It’s a very good example of firearms as an equalizer. In a physical fight, they’d have no chance against men who are clearly much larger and more powerful. However, with a gun in their hand, and a steely resolve to use it in defense of their own survival, then strength is no longer a factor. How things unfold is mostly quite predictable, to be honest, yet is done with a reasonable amount of energy. and helped by performances which all feel like they are on the same page dramatically. All told, the ending justifies the means, I’d say.

Dir: Ehrland Hollingsworth
Star: Betsy Sligh, Jamie Bernadette, Brian Krause, Scot Scurlock

Fear The Night

  By

★★★
“Bows before bros.”

Director LaBute is best known around these parts for his ill-conceived remake of classic horror The Wicker Man, which is generally regarded as spectacularly bad,  and is probably best-known for spawning memes involving Nicolas Cage and bees. So expectations going into this were… not high, shall we say. On that basis, the three-star rating is something of a pleasant surprise, though most of the credit for this should got to its star, rather than the director. Tess (Q) is a veteran of the war in Iraq, who is struggling to reconnect to her two sisters. Rose is getting married, and is nice enough that Tess is willing to attend her bachelorette party at the family cabin, deep in the country. But Beth (Foster) is a straight-up bitch.

So Tess isn’t exactly having a good time. All the giggly gal-pals are not her idea of fun; between that and Beth’s sniping, Tess’s new-found sobriety is on thin ice. Such familial and mental health concerns are quickly rendered irrelevant, by the unexpected arrival of an arrow, right through the middle of one of the guests. Turns out a local group of drug dealers want inside the house, which up until the unexpected arrival of the bridal party, had been being used as a safe place to store their ill-gotten gains. All of a sudden, it’s less about cheeky appetizers, getting tipsy and male strippers, more like a no-holds barred fight to try and survive the night.

This isn’t exactly subtle: LaBute seems fairly obsessed with the battle between the sexes (something certainly an element of The Wicker Man), though here it’s more of an all-out war. Fortunately for the fairer sex: Tess is far and away the most competent of anyone here. This is established in an early, nice scene at a gas station where the women are being hassled by three locals. While Tess doesn’t exactly de-escalate the situation, it does a good job of establishing her background, and zero tolerance for anyone who disrespects her or the military. Of course, being Maggie Q, it’s no surprise when she can deliver, despite being severely outweighed by her opponents, in a crisp, crunchy manner that does not mess around.

Less effective are… Well, everyone else, to be honest. The villains, in particular, are a fairly mediocre bunch, who go down surprisingly easy, even when they end up going hand-to-hand with a bridesmaid rather than an annoyed veteran. For example, Mia (Crovatin) is chosen to try to make a break for a nearby house for help, having been a track athlete as school. When cornered by one of the men, the resulting bludgeoning is delivered from her end. Outside of their bows, the limited threat they present here definitely stops this from being all it can be, and the ending is more of a damp squid [on review, I’m letting that typo stand…] than Tess deserves to get. But Q is entertaining as ever, and helps overcome what sometimes feel like unnecessary attempts at social commentary.

Dir: Neil LaBute
Star: Maggie Q, Kat Foster, Travis Hammer, Gia Crovatin 

I am Rage

  By

★★★½
“Better living through abuse?”

By coincidence, I watched this not longer after the not very good Hunt Club, which covers a not dissimilar topic of women being hunted for sport. This, however, does considerably better with the concept, though it does take a while to get to that point. It begins with Erin (Bendz) going with her boyfriend, Adam (Nelson), to meet his parents for the first time. Also there is his brother and his new girlfriend, Sarah (Whillans). A few ignored red flags and a glass of drugged wine later, the two girls wake to discover themselves the latest in a long line of unwilling blood donors, ready to have their juices extracted and sold to the rich as rejuvenating formula.

And it works, too, as is proven by ageless matriarch Margret (Svetek). However, what the family don’t realize, is Erin is not the helpless victim they wanted. She had been abducted while very young, and subjected to years of horrific treatment, before escaping, brutally killing her kidnappers in the process. So this isn’t her first rodeo, and she’s not happy about it. Inexplicably – and this definitely had me rolling my eyes – Margret does not simply kill Erin, even after becoming fully aware of the threat posed, opting to make her one of the “rabbits” for the hunt. Later, Margret again has the jump on Erin, but opts instead for the old hand-to-hand combat thing. Guess how that works out for her?

Yeah, the story has issues. Such as this supposedly being set in Scotland (and it was indeed filmed there), where the family settled in the 19th century. Yet there’s no Scottish accents to be heard. I’m personally offended. To be honest, the basic concept sounds like some crazy conspiracy theory; if Margret had shape-shifted into a lizard person, I probably would not have been surprised. The notion of Erin being a ticking time-bomb reminded me a bit of Jolt, and its “intermittent explosive disorder”, though some more background might have helped. Perhaps Eric could have escaped from a psychiatric facility? It’s hard to imagine someone who committed multiple murders, even given the circumstances, simply being given a lollipop and released back into the community, with a pat on the head.

Fortunately, this kind of thing never relies on the story. We’re here for the carnage, and the film doesn’t hold back there, with only occasionally unconvincing CGI blood squibbing. The rest is full-on practical, with the heroine ending up wearing a full crimson mask – and it’s not her own blood. Most of the action choreography is solid, though there a few shots where the distances don’t quite match. But it’s nicely terse, with the highlight likely the fight between Erin and Margret in a disused churchyard. There’s some overlap of personnel with Army of One, yet this is notably better. Or, at least, notably more fun, and I’ll happily settle for entertaining nonsense over plain nonsense, any day.

Dir: David Ryan Keith
Star: Hannaj Bang Bendz, Antonia Whillans, Marta Svetek, Derek Nelson