Tag: f

Fatal Defense

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★★½
“There is nothing that’s going to empower you more, than if you kick the crap out of somebody. “

Single mother Arden Walsh (Scott) and her daughter Emma (Guest) are traumatized by a home invasion, and at the insistence of mom’s cop sister, Gwen (Fortier), Arden signs on for a self-defense class given by the hunky Logan Chase (Cade). He’s a bit… intense, shall we say. Despite some initial bonding over their ex-marriedness, it’s not too long before Arden discovers his methods leave “unconventional” lying in the dust. Probably about the point where he zip-ties Arden and tosses her in the trunk of his car. At this stage, she decides to forego further classes. Except, Logan is having none of it, and even teams up with the original burglar to put Arden through further “training”.

By this point, I’ve seen enough Lifetime TVM to know where this was going, and if you’re a regular here, you’ll have read enough reviews to figure it out as well. Logan ends up kidnapping Emma, in order to lure Arden to her final “examination”. Though I can’t help thinking, this works mostly as a tacit commercial for firearm ownership. If Arden had only followed Gwen’s advice in the self-defense department – rather than responding, “I’m not gonna have a gun in my house with Emma, no way” – the problem which is Logan would have been solved a) a great deal more quickly, and b) with considerably less trauma for little Emma. The finale, involving the intervention of detective Inspector Banks (Sherilyn Fenn), kinda proves this point.

The biggest flaw is the lack of credible motive for Logan. It’s not quite clear what he’s trying to do here. Seems like Arden is not his first victim, and he has clearly been unhinged by the loss of his wife during a rural robbery. Yet I can’t help but think there were easier ways to achieve his (ill-defined) goals, not least because he seems almost to want to die at the hands of his trainees. I suspect that picking on the thoroughly no-nonsense Gwen might have presented a better chance of that happening, and it does seem a bit of pointless doubling up to have both her and Inspector Banks as supporting characters, even if it’s to get round the “You’re not allowed to investigate cases involving your own relatives” rule. Which I presume is a thing.

While I’d rather have seen more of Fortier, Scott is okay as the lead, and her action scenes occasionally have slightly more impact than I expected. However, this is largely doomed by the relentless predictability of things as they unfold. There are two particularly obvious bits of foreshadowing: one involving hot tea, the other wet leaves. About the only thing which remains in question is, which one of these will actually be relevant to the ending, and which will be a red herring. I’ve no intention in spoiling all the film’s slight pleasures, so if you want to find out, you are going to have to watch this yourself.

Dir: John Murlowski
Star: Ashley Scott, David Cade, Sophie Guest, Laurie Fortier

Furie

  By

★★★
“Hell hath no furie…”

We’ve seen Ngo, the star here, previously on this site in Clash and The Rebel, though in both of those, she was the film’s co-star, along with Johnny Nguyen. [What I hadn’t realised, is she was also in The Last Jedi, albeit briefly, playing the sister of Rose Tico, as well as Netflix movie Bright] Here, she’s the focus of the film, which makes for an improvement from the action-heroine point of view, even if the story is rather generic.

She plays Hai Phuong, a former gangster, who had to leave Saigon after an unfortunate arson incident, and is now working as a debt-collector for a rural loan-shark. Her little daughter, Mai (Vy), dreams of them going legit, running a fish-farm, and Hai is about to pawn her precious ear-rings to realize this ambition, when Mai is snatched from a local market and taken back to Saigon. Hai naturally follows, and discovers her daughter was taken by an organ-trafficking ring. The cops have been investigating, but lead officer Luong (Nhien) hasn’t been able to get enough evidence to act against them. He’s more than happy to let Hai bust the gang wide open, along with its brutal female leader, Thanh Soi (Hoa).

It’s probably a little slicker than her previous Vietnamese vehicles, and I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing. The fight choreography, cinematography and editing teeter dangerously near to the Hollywood style, rather than the more “old-school” approach taken before. I prefer the latter, being more amazed by physical talent, than cinematic sleight of hand. Not that Ngo is entirely deficient in skills, it’s just a lot harder to be sure here. To be honest, Hoa probably comes over as more impressive in that area, though we don’t really see enough in terms of performance to be able to assess her skills in the acting department. But it’s interesting to see a martial arts film where the both the protagonist and lead antagonist are both women: you don’t see that often.

Despite the familiarity of the plot – virtually every review compares it to Taken, except with a mother instead of a father – the movie keeps things moving at a brisk pace, although the cop character is almost entirely superfluous, at least until the end. That’s an aspect which I felt could have been handled better, with the heroine suddenly getting a bit white-knighted, after surviving through everything to that point on her own abilities. However, it’s overall a good character arc, with Hai simply trying to do the best for her daughter, only to find that life is reluctant to allow that, and keeps putting obstacles in her way. A solid and effective enough slice of action, I just wish it had possessed more local flavour; if there was ever a case where a film can perhaps be said to be too polished, this might be it.

Dir: Lê Văn Kiệt
Star: Veronica Ngo, Cát Vy, Phan Thanh Nhiên, Trần Thanh Hoa

Forgotten Gods by S. T. Branton

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

Vic Stratton is a woman on a mission. She’s seeking out Rocco Durant, the New York mobster who was responsible for the deaths of her parents five years ago. With the cops unable to do much, she turns vigilante, and is finally on the brink of taking her vengeance when…Well, things get cosmically weird: specifically, “something both large and seemingly on fire blotted out the whole skyline across the river with its brightness.” She ends up fishing a man out of the river, who was carrying a glowing sword which makes fast work of Durant’s henchmen. Turns out, the man, Marcus, is a former Roman legionary: centuries ago, he became a guard in Carcerum, a realm to which a selection of unpleasant deities were banished by King Kronin.

Now, Kronin is dead, killed by his oldest ally, Lorcan, and Marcus needs to find a hero, worthy of carrying the Gladius Solis, the only weapon capable of keeping the gods in check. However, they are beginning to make their presence felt on Earth, and Vic isn’t the only person to have made a new friend following their dockside encounter. Durant has become an underling to Lorcan, and has picked up some disturbing new talents and character traits. For Lorcan is planning to put together an army of the undead, and is using Durant and his contacts to further that end, creating a “vampire factory.” Durant is vampire #1.

I enjoyed this. It doesn’t hold any surprises in terms of where the first volume ends – the cover pretty much gives that away! But the ‘odd couple’ relationship pairing of Vic and Marcus works well, and is occasionally surprisingly poignant. Vic’s original misgivings seem justified, when Marcus is unable to grasp the concept of an “actor”, but the two end up needing each other more than it initially seems. He needs her as a guide through the very different modern world. While as well as learning the art of fighting, she needs him to break opens the scar-tissue of deep cynicism, with which she has increasingly been affected since her parents were killed.

I’d call this first volume mostly set-up, and it’s only at the end where Vic comes into her own. In particular, she kicks into high gear when she has to rescue Marcus from a truly hellish situation in the vampire factory. The resulting sequence, involving a pit of vampires in production, is messy, to put it mildly. It demonstrates Vic’s take no prisoners attitude: she has had that since the beginning, and when combined with Marcus’s training and the Gladius Solis, eventually make for a powerful heroine. The journey there is entertaining though, and this was very much one I “watched” as much as read, the story playing out in my mental cinema. [The ‘gangster turned vampire’ aspect reminded me of Innocent Blood] Further volumes in the series have been marked for potential purchase.

Author: S. T. Branton
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Forgotten Gods series.

Fighting With My Family

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★★★½
“The fall gal.”

This biopic of WWE Women’s Champion Paige, a.k.a. Saraya Knight from the English seaside town of Norwich, gets a lot of things right about professional wrestling. In particular, it strikes a good balance between the various aspects – positive and negative – of the sports entertainment business. Over the past twenty years, Chris and I have been intermittently involved with the independent end of the wrestling scene, like Knight and her family, and this captures the low-rent showbiz aspects beautifully. Yet it doesn’t shortchange the seductive – almost addictive – appeal of performance for a responsive crowd, or the potential escape from a drab life it offers someone like Saraya/Paige.

This was inspired by a documentary of the same name, which covered everything up to her successful tryout with WWE, but not much thereafter. To be honest, that’s probably the most entertaining section, being a thoroughly amusing series of escapades, populated by quirky and amusing characters, inhabiting the low-rent world at the bottom of the wrestling pyramid. Not the least of these are her parents, plaved by Frost and, surprisingly, Lena Headey. It’s… strange seeing Cersei Lannister putting people into a headlock. [Fun fact: I saw Saraya’s Mum wrestle at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, back in the late nineties – even if they mis-spelled her name on the flyer!]

Once she goes over to the United States, it becomes a rather more predictable “fish out of water” story, with the dark, somewhat sullen Paige a radical departure from the other wannabe Divas, who all align more with the three T’s required by WWE at the time: teeth, tan and tits. The highlight in this phase is Vaughn’s performance as acerbic (and fictional) coach Hutch Morgan, who pulls no punches in his quest to winnow out the chaff for the benefit of his employer. For Paige, that transition is about becoming comfortable in her own skin, and repairing the relationship with her brother (Lowden), who also wanted – arguably, even more than Saraya – to reach the WWE, but was not offered a spot. To no-one’s surprise (even if you don’t know the story, this sticks to the well-worn path of the underdog sports film), she does so, and the film ends as she makes her debut, the night after Wrestlemania in New Orleans.

In terms of happy endings, that’s probably for the best. For injury forced Paige’s eventual retirement in April 2018, at the age of just 25, after barely two years of active competition and four in total. Not mentioned by the film, it’s a salutary reminder: a pro wrestler’s career is hard, and can be short. This is certainly a story which has been dramatized for cinematic purposes, probably inevitably. Yet the basic thread is intact – and, more importantly, the spirit of the people who inspired it is honoured. Having it directed by Merchant, previously best known as Ricky Gervais’s sidekick, proves a masterstroke. In his able hands, and helped by a winning performance from Pugh, the hackneyed material proves more than tolerable.

Dir: Stephen Merchant
Star: Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost

Fallen Sun: The Great War, by Harule Stokes

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

While not perfect, I think this one will probably end up sticking in my mind longer than most of the books I read. For one, it helps being a stand-alone and complete work, rather than the first of a multi-volume set. While I understand the rationale behind the latter – that’s where the bread and butter of writing income is made – it was refreshing to get a beginning, middle and proper end, without a cliff-hanger or opening for sequels. It was also different in content, rather than being yet another book which drops fantasy creatures like elves or vampires in a contemporary setting. I’ve seen enough of those this year, thankyouverymuch.

Instead, this takes place on a planet in the late stages of a brutal war between the Northern Alliance and Keynosa. Both sides have developed artificially-enhanced super soldiers, known as Fingers of God (FoG) or Guardians on their respective sides. It’s a brutal process, which few survive, and even those who do, risk an eventual collapse into psychosis. Beyond that, the two sides have different approaches: the Northerners exploit technology, while the Keynosians use biological weapons, in particular transforming the planet’s flora into lethal agents. After a long struggle, the Northerners are making a push for victory. However, their opponents are now also using their technology against them, which could potentially tip the balance of the conflict back to Keynosa.

The protagonist here is Jocelyn Martinez, a former teacher who is now a FoG. Her closest allies in the force are Ophelia, another FoG who is beginning to crack at the seams, and Patricia, a sniper who is still human. Like all soldiers – on both sides – they’re treated like mushrooms by their leaders. For instance, it turns out the anti-psychotic drugs FoGs need to take, interact badly with RX, the weedkiller sprayed in vast quantities to negate the Keynosian bioweapons. It’s hardly as if the FoGs need such problems, above and beyond mere survival. Yet as the end of the war approaches, the question looms: what do you do with  ultimate soldiers once peace breaks out. Making matters worse is Frank Sun, a FoG who went violently insane previously, but has now been released back on to the battlefield for the last push.

Initially, it’s all somewhat confusing, with much not immediately explained. It’s worth persevering, as Stokes does a very good job of getting inside Jocelyn’s head, and depicting the apparent contradictions therein. She’s capable of savage brutality, and the horrors of war are certainly not glossed over; yet Joceleyn is also tremendously loyal and willing to put herself in harm’s way for her comrades. The story also does a good job of switching perspectives, although the heroine encountering the “enemy” and finding – what a surprise! – they’re not so bad, was rather too obviously handled for my tastes. Fortunately, both the book and Jocelyn achieve redemption with a rousing final battle, and it’s almost enough to make me wish this had been another “Part one of” book. Almost…

Author: Harule Stokes
Publisher: Wave One Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.

Fair Game (1986)

  By

★★★
“Time to back out of the outback…”

First off, this is not to be confused with the other Australian film of the eighties by the same name, made four years previously. This is considerably more sparse, and likely the better for it. Jessica (Delaney, who went on to marry John Denver, and have a highly acrimonious divorce from him) runs an animal sanctuary in the outback, but discovers someone has been hunting the local fauna on it. Suspicion falls on three local yahoos: Sunny (Ford, reminiscent of a young Sam Neill), Ringo (Sandford, doing some impressive stunts) and Sparks (Who – no, really, that’s his name), a trio of hunters targeting kangaroos – regarded as vermin by the farmers – for their meat. They don’t take kindly to being confronted, and begin an escalating campaign of terror against Jessica. But even a peaceful animal-lover can only be pushed so far before she breaks. Turns out that line is likely being strapped to the hood of their Jeep and driven topless across the countryside. Or thereabouts.

While I doubt the maker of Revenge saw this fairly obscure film, it does seem somewhat similar, with three men pursuing a lone woman through a desert wilderness, before the tables are turned on them. Quentin Tarantino has also spoken glowingly aout this piece of Ozploitation, and you have to wonder if the scene described above was perhaps one of the inspirations for Death Proof, in which the similarly Antipodean Zoë Bell spends a good bit of time on the bonnet of a speeding car – albeit more clothed and of her own volition [Though amusingly, one of the video covers for the film opts to depict a rather more chaste version of the scene] If so, I can see why he opted to lift only that sequence, as the film as a whole is rather… jerky, for want of a better word. By which I mean, the narrative feels like it consists of a series of unconnected sequences, rather than ones which flow into each other.

There is still a certain sense of escalation, and for once, there isn’t actually a sexual assault. The thugs’ actions begin with petty bullying, and escalates through stalkerish activities, like taking a Polaroid of Jessica while she sleeps, but bypass the obvious rape, which is refreshing. However, it still takes a bit too long to get to the meat of proceedings, with Jessica turning her farmstead into a series of home-made, yet increasingly lethal, traps with which she can defend herself. I’d like to have seen this stretched out, rather than compressed into a frantic final 15 minutes. She’s the hunted rather than the hunter for the majority of the time, and as usual, the former is the less interesting part of the equation. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie went on to become Peter Jackson’s favorite cameraman until his death in 2015, and does a nice job of capturing the wild beauty of the Australian wilderness.

Dir: Mario Andreacchio
Star: Cassandra Delaney, Peter Ford, David Sandford, Garry Who

The Feral Sentence by G. C. Julien

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

The handling of this story is a little different from the usual novel. Julien adopts an “episodic” approach, with the story initially released in novella-length installments (seven of which have come out to the point of writing), some with cliffhangers. In structure, this is almost like the movie serials of old. Book 1, reviewed here, compiles parts 1-4. It’s set in 2087, when the authorities have gone back to a retro version of penal punishment: exiling criminals to a remote tropical island, from which there’s no escape, and where prisoners can pose only a danger to each other. 18-year-old Lydia Brone is sentenced to three years for killing her mother’s abusive boyfriend, so is dropped off (literally – out of a helicopter offshore), and left to make her own way on Kormace Island.

She is almost immediately captured by one of the existing tribes, under the control of long-term inmate Murk. To survive, the women have implemented their own society, with each being assigned a role necessary to the survival of the group. Brone is initially made a needlewoman, but after an attack by the “Northers”, a rival tribe, she’s re-assigned to learn archery. Daily life is not without conflict, with Brone being shaken down by another inmate, and eventually she realizes that attempts at practicing non-aggression can simply get you tagged as an easy mark. However, it turns out, there are much bigger problems at hand, with her entire new “family” coming under threat.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat uneven, character arc for Brone (she abandons use of her own first name quickly), as she evolves, mostly out of necessity, from scared teenager to battle-hardened warrior for the tribe. I say “uneven”, because it feels slightly inconsistent. At one point, she appears to say she was almost obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, hygiene, etc. yet this is rapidly discarded, and he has few apparent problems adapting to a primitive lifestyle. I’d also have welcomed background information about the outside world: what brought us to the point where this solution was adopted? It has been running for decades, going by how long Murk has been there, and the apparent one-way nature of the place would seem to raise obvious questions. Do none of the women have friends or relatives on the outside waiting for them?

Julien does a good job with drawing the rest of the inmates, creating a set of characters whom are generally distinguishable, even if their back stories have a certain “society’s to blame!” similarity [not many of the prisoners accept full responsibility for the consequences of their actions, there’s always some excuse]. The episodic approach also means, almost out of necessity, a constant stream of incidents: there is, literally, never a dull moment here. The ending, admittedly, falls a bit awkwardly between two stools: it’s neither a satisfactory conclusion, nor dramatic enough to lure you into the next volume. This remained entertaining, however, and the almost complete lack of romance – for obvious reasons! – was a refreshing change from some recent entries.

Author: G. C. Julien
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 3

Fighting Belle

  By

★½
“Hell is belles.”

Oh, dear. A misbegotten concept – Sweet Home Alabama crossed with Rocky – doubles down with shaky execution, and a non-stop parade of painfully obvious cliches in both characters and plot, to startlingly poor effect. As evidence of the first, imagine a film about a man, dumped by his girlfriend, who decides that beating her up is appropriate revenge. This would not exactly be anyone’s idea of comedy gold. But the makers here think that, simply by reversing the genders, it becomes so. They are very much mistaken. I believe I laughed once.

The heroine is southern belle Delilah (Harthcock), veteran of many a beauty pageant: we can tell, because virtually every scene sees her wearing a “Miss Mint Julep” sash or similar. Yeah, guess I’ll quote the master of sarcasm, Edmund Blackadder: “I thank God I wore my corset, because I think my sides have split.” Anyway, she is jilted at the altar by asshole fiancé Kelvin (Czerwonko), and decides to get back at him by challenging her ex, a former pugilist, to a boxing match. She goes to the local gym, convinces the sceptical Tandy (Cook) to train her, and…

Well, you can guess the rest. Trust me: the previous statement isn’t critical hyperbole. You could literally write down ten plot points that have been done to death in this kind of film, and I’d wager at least seven of them would be delivered here. Family opposition? Check. Delilah falls for Tandy? Check. Befriends the gym’s tough girl, Slice (Pierre)? Check. Heart-warming finale? Double-check. That this manages to take an hour and fifty-one minutes to get there, however, is testament to some impressively meandering story-telling. It likely doesn’t help that you can see the eventual destination coming, from a very long way off.

The budget here was reportedly $15,000, and it shows. This is especially true in the department which is the bête noire of low-budget film-making, audio. It’s echoey in one scene, muffled in the next, and the incidental music score often cuts abruptly at the join, making the transitions more abrupt instead of smooth.  It’s some credit that Harthcock’s performance manages to overcome these problems, at least to some degree, and the perky Delilah is generally the best thing the film has to offer [the sole time I laughed, as mentioned above, was when she spat out a taunt, along the lines of “Why aren’t you married yet? Wasn’t your brother available?”]

However, it’s a performance which sticks out like a sore thumb when put beside the rest of the cast, with Tandy in particular so understated, he should be checked for a pulse. The vast bulk of the attempts at comedy fall painfully flat, the romance between the two leads is sadly lacking in chemistry, and the efforts at portraying the boxing and Delilah’s training are 95% unsuccessful. There are any number of potentially interesting directions this could have gone: instead, the script sticks to a painfully well-travelled path, and ends up going down for the count.

Dir: Sean Riley
Star: Jessica Harthcock, Noah Cook, Ryan Czerwonko, Donnie Pierre

The Five

  By

★★★½
“Live organ donor.”

A chance encounter in a convenience store destroys the life of Go Eun-ah (Kim). For her young daughter accidentally sees serial killer Oh Jae-wook (On) abducting his next victim. Realizing he has been spotted, Jae-wook carries out a brutal home invasion, killing both the daughter and Eun-ah’s husband, and leaving her permanently paralyzed. But he has reckoned without Eun-ah’s fortitude. She devotes the rest of her life to tracking down her attacker, and puts together a team of four to help her. All need transplants, for them or their family. So Eun-ah has promised that once Jae-wook has been captured, delivered to her and killed, she will give them her organs. Damn. That’s what I call “fully committed”… But when Jae-Wook realizes he is being hunted, he turns his attentions on the hunters.

Revenge seems to have been a strong theme in the Korean cinema we’ve covered here – Lady Vengeance, Princess Aurora and perhaps most closely, Monster. This perhaps falls a little short of the best of those, but is by no means a bad movie: it’s executed with plenty of style, and the twists and turns keep coming from beginning to end. This was Jeong’s first feature, not that you’d know it, and is based on his own web-comic. This has a very strong concept, and though it may seem implausible, the set-up is done with great care, putting together the elements in a way that it all seems credible. And even though confined to a wheel-chair, Eyn-Ah’s place here is secure, from the scene where she believes she spots Jae-Wook in the street, and wheels herself after him frantically, a long knife in her hand.

The first half is particularly good, explaining why Eyn-Ah came to such a desperate place, and how she linked up with others who are equally desperate in a different direction. It’s certainly consistent in tone, and if you’re looking for some frothy entertainment, you should stay well away: there isn’t much light to be found in this darkness [though I did laugh at the guy Eyn-Ah captures during her investigation who protests, dead-pan, “Madame, two Tasers in one day!” Ok, you probably had to be there…]. This is especially true of the ending, which I must admit, I found the weakest part of the film. It could have been considerably more satisfying, both in the consummation of Eyn-Ah’s revenge and her eventual fate.  At one point it feels as if her old skills – early on, we see her creating a wonderful Rube Goldberg machine for her daughter’s birthday – are going to prove gloriously relevant, and it’s a shame they aren’t.

However, perhaps this is the point. As Eyn-Ah is told by the (very Christian) caregiver, who initially takes care of her on release from hospital, “Revenge may feel sweet before you do it, but he’ll haunt you forever.” Maybe Eyn-Ah’s entire scheme is a way of avoiding this guilt. If so, I can’t deny its ultimate success.

Dir: Jeong Yeon-shik
Star: Kim Sun-ah, On Joo-wan, Ma Dong-seok, Shin Jung-geun

Fair Game (1982)

  By

★½
“Not to be confused with…”

In particular, not to be confused with the Cindy Crawford film of the same name. But for the purposes of this site, more importantly, not to be confused with the film of the same name, also from Australia, released four years later in 1986 and which became one of Quentin Tarantino’s inspirations for Death Proof. I say this, since I did confuse them, and got the wrong one. I have now rectified the error, and a review of the latter will be along really soon. We regret the mistake. No, seriously: look at the rating here. WE REGRET THE MISTAKE. It perhaps could also be confused with Hostile Intentions, which was watched the very same day, and similarly concerns three young women on a road-trip, that goes horribly wrong. [Interesting how often the “three women” trope shows up: Charlie’s Angels, Charmed… Hell, Destiny’s Child. Future article idea filed away!]

That I’ve spent 150 words without actually discussing the movie, likely tells you all you need to know about it. But if you insist…

Three schoolgirls – Jilly (Trengove), Joanne (Mack) and Liz (O’Loughlin) – head off for a weekend of fun at a beach-house owned by a relation. However, it’s not long before things start to get creepy, as their car is chased by a pair of mysterious black vehicles, driven by a group of local men. When they finally appear to elude their pursuers, and reach the sea-side, they meet their next-door neighbour, Pamela Wilkinson (West). She has a dark secret of her own to hide: she was part of a check forging scheme, but absconded with the loot from her last job. That puts her on the radar as well, and it’s not long before someone is (or someones are) lurking in the shrubbery nearby. What are their intentions?

It’s probably this split of focus which damages the film most. If it had stuck with Pamela or the schoolgirls, this could at least potentially have been a creepy thriller. The latter, for example, could have turned into a teenage version of Deliverance, which might have been a nice twist. Instead, just as the film begins to generate any degree of tension, for example, when the girls are being pursued by the black vans… It switches over to Pamela’s story, and effectively, has to start over. Then, when it gets going, we’re back with the schoolgirls – where were we again? Fitchett is so bad at meshing the elements together, it feels like you’re channel-hopping between two different movies, hoping (with steadily decreasing optimism) one or other of them will eventually make it worth your while to stick around.

Though West’s pedigree as Australian Penthouse‘s 1979 Pet of the Year is not in question, shall we say, the sleeve shown promises a great deal more salacious schoolgirl content than the film delivers. Again, it says a lot that, such are the film’s other flaws, even this level of blatant false advertising provokes no more than moderate irritation.

Dir: Christopher Fitchett
Star: Kim Trengove, Kerry Mack, Marie O’Loughlin, Karen West
a.k.a. Desolation Angels