Tag: l

Lovely But Deadly

  By

★★★
“No, no! Not the chopped liver!”

After her brother drowns while high on drugs, Mary Ann “Lovely” Lovitt (Dooling) goes undercover at his school, Pacific Coast High, in order to root out the dealers responsible for his death. She discovers that the problem is far larger than is admitted, with those involved, and includes not just some of the most revered pupils e.g. star players on the football team (and, on more than one occasion, their jealous girlfriends!). A number of adults are also culpable, including leading school boosters, all the way up to leading local businessman ‘Honest Charley’ Gilmarten (Herd). Fortunately, Mary Ann is an expert in martial-arts, so proves more than capable of defending herself when attempts are made to dissuade her from investigating further.

The first thirty minutes of this are startlingly entertaining, which was a real shock. Sure, Dooling’s fighting skills leave a little to be desired… okay, a lot to be desired, yet her opponents sell the moves with surprising effectiveness. It feels almost like a parody of high-school films, made in the Philippines as a sly comment on President Duterte’s war on drugs, though the soundtrack appears to have strayed in from a Bond film. That applies especially to the title song, I believe sung by Marcia Woods, with its classic lyrics, such as “So low, so low, so low/How low, how low can they go?” And how could you go wrong with a film where, ten minutes in, the heroine force-feeds a dealer his own supply, while telling him a story about an old possum? Or where Mary Ann and her friend (O’Leary) are chased through the school by a pack of people in fencing uniforms?

Unfortunately, it can’t sustain this loopy energy, and loses its way badly in the middle. At least the scene where Honest Charley hits on our heroine is less creepy than you might imagine: Dooling was 27 at the time this came out, so was not exactly a convincing high-school student. She’s not the only one: school football star ‘Mantis’ Manigian is played by Rick Moser who, far from school, was actually a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers at the time. There are still sporadic moments of interest in the rest of the film. The costume party that turns into a cat-fight, leading to the immortal line at the top of this review. Or the extended climax at the docks, where Lovely is helped out by the rest of her kung-fu class, all fetching clad in their matching, zebra-striped karategi.

However, for every one of these, there are two or more scenes of tedium, such as the subplot involving Mary Ann’s boyfriend and his ambitions to be a singer (the actor involved ended up producing David Hasselhoff albums, which should be penance enough for anyone). In the end, while likely remaining more entertaining than most of its ilk, this (probably inevitably) falls short of its alternative tag-line, “James Bond couldn’t… Bruce Lee wouldn’t… They can’t do what Lovely can!!”

Dir: David Sheldon
Star: Lucinda Dooling, Michael O’Leary, John Randolph, Richard Herd

A Lonely Woman

  By

★★
“An overcooked spaghetti Western”

It’s one of those weird coincidences. I watched two action heroine flicks last weekend and both, while American, starred actresses who were born in Greece. Really, what are the odds? Sleeping Dogs Lie was the other: this is slightly superior, largely through being less wordy, and more genuinely vengeful. Coming home one night, Annie (Skafida) is stunned to find both of her parents dead in their house, the victims of an apparent robbery. But her concern is raised when their will is read, and Annie discovers that she has been disinherited, the victim of a mysterious late change. Annie was a foster kid, and never felt quite like “one of the family,” so is immediately suspicious of her siblings, especially the one who appears to have benefited from the update. The further she digs, the murkier the waters become, as she seeks bloody vengeance on those responsible – directly or indirectly – for the murder of her adopted parents.

Skafida is probably the best thing about this, simply for her presence, which is the cinematic equivalent of a heap of burning tyres – and not just for the amount of smoke she produces. [Seriously, I can’t remember the last film with so many cigarettes in it] I actually mean that comparison in a positive way, since she brings a smouldering, yet toxic intensity to proceedings – though, as in Sleeping Dogs Lie, it often feels like the heroine is acting in a second language. Still, the intensity keeps the viewer on edge, with the sense she’s a wild-card, who might explode into action at any moment, especially in her alter ego of “Jezebel”.

The problems are… Well, sad to say, just about everything else. Start with a story which appears to bounce around in time and space without any logic. For instance, early on, there’s a shootout between Jezebel and a group of disgruntled poker players, from whom she won her motorbike. The poker game itself shows up an hour or so later. There’s no explanation for this approach, and it serves no purpose either. Similarly, there are cases where the lack of background on a movie character can work in their favour, giving them an air of mystery. Here, it seems more like laziness.  

The music sounds as if the makers got a discount on three tunes from the stock soundtrack emporium, and decided to make the most of their bargain basement purchase, by using them in every single scene, regardless of fit. Ennio Morricone, it most definitely is not. And Cavazos certainly doesn’t match up to Sergio Leone in terms of cinematography. Even in the climactic duel, clearly intended to echo a “high noon” gunfight, the scene is edited in a hyper way which would seem better suited to an entry in the Crank franchise. While the aim of a modern take on the spaghetti Western is laudable, this is largely a failure. The end product is closer in appeal to a plate of last week’s soggy pasta than the works of Leone.

Dir: Juven Cavazos
Star: Youlika Skafida, Beau Yotty, Joe Grisaffi, Michael Tula

The Leine Basso series, by D.V. Berkom

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

Leine (short for Madeleine) Basso quit her job as a somewhat-sanctioned government assassin, after realizing her boss was using her to carry out off-book, non-sanctioned ops for his personal gain. Oh, and he also tricked her into killing her lover, and b Initially working in private security, she is hired on a reality show, following the murder of a contestant (Book 1: Serial Date) by a serial killer out to make a point. Leine’s daughter is abducted, and it turns out the perpetrator is a shadow from her past, with a grudge.

In the next entry (Book 2: Bad Traffick), she’s the bodyguard to a Johnny Depp-like actor, Miles Fournier. A young girl, trying to escape from human traffickers, seeks Miles’s help, and Leine finds herself involved in taking down the ring. This experience convinces her to join up with former colleague Lou Stokes at SHEN, a private group committed to fighting human trafficking, and this forms the focus of both the third and fourth volumes. In the former (Book 3: The Body Market), a American girl on a weekend in Tijuana is abducted; the latter (Book 4: Cargo) sees an American girl holidaying in Bangkok abducted. While the third is perhaps the best in the series, I could probably have done without what feels very much like a repeat immediately afterward.

Berkom seems perhaps to have felt similarly, for the next volume (Book 5: The Last Deception) marks a sharp turn in direction. While visiting a friend at a Middle East refugee camp, Leine comes into possession of a flash-drive with potentially explosive contents, revealing a plot by a rogue Russian to lure the US into a Middle East war. While there is still an abducted girl who needs to be rescued (the daughter of an arms dealer), it’s more a sub-plot, rather than the main focus of the story. I confess to not yet having read the final two entries (Book 6: Dark Return and Book 7: Absolution), but based on the synopsis they are a little “rescue an abducted girl” and a little “forcing her to revisit a dark and violent past she thought she’d left behind.”

I haven’t mentioned A Killing Truth yet, either. Chronologically, it’s the first, though is more of a novella, coming in at a crisp 156 pages, and takes place at a point when Leine was still a federal employee. @@@@ It was the last one I read, though it doesn’t make too much difference. Berkom is good at referencing past events where relevant in future volumes. But there is not much in each book which requires particular explanation, and you could pick up any one as a standalone entity without real bother. I got editions 1-3 as an omnibus, then tacked on #4 and #5; discovering there is now an omnibus edition for them plus #6 was rather annoying. I wish there was some way I could “trade in” those two and get the omnibus.

That’s a technical issue, not particularly relevant to this review, however. To be honest, when I got the first book, I was expecting more globetrotting assassinations, and less stuff more befitting a PI or homicide detective, which is really what the first two books are more like. Things perk up considerably in #3, with Leine having to handle life south of the border; you’ll probably be crossing Mexico off your list of potential destinations by the time you’re done there. They do seem – consciously or not – to become more exotic and international, as they go on. #4 and #5 take place almost exclusively abroad, to the point that I felt a bit sorry for Leine’s boyfriend, who must barely see her!

That is a bit of an issue, though it’s a double-edged sword. I’m no fan of romantic dalliances in my action, but after Berkom sets them up as being passionately involved in one book, it seem odd for their relationship to be so apparently non-committal in the next. The same applies to Leine’s relationship with her daughter, which goes from estranged to deeply-devoted, and then back to “Leine seems little more than irritated her daughter has been abducted by Middle Eastern traffickers”. The stories work rather better when she’s operating purely on her own; then again, I don’t expect an assassin to be much of a “people person”.

Indeed, there’s part of me which wants to hear more about her earlier escapades, based in particular on some crisply effective excursions into termination with extreme prejudice: “Several yards away, a man smoking a cigarette stood with his back to her, an AK-47 at his side. He appeared to be alone. Without a word, she raised the gun and fired, hitting him twice in the back of the head.” As is though, this feels a bit like the adventures of Sherlock Holmes… after he had retired to take up bee-keeping.

Author: D.V. Berkom
Publisher: Duct Tape Press, available through Amazon, both as paperbacks and e-books as follows:

Lady Death: The Movie

  By

★★
“Death warmed up.”

My first viewing of this was on a day off from work, when I was down with some sinusy thing, and dosed up on DayQuil. So I chalked my losing interest and drifting off to the meds, and once I felt better, decided this deserved the chance of a re-view. However, the result was still the same: even as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed viewer, I found attention lapsing. For this animated version of a mature comic, might as well be a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode. Which is a shame. I wanted to like it, since the creator of Lady Death, Brian Pulido, is something of a local comics legend here in my adopted home state of Arizona. This should have been better.

In 15th-century Sweden, Hope (Auten) is the daughter of Matthias (Kleinhenz), a mercenary who is actually an incarnation of Satan. When this is exposed, the innocent Hope is burned at the stake by religious zealots: there, she makes a literal deal with the devil, and agrees to re-join her father in Hell, where he has also taken her fiance, medical student Niccolo. However, once she is in the underworld, she rebels against his authority. With the aid of Satan’s former swordsmith, Cremator (Mungle), she obtains ‘Darkness’, a weapon Cremator had forged after slaying Asmodeus. Hope – or Lady Death, as she is now known – begins to amass an army and plot her demonic father’s overthrow.

All of which sounds considerably more interesting than the execution here, which is blandly uninteresting in just about every level, beginning with its depiction of hell. Even by the standards of 2004, this is low-quality animation. One of the strengths of the medium is it’s limited only by imagination: you don’t need to worry about the costs of building sets or whatever, it’s just what you draw. Yet there’s no indication here of any thought having gone into the setting. Hell is, apparently, a poorly-lit and generic cave system, populated by entities that look like Jabba the Hutt or Tim Curry in Legend. Much the same vanilla complaint can be leveled at voice-acting that’s desperately in need of more energy, save perhaps McAvin as Lucifer’s “jester,” Pagan.

But it’s perhaps the script which is the weakest element here – and considering the screenplay was written by Pulido, that’s especially disappointing. I’m only somewhat familiar with the comics, yet they seem to have a rich and fully-developed mythology. Could have fooled me based on this, where the Devil is basically an idiot, who has to make every mistake in the Evil Overlord handbook, to allow his adversary to triumph. Though this version of Lady Death appears considerably more heroic than in the source material, the question of why a “good girl” would want to reign over hell is never addressed. All that’s left is in an impressive bit of central character design, because there’s no doubt she is a striking creation. She’s someone who deserves a significantly better fate than this entirely forgettable prod with a blunt stick.

Dir: Andy Orjuela
Star (voice): Christine Auten, Mike Kleinhenz, Andy McAvin, Rob Mungle

Lachmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi: The Jeanne D’Arc of India by Michael White

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

“Fear not,” she retorted with animation, “that I will suffer the indignity of capture at their hands. My dead body they may find, but the spirit of the Rani of Jhansi will have carried more than one of them to an accounting before the great tribunal of justice.”

“With the exception of a white turban, she was attired in a blood-red uniform from head to foot.”

I’m surprised how sympathetic a portrayal this novel has of Queen Lachmi Bai (as it’s spelled here), considering when it was published. For this came out in 1901, a point at which India was still firmly under British rule – heck, Queen Victoria was on the throne as the year began. Yet Lachmi Bai is very much the heroine, portrayed respectfully, to an almost idealized degree. For instance, it begins with the rebel massacre of British troops and their families at Jhansi. Yet this is depicted as being in explicit defiance of her command to secure them as prisoners.

It’s a mix of historical fact and pure speculation, the latter being particularly evident in a fairly platonic love triangle between the Queen, and two of her (entirely fictitious, I suspect) lieutenants, the Hindu Prasad Singh and the Muslim Ahmad Khan. The latter is the villain of the piece. His blood-lust is responsible for the massacre, and he is depicted in phrases such as “the expression of his mouth and chin denoted cruelty and treachery—the latter, perhaps, an accomplishment rather than a failing to the Oriental mind.” [While there is an argument to be made here for Islamophobia in his depiction, given the highly positive way Lachmi Bai and Prasad are portrayed, accusations of general “racism” seem lazy]

However, even he spends much of the middle portion working faithfully in support of the queen’s mission to free her country from the British. Speaking of whom, there is one scene early in the book told from the point of view of the Empire. But thereafter, they are largely referred to as “the Foreigners,” again demonstrating the Indo-centric viewpoint of the novel. While they ultimately prevail, this is not reported with any sense of triumph. Indeed, White is remarkably prophetic, Lachmi Bai saying, almost with her final breath: “Not forever shall their horsemen ride triumphantly through the land. A day will come when their law shall be no longer obeyed, and our temples and palaces rise anew from their ruins.” 46 years later, India did indeed become an independent country.

“But even if defeat is again the will of God, if die we must; is it not better to perish as warriors should, in a feat of arms upon which the eyes of our enemies will gaze with marvel, than as wild beasts hunted through the jungle?”

“Her horse leaped forward, straight for Sindhia’s guns.”

The story told here bypasses her entire life and marriage, joining proceedings after she has already become a widow. In the early stages, Lachmi Bai also takes a back seat, with the storyline revolving around Ahmad and Prasad’s rivalry. The former manipulates the latter into believing the Queen is having an affair with young officer Dost Ali, and also the Queen into believing Prasad is plotting against her. This leads to his exile for the middle of the book, until returning after the fall of Jhansi, as the Queen is making her escape from the city. Though I must say, Ahmad’s eventual fate is rather underwhelming, in a “Cersei Lannister” kind of way. Without getting too spoilery, hopes he would meet the point of Lachmi Bai’s sword proved unfulfilled.

The latter half focuses more on the Queen, as fate deals her cards both good and bad. It’s made clear the military reverses suffered are not her fault, or in any way reflect her bravery. Her commanders are to blame, along with a tendency for her forces to break under pressure. Yet, as the quote above says, she would rather have a glorious death than a subservient life. The comparisons to Jeanne D’Arc are understandable, and made explicit: “A second Jeanne D’Arc, as valiant in battle, more subtle in council than the Maid of Orleans, moved by the same passionate love for her country, had cast in their teeth a wager of defiance, to stand until either they were driven from her state, or she had perished.”

Of course, we know how the story ends, and White gives Lachmi Bai the heroic send-off she deserves: “She drew the folds of a shawl over her face to hide her death agony, and again lay down. The blackness of night grew deeper, the silence more intense. Presently, strange, warrior forms seemed to appear from the unknown and filled the Rani’s tent. One supremely beautiful figure, in dazzling raiment, came forth to enfold the dying woman in her arms.” It’s surprisingly touching, and a decent end to a story which has survived the passage of almost 120 years better than I expected

Author: Michael White
Publisher: J. F. Taylor & Company, available as an e-book for free from Project Gutenberg.

Lady Psycho Killer

  By

★★½
“Teenage angst with a body-count.”

Ella (Daly) is a shy college student, whose psychology lecturer gives the class an unusual project: break a sexual norm. Unfortunately, Ella is rather confused about the intersection between sex and violence, in part because of genetics, for her father was a serial killer, before abandoning her pregnant mother (Heinrich). As a result, Ella’s attempt to carry out the assignment by auditioning at a strip-club, ends with her slitting the throat of the owner (Ron Jeremy, being appropriately grubby). This awakens the serial killer dormant inside her, and she starts taking out the sleazy men around her. The problem is nice guy Daniel (Andres), whose unwillingness to match her stereotypical opinions of masculinity, triggers further conflicting feelings in Ella, as her acts of murder become increasingly more blatant.

A lack of subtlety is also a problem when it comes to the film’s social commentary, though some credit is due for being a couple of years ahead of the #MeToo movement. Still, the almost constant use of voice-over as a narrative tool is lazily problematic, even if you can get past the ludicrous nature of the plot, or that Michael Madsen plays the least convincing college professor in movie history [Malcolm McDowell fares better as Ella’s creepy next-door neighbour]. The most interesting thing is perhaps the heroine’s relationship with her mother, which plays a little like a suburban version of Carrie, without the religious angle to the over-protective mom. I’d like to have seen this explored further.

Daly’s performance isn’t bad, having to cover a lot of emotional range from naively innocent to stone-cold killer, while also portraying the confusion of transforming from a girl into a woman. It’s a role that would challenge any actress, and hardly a surprise that Daly can’t quite convince across all the necessary aspects. She does fare better than the men in the script, who are given almost nothing to work with beyond “be creepy.” Perhaps this is intended as a sly commentary on the shallow depiction of female victims in many horror films? Let’s charitably assume that is indeed the case, though this could equally well just be more lazy writing.

For it is the script which hampers the film most of all, with almost every development triggering a roll of my eyes. What college professor would really hand out such an assignment? What cop would just let a confessed killer go, without any interrogation or further investigation, simply because a similar murder took place? What mother would affect little more than mild concern – especially, knowing her familial history- when her daughter comes home from a date, covered in blood? By coincidence, the day after seeing this, we re-watched American Psycho, a film which is clearly a significant influence on Oliver, in more than just its title (especially the original one, which omitted the word “Lady”). Its superiority is equally undeniable: he’d have benefited by learning a bit more from the source, especially in the area of writing.

Dir: Nathan Oliver
Star: Kate Daly, Dennis Andres, Meredith Heinrich, Josh Dolphin

Lust of the Dead 1-3

  By

★★★½
“The dead want women.”

Though it may be difficult to believe such a thing, the original Japanese title for this franchise of low-budget efforts was even more politically incorrect: Rape Zombie. If ever a title change was understandable… I went into this, largely on the basis of the covers, and braced for something awful. On that basis, I was pleasantly impressed: yes, this remains staggeringly offensive. Yet it’s clearly made by people who are familiar with, and love, zombie films. There are signs of actual brains being present – and not the kind normally found in the genre, being chewed on by the shambling antagonists. Five films have been made: for now, I’m covering the first three, which are the only ones available with subtitles [because, y’know, understanding the dialogue is so important here…]

The concept is more or less the standard one: a global outbreak of some kind of illness, turning the victims into mindless creatures, who attack any non-infected person they encounter. The difference here is that the disease affects only men, and turns them into sex-crazed rapists, who will sexually assault every woman they meet. [This does an amusing job of explaining the traditional slow, shuffling gait of the zombie – here, it’s because their pants are around their ankles.] Making things worse, their semen kills their victims. Needless to say, 50% of the population is less than happy with this situation, setting up a literal war of the sexes, with the now female-led military distributing weapons to its civilian colleagues, for the battle against those pesky rape zombies.

The sex is actually the least interesting thing here – though I note, up until the very end of part 3, there is apparently no such thing as a gay zombie, who goes after other men. What is far more entertaining is the shotgun social satire at play, with the makers turning the heat up on just about everyone. Feminists. Male rights activists. The media. Politicians. Women. Men (for once, “toxic masculinity” is not hyperbole). Social networking. Idol culture. For instance, the rapidly appointed female Prime Minister proclaims, “We’re only in this situation because we allowed men to run wild with their perverted fantasies!” – then high-tails it to Hawaii, immediately she finds out North Korea has launched a nuke at Japan. When that missile flies across the skies of Tokyo, everyone just whips out their phones to take video of it.

There are four heroines in the series: two pairs, who team up following some initial distrust. Momoko (Kobayashi) ends up in hospital as the crisis breaks, after slashing her wrists at work. There, she’s befriended by nurse Nozomi (Ozawa), and when all hell breaks loose, the pair flee the hospital, and end up taking refuge in a Shinto shrine. There, they meet Kanae (Asami) and Tomoe (Aikawa), a battered housewife and a schoolgirl who have also been trying to survive the carnage. The actresses portraying all four, incidentally, are best known for their adult work, though seem to acquit themselves credibly enough with the (admittedly, fairly limited) acting required here.

The main…ah, thrust of the trilogy is that men’s vulnerability to the virus (or whatever it is), is dependent on their pre-epidemic sexual appetite and activity. So, the jocks and pretty boys of society are pretty much toast: who inherit the earth are the otaku. That word is probably best translated as the Japanese version of nerds/fanboys, though more derogatory in connotation there, with a particular lack of social skills. When things settle down, they form the “Akiba Empire”, blaming women for the collapse of society. They hunt the remaining “3D women” with the air of domesticated zombies. On the other side are the “Amazons”, consisting of women soldiers from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and other survivors, including our four heroines and scientists working on a cure.

There are a couple of further wrinkles to this scenario. Momoe ended up pregnant by her husband, but is also raped by a zombie, though survives. The resulting child – born remarkably quickly – is apparently seen as some kind of saviour by the zombies and th Akiba Empitre, who won’t attack it or Momoe. She ends up apparently driven insane, a crypto-divine figure to the otaku, worshipped as an idol – in the J-pop sense at least, performing excruciatingly bad (deliberately, I sense) musical routines for them. Meanwhile, Tomoe – spoiler – dies at the end of part one, but comes back in two and three as an American combat robot, complete with laser eyes and lightning-producing fingers. She’s sent to Japan, both to gather data and carry out something called “Project Herod”. Which is what you would expect: part three ends in a cliff-hanger, with her and Momoe in a face-off.

It would have been very easy for this to simply be a porn film with zombies in it, which I’m sure exist. As I hope the above makes clear, it isn’t. Horror fans will have fun spotting the riffs on other genre entries, such as the twist on Return of the Living Dead where a captive zombie is quizzed to its motivation: the answer here, naturally, being “More… pussy.” [As an aside, certain words are bleeped out on the Japanese soundtrack, which seems surprisingly prurient, given the nature of these films!] The second also introduces Shinji, a non-otaku seemingly unaffected by the epidemic, and his girlfriend, Maki; he becomes a key part of the scientific research, though it turns out his immunity isn’t quite what it seems. Despite the copious nudity, it all feels not dissimilar to George Romero’s Day of the Dead, located at the shadowy nexus of science and the military-industrial complex.

Overall, the trilogy manages to cram in more invention than entire later seasons of The Walking Dead. It’s especially impressive considering each film runs barely an hour – less if you discount the “Previously…” opener and closing credits. I’m not entirely convinced there needs to have been five of these films; with editing, you could likely condense them all into two, maybe two and a half, hours and lose little or no impact. There are certainly times where the intent far outstrips the available resources, to an almost painful degree, and I’m no fan of the CGI splatter which is used more often that I’d like. It remains a rare case where exploitation comes with actual smarts, and that’s a combination you just don’t see very often.

Dir: Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Star:  Saya Kobayashi, Alice Ozawa, Yui Aikawa, Asami 
a.k.a. Rape Zombie

Locked Up

  By

★★★½
“Trash of the highest order.”

Do not mistake the above rating for suggesting that this is a “good” movie. By most normal standards, it would hardly qualify. But what we have is a throwback to the glory days of exploitation, in particular Filipino women-in-prison flicks like The Big Doll House or Black Mama, White Mama. Here, schoolgirl Mallory (McCart) is sentenced to two years in Thailand juvenile detention after whacking a rich bitch classmate bully upside the head with a pipe (below). At first, the place seems almost like a holiday camp. Then, her guardian leaves, and Mall is taken out the back to the real facility, a cesspool of degradation and brutality, where the inmates are exploited in ways both sexual and violent. 

All the tropes of the genre are there. A sadistic warden (Weiss, apparently delivering her lines phonetically – which is actually perfect for her emotionally-dead character). Gratuitous shower scenes. A predatory lesbian, Riza (Maslova), who is naturally the one whom Mallory must eventually battle in the prison’s fight club, a death-match with freedom on the line for the winner. A nice lesbian, Kat (Grey), who takes Mallory under her wing and trains her in martial arts, as well as engaging in a lengthy session of canoodling with her. No prizes for guessing this was the scene where Chris walked in. [I swear, my wife has some kind of tingly, Spidey-sense for sleaze…] A prisoners’ revolt. Cohn, who also plays Mall’s guardian, adds his own grindhouse spin too, such as the scene where she captures a rat and eats it raw, after the warden off cuts her regular food.

In case any of the proceeding is in any way unclear, this is not high art. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this for its melodramatic excesses and unrepentant approach to wallowing in what many would term the cinematic gutter. [Wrongly, I’d say, although that’s a topic for a separate, five-thousand word essay…] It helps that the performances are mostly on the nose; I especially enjoyed watching Maslova, who positively slithers her way around every scene in which she appears. At first, I was inclined to dismiss McCart, who in the early going, appeared to have one expression: permanently aggrieved. Then I realized, if anyone has good reason to be permanently aggrieved, it’s Mallory, since she’s pretty much a punching-bag for life, from the first scene to the last. By the end, I was rooting for her, every punch.

I would like to have seen more of the fight club, not least establishing Riza’s bad-ass credentials, and having Mall take on others as a build-up to the grand finale. There are also some unexplained story elements too, such as the question of why Mallory wants nothing to do with her father. Yet this is the kind of film where such things as the plot matter little, if at all. I stumbled across this accidentally on Netflix and had a blast. However, more than for most movies I review here, that comes with this caveat: your mileage may vary.

Dir: Jared Cohn
Star: Kelly Ann McCart, Kat Grey, Maythavee Weiss, Anastasia Maslova

Lizzie Borden’s Revenge

  By

★★★
“It’s just a bunch of hot chicks in their nighties, playing Truth or Dare.”

It would, certainly, be easy to look at the poverty-row production values here, and dismiss this contemptuously as a bad film. I mean, the very first shot supposedly sets the scene at the infamous New England house in 1892, where Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. But take a look. I’m fairly sure the trash cans to the right of the house are not of 19th-century vintage. And I am almost certain the palm trees on the left are not native to Massachusetts either. Given this, the awful use of CGI blood, etc. if you were to dismiss the film as the kind of sloppy work that gives B-movies a bad name, I wouldn’t argue.

And, yet… The line of dialogue which is the review tagline above, shows impressive self-awareness, while  the storyline seems deliberately cheesy: A bunch of sorority sisters on campus lockdown stage a seance. As one of them says, “With a blood relative of Lizzie Borden sitting right in the centre of our circle, something is going to happen, I just know it!” No prizes for guessing what. To quote the film once more, “We conjured up the ghost of Lizzie Borden and now her lesbian ass is haunting our sorority house?” [This isn’t for titillation: okay, not just for titillation: one theory about Borden involves her relationship with actress Nance O’Neil]

It is at its most amusing when pushing this knowledge of horror tropes, such as when the dwindling band of sorority sisters refuse to split up, leading to a conga line through the house. The characters in question may be stereotypes – the bimbo, the nerd who spouts bizarrely incoherent lines such as “A statistically higher chance of probability”, the troubled one, etc. – but most of the performances are decent enough, and it’s all impressively gynocentric. [This movie would pass the Bechdel Test, though perhaps indicates once more the uselessness of that ludicrous metric.] The men are relegated to minor roles of no real importance, and are, if anything, even more two-dimensional than the women. They also don’t shed their clothes as much: at the risk of stating the obvious, I am fine with this.

Ricci, who plays Lizzie’s descendant Leslie, is an adult star of some renown, yet is perfectly adequate here. Overall, I’ll confess this kept me considerably more amused than I expected from the early going, when the performance of the actor playing Mr. Borden almost had me reaching for the off button (it may have been saved by the always welcome presence of cult icon and scream queen Brinke Stevens, playing his wife). Certainly, you have to get past the shoddier, cringe-inducing aspects; having a taste for the trashy end of cinema is also necessary. However, director Devine is a veteran of horror as well as exploitation genres, and inserts enough sly nods to its conventions and cliches, that I was entertained. 

Dir: Dennis Devine
Star: Veronica Ricci, Shanalynne Wesner, Jenny Allford, Mindy Robinson

The Legendary Adventures of the Pirate Queens, by James Grant Goldin

  By

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

“Two women with swords was a sight that none of Vane’s men had ever imagined. It was like seeing a two-headed snake; one such monster would be a freak of nature, while two would indicate a terrible new species.”

Readers of the site should already be aware of Anne Bonney and Mary Read, as we covered them in our piece about women pirates a while back. They’re a good candidate for a story, because the known facts about them are relatively scant, allowing lots of scope for an author to fill in the blanks, however they wish. Goldin has no qualms on this front, freely admitting in the prologue, “A lot has just been made up.” This isn’t a bad thing, providing you’re looking for the “serio-comic novel” this is, not a recounting of the historical record. While based on the facts, and including both persona who existed and events which took place, Goldin does a good job of weaving them into a more complete narrative which, if unprovable at best, could have been how things happened.

After spending time in the military, and also becoming a widow, Mary Read is masquerading as “Martin” on a Dutch ship in the Caribbean when it is is captured by Calico Jack Rackham and his pirates. S/he and another member of the crew, Peter Meredith, defect to Rackham’s crew, where Read meets Bonney, the Captain’ lover. Subsequent issues include an encounter with Bonney’s ex-husband; Read’s daring rescue of Rackham and Bonney from New Providence, where Governor Woodes Rogers is trying to rid the colony of pirates; and the return of Rackham’s former boss, Captain Charles Vane. It ends with a grandstand finale, in which Vane seeks to recapture New Providence, only to find his ship facing a rather better-armed Spanish ship with the same aim, as Read (by this point “outed” as a woman) and Bonney try to spike the fortress’s guns.

Indeed, about all there isn’t, is much in the way of actual piracy, though only after it was all over did I notice this omission. And it’s occasionally educational. I never realized pirates were so… democratic. For according to the articles the crew sign, “The Captain shall be chosen by majority vote of the Company, and shall have supreme power during a battle. But before and after, every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment.” Who knew? [I’m presuming this is accurate, anyway: googling “pirates majority vote” led me down a rabbit-hole involving the Pirate Party of Iceland…] It makes for a fast, light read, driven by a bunch of engaging central characters who sound like they would be fun to be around, with unconventional quirks that play against pirate stereotype, e.g. Rackham’s desire to be considered witty.

Perhaps they’re too engaging? For the book sometimes feels in need of a true antagonist to balance the scales, a really hissable villain, with Governor Rogers and Captain Vane both turning out to be not entirely bad after all. Meredith also comes over a bit underdeveloped, a milquetoast romantic interest for Mary; it occasionally seems as if he’s there mostly to defuse any potential lesbian subtext between her and Anne. On the other hand, the relationship between Jack and Anne is spot-on, a fiery combination of steel and gunpowder which can go from volcanic passion to equally fiery confrontation in the blink of an eye. The novel was based off a script Goldin wrote for a prospective TV series, which makes sense, as it come across as visual in style, with the battles unfolding easily in your mind’s eye. Shame it wasn’t picked up: he says, “I really think the story bothers producers on some level. I also do think that, even now, the shadow of Cutthroat Island is long and dark.”

Still, we will always have the novel, and it was refreshing to read something which, for once, worked perfectly as a standalone story, rather than dropping the reader off a cliff-hanger, with an exhortation to buy the next in the series. A sequel is planned down the road, but Goldin got distracted by another series, on the children of the Norse gods. That should hopefully be finished by the end of 2018, then he promises to work on the further adventures of Anne and Mary. I’m looking forward to that.

Author: James Grant Goldin
Publisher: Basilisk Books, available through Amazon as both an e-book and a paperback.
A free copy of the book was supplied to me, in exchange for an honest review.