Tag: revenge

Maria

  By

★★★½
“Jean Wick.”

Proof that a lack of originality is not necessarily a bar to being an entertaining movie, this pulls together elements from all over the place, but probably most notably, The Long Kiss Goodnight and John Wick. You have the “former assassin now leading an idyllic family life, until her past catches up with her” of the former. And the “Oh, they’re surely not going to kill tha… Hoo-boy. The hero/ine is going to be VERY angry with them” of the latter, among other elements.

In this case, we have Maria (Reyes), formerly Black Rose assassin Lily, who is now married with a young daughter, until a chance encounter with ex-colleage Kaleb (Padilla). He is still highly miffed at her betrayal, and sets his minions on her – and, worse still, her family. Maria takes the fight to Kaleb with the assistance of her mentor, Greg (Lazaro, probably the best performance in the film); he helped her escape by faking her death, yet still has ties to her old employers. Meanwhile, the chaos resulting from their actions do not impress Kaleb’s boss, Ricardo de la Vega (Webb, looking like the Filipino version of Alan Ford, Bricktop in Snatch), who turns to Kaleb’s brother, the even more vicious – and, worse, considerably more competent – Victor.

Like John Wick, the generally straightforward nature of this works in its favour. There’s not much standing between Maria and kicking ass, with frequent bursts of solid action. Sonny Sison also choreographed the other recent Filipino action heroine film on Netflix, BuyBust, and it has a similarly gritty feel. The hotel run by Greg also is more than a little reminiscent of a similar establishment for assassins from John Wick 2. Though there’s an odd bit where Kaleb’s right-hand woman goes there, looking for Maria, beats up a few people and… just leaves? We’ll let them off with a warning, since they do later have a rather nice brawl, wearing high-heels, in a night-club bathroom.

Reyes is an actress who learned fighting, rather than the other way round. Yet, she looks the part, and Lopez throws in some stylistic flourishes, such as shooting from overhead, which keep things interesting. Overall, this teeters on the edge of achieving our seal of approval, but a couple of things leave it fractionally short. The first is the unconscionable failure of Kaleb, Victor or Ricardo de La Vega at any point to say, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” I mean, the line positively writes itself. The other issue is an ending, which is way too open, pointing directly towards Maria 2 in a way I haven’t seen since the end of Kill Bill: Volume One. And that was, of course, originally intended as a single entity. There is a slight degree of closure, yet is largely unsatisfying: more like finishing a level of a game than defeating the final boss. If there ends up never being a sequel, I’m going to be annoyed…

Dir: Pedring Lopez
Star: Cristine Reyes, Ivan Padilla, Freddie Webb, Ronnie Lazaro

Vengeance of a Snowgirl

  By

★★★½
“Revenge, truly served cold.”

The elevator pitch version of this sounds like a million other kung-fu films: Shen Ping Hong (Li) seeks revenge on the people who killed her parents and left her crippled. But there’s rather more going on beneath the surface, and shades of grey on both sides. One of her targets, Lord Kao Hung, regrets what happened and wants to help Shen regain the use of her legs. But Shen only agrees to let his son Tien-Ying (Yueh) help, in the belief that it will make her mission of vengeance easier. It feels almost like she’s a mad dog, lashing out at anyone who tries to help; keeping the severed heads of her victims in jars is a clue there. Meanwhile, Kao’s associates – and Tien-Ying’s ex-girlfriend (Chiao) – think he’s helping because he wants to get Shen’s jade sword for his own ends, and are intent on getting their revenge in on her first.

Let the record show, Chris wandered in half-way through this, glanced at the screen and said, “Is that Sammo Hung?” Knock me down with a feather if it wasn’t Sammo, in a minor supporting role as a villainous henchmen. This is why I love my wife: her ability to spot martial arts legends in 1971 cameos. Er, well… Not just that. Anyway, this would be massively overshadowed by the release, just two days later, of another Lo Wei film, his first for fledgling studio Golden Harvest. The Big Boss would put both studio and its star, one Bruce Lee, on the map, and Snowgirl would be all but forgotten.

In particular, the way it twists the usual “You killed my _____ and must die!” tropes are what makes this stand out, along with a second half which turns into something resembling a series of video-game side quests. Because the spring where Shen can heal her legs is so frigid, you need a magic pearl to survive near it for more than a few seconds… The pearl is in the belly of a volcano, reaching which requires a suit of flame-resistant armour (looking remarkably like a fireman’s uniform)… This is held in the treasure house of a remote prince, who will only agree to lend it out, if Shen can beat his champion… And there’s not a save point in sight.

The fights are decent, rather than spectacular, and we never get the hoped-for face-off between Shen and the disgruntled ex-girlfriend, who has skills of her own. On the other hand, Li does a good job of working round her character’s disability – though her ability to fly, makes me wonder why she bothers walking anywhere! Lo, who also makes a brief appearance as the heroine’s father, shoots good, long takes which help enhance his lead actress’s talents, and if nothing else, the ending will likely stick in your mind for its unexpectedly downbeat example of altruism and self-sacrifice. It mostly looks very nice, except for a thoroughly unconvincing “volcano”, and all told, it’s a shame this isn’t more well-known.

Dir: Lo Wei
Star: Li Ching, Yueh Hua, Ku Feng, Lisa Chiao

The Azrael Initiative, by K. Hanson

  By

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

This feels less like a novel, than a novelization of a screenplay, adapted by a not particularly proficient writer. The text is littered with paragraphs which seem more like stage directions than literature, and is startlingly repetitive. For example, in one section near the beginning of the book, five of seven consecutive paragraphs start with, “As she/Kayla…” It’s not necessarily a bad screenplay, with an idea containing some potential. But it would be in need of several rewrites before any studio exec would sign off on it.

The heroine is the Kayla mentioned, an engineering student at South Dakota State University, who is present when ISIS terrorists attack the campus. She and best friend Olivia, an aspiring nurse, take down the attackers before the intended massacre can be executed, and become media darlings as a result. This turns to tragedy when an apparent revenge bomb kills Kayla’s family. Seeking vengeance, the pair accept an offer from the mysterious Mr. Hightower, to join a secret government program and train as anti-ISIS insurgent. They’re inserted into Al-Raqqah, the capital of the ISIS caliphate in Syria, in order to sabotage and disrupt the group’s operations, causing as much chaos and carnage as possible.

They certainly succeed, and there’s no shortage of incidents, from gun-battles in the streets through to a daring rescue attempt on a capture British airman. These are when Hanson is at his best, although the ineptness of ISIS is questionable – that they are so easily and repeatedly bested by a pair of students after a few months of training is difficult to accept. Indeed, how quickly could someone go from no knowledge of Arabic to being able to pass impeccably as a native? For it’s not as if language was Kayla and Olivia’s only area of education. There’s also the “having to dress as a man” thing, which is unconvincingly glossed over with the wave of a fake beard (the cover is not exactly an accurate depiction of their undercover appearance!). Throw in an apparently inevitable bisexual subplot, and the dubious actions of the story’s antagonist – who literally keeps a journal in his desk, describing every aspect of his evil plan – and you’ve got more problems than solutions.

I did find the unrepentant villainy of ISIS somewhat refreshing: there’s no moral shades of grey here, they are straightforward bad guys, with very few redeeming features, and it’s easy to root for the heroines. Though the book doesn’t address the moral hypocrisy at its core: Olivia and Kayla are basically turned into terrorists themselves. You could take a speech by Hightower – “You will strike from the shadows to damage ISIS using any method at your disposal, whether that is through assassination, humiliation, or intimidation… The obvious goal is to eliminate as many terrorists as possible” – change a couple of words, and have Al-Qaeda rhetoric. But it’s okay, because they’re on our side? Still, this makes few claims to be other than a straightforward tale of action and courage, albeit one probably too simplistic for its own good.

Author: K. Hanson
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Kayla Falk series.

Mohawk

  By

★★½
“A hair short.”

This takes place in upstate New York during the 1812 war between Britain and America, when combatants are courting the Mohawk tribe to join forces with them. The natives are suspicious of both, and won’t commit to either. Working for the British is Joshua (Farren), who is in a slightly odd, three-way relationship with Mohawk warrioress Oak (Horn) and fellow native Calvin (Rain). On the other side is Hezekiah Holt (Buzzington), and his small band of Americans, who are out for redcoat blood. When they blame the Mohawk for murdering some of their number, their violence quickly extends to encompass Oak and Calvin, as well as Joshua. After Oak is left all alone, she goes on the war-path to take revenge on Holt and his men.

Low-budget period pieces are always on shaky ground, because creating genuine period atmosphere typically costs money. This sidesteps the issue by largely taking place in the middle of the woods, thereby limiting costs to a selection of uniforms and other costumes. It is a slightly obvious swerve, and I was also distracted by the sizable presence of WWE wrestler Luke Harper (under his real name, Jon Huber) as one of Holt’s platoon. The main problem, however, is the abrupt switch over to a supernatural theme for the final act. After the film has been thoroughly – and gorily – grounded in reality for more than an hour, it suddenly turns into a native American version of The Crow.

This is a shame, as the story to that point had taken some standard tropes and twisted them in interesting ways. While I’ve classified this as a “Western,” it’s more of an Eastern in terms of its location on the continent, and dates from an earlier era than usual as well. It could easily have become a scenario painted in black and white; instead, it’s considerably murkier, with motivations largely kept under wraps, especially those of Joshua and Oak. The latter, in particular, spends a good chunk of the movie lurking in the woods, with the focus on Holt and his dwindling crew. They’re in particular trouble after their tracker is picked off, giving a decisive advantage of terrain to their enemies.

As noted, it’s enthusiastically messy and brutal, as appears to be a recent trend in the more revisionist of Westerns (hello, Bone Tomahawk). But I was probably expecting more emphasis on Oak rather than Holt, which doesn’t happen until after the shift in tone also mentioned earlier. Horn does deliver a powerful performance, very much quiet and understated, and I’d like to have seen more of it. Given this inner strength, it didn’t seem logical to me for Oak to be bailed out by help from the spirits of her ancestors or whatever, in order to carry out her vengeance. Leaning on this as the story does (and where were these spirits when everyone else was being massacred?), seems a bit of an unnecessary cop-out. Not by any means terrible, yet could certainly have been better.

Dir: Ted Geoghegan
Star: Kaniehtiio Horn, Eamon Farren, Justin Rain, Ezra Buzzington

Death Angel December

  By

★★
“Liable to provoke hibernation.”

Marginally competent, and just not very exciting, this low-budget offering is the story of December (Kurishingal). As a young girl, she watched as the rest of her family was slaughtered by Law (Ramsey) and his villains, the result of a debt owed by her father. A decade or so late, she has grown up and taken to the streets as a vigilante, seeking vengeance on those responsible. Or, until she finds them, any other perpetrators she comes across during her night-time ramblings through the mean back alleys of the city. Helping her mission, is that she now works for the police, which puts her in a prime position to ensure, for example, that any evidence pointing in her direction goes “missing”.

The main problem here is the lack of any significant progression in story or characters. Once the basic concept is established, it’s more or less clear where this is inevitably going to end: in December confronting Law – who, miraculously, looks exactly like he did when killing her family a decade previously – and his minions. Little of interest happens during the eighty minutes in the middle to escape from the cinematic rut which this ploughs, save perhaps a brief interlude where one of her colleagues on the force mistakes her nocturnal activities for something else, and consequently thinks she’s moonlighting as an escort. They have a good laugh about this confusion, needless to sa… Nah, who am I kidding: she rips open his chest and pulls out his heart.

That’s actually one of the highlights – it helps that it is largely realized through physical effects, rather than the crappy CGI, of which we see rather too much in the rest of the film. The old nemesis of low-budget cinema, bad audio, also rears its ugly head on occasion, most notably a scene shot in a foyer, which sounds as if it was recorded inside a toilet bowl. Re-recording dialogue in post is an actual possible thing, y’know: given the copious voice-over, the makers would seem to know this. Not helping is the painfully inept nature of the fights, especially true for the final battle, which appears to have been filmed in a public park, using swords made of tin-foil.

On the positive side, Kurishingal has a striking appearance that makes for a great poster, and director Woodell does know what to do with the camera. Between the two of them, they manage to stop things from collapsing entirely, even if my interest was sorely taxed at times. The IMDb tells me this was apparently a remake of a short film the pair made two years earlier, called Scarlet Widow. That ran about a quarter of the length, and may well have been a more appropriate running-time for the content. The additional 70 minutes here feels almost like needless padding, with a script in need of significant additional development in order to sustain itself over the length of a full feature.

Dir: Bennie Woodell
Star: Leena Kurishingal, Will Cummings III, Chad Meyer, Charles Ramsey
a.k.a. The Long December

Naam Shabana

  By

★★★½
“Four for the price of one?”

If you took four different films, by four different directors, and edited them together into a single entity, you might end up something similar to this. Oh, make no mistake: I still enjoyed most of this. It just doesn’t feel like a coherent whole, perhaps because it is a spin-off involving some of the same characters from an earlier film, Baby. For at least three-quarters of it, however, not having seen its predecessor shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The first chunk is perhaps the weakest, introducing us to the heroine, Shabana Khan (Pannu), a college student and judo expert, with something of a quick temper. She has just started going out with a new boyfriend, when they get into an altercation with some cat-calling men, which ends with him dead in the street. It’s all rather unconvincing, not least the early incident which does a very poor attempt to establish Shabana’s zero tolerance for harassment.

Things do improve significantly thereafter, for it turns out she was under observation by a shadowy arm of the Indian government as a possible agent. She’s contacted by Ranvir Singh (Bajpayee), who offers to help her take revenge on her boyfriend’s killers, if she comes to work for him. With the authorities apparently uninterested in the case, Shabana accepts, and the next section covers her vengeance, and subsequent training under Singh. This is likely when the film is at its best, taking an interesting concept and executing it with some energy and flair.

Shabana then vanishes from her own movie in the third quarter, as we return to the topic of international arms dealer Mikhail (Sukumaran) he was briefly glimpsed at the beginning, making short work of two Indian agents in Vienna. Authorities have tracked down his ally, Tony, and apply pressure, hoping to discover Mikhail’s location. However, it turns out Mikhail has been using the services of a doctor to change his appearance, making the task of locating him that harder, and it becomes a race against time before he changes again, and the trail is lost.

Which brings us to another switch in direction for the final section, in which Shabana is sent into the hospital where Mikhail is about to get plastic surgery, in order to assassinate him. Here, she’s teamed up with Ajay Singh (Kumar), who was apparently the hero of Baby. There was a point where it looked like he was going to take over – not that we’d have minded too much, as we’ve always enjoyed seeing Kumar in action (despite his creepy mustache here), but this is supposed to be an action heroine film. Fortunately, that’s where it ends up.

Despite feeling a bit like Nikita, a bit like Peppermint, a bit like Alias and a bit like a Jason Bourne movie, there’s plenty going on, and the running time feels considerably shorter than its 147 minutes. It helps that its heroine is made to look relatively plain, rather than the typically stunning Bollywood actress. 

Dir: Shivam Nair
Star: Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manoj Bajpayee

Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine

  By

★★
“Why, yes – yes, she does…”

You’ll understand why, when skimming leisurely through a streaming channel on the Roku, I screeched to a halt at this title. Even though the “official” English title is just Killing Machine, I knew I immediately had to watch it. Yet, while the title technically reflects what happens, it’s a masterly bait-and-switch. For instead of the expected grindhouse apocalypse, it’s far more arty and surreal. The word “Lynchian” is likely over-used, yet it’s hard to argue its accuracy here. If David Lynch had been contractually obligated to deliver a movie with this title, it’d perhaps have looked very similar.

The synopsis is about what you’d expect. The nameless schoolgirl prostitute (Lee) is caught turning tricks by her teacher (D-t Kim), and the pair start a relationship. But when she becomes pregnant and declares her love to him, he decides the best way out is, with the help of a few friends, to convert her into a cyborg killer for hire. Except, in a Robocop-like twist, she proves capable of breaking her programming, and turns her new found talents (including a machine-gun, mounted in a place machine-guns were never intended to go) on those who created her.

All of which still sounds a lot of fun. Except, trust me, it’s not, and it’s clearly not intended to be. Nam is interested more in Creating Art, with a capital A. This is apparent right from the beginning, which opens with the credits, running very slowly, backwards. They run again, in a forward direction, at the end; this pretension seems like unnecessary padding in a film which (perhaps mercifully) only runs 58 minutes, including about ten minutes for both sets of credits. It’s a lurid, shot on video nightmare, that takes place in a back-alley world, where the lighting is perpetually neon-harsh, and there’s always a hip soundtrack, ranging from Ryuichi Sakamoto to the Gypsy Kings.

It almost feels like an hour-long performance art prank at the audience’s expense, not least given the amount of time devoted to characters laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. Nam seems to feel that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, in the sense that virtually every scene continues well past the point where it has worn out its welcome or point. Yet it’s clear he knows his B-movies: for instance, the heroine’s first mission is obviously inspired, almost to the point of plagiarism, by the one in Nikita. It’s as if the director was going, “Well, I could give you what you expected… Nah. Let’s not. Instead, here’s another scene of the bad guys laughing hysterically for no apparent reason.”

I will say this for it. You will not have seen anything like Killing Machine before, and I will remember the movie, when most other films reviewed for this site have long been forgotten. However, neither of these points are necessarily a good thing. The joke’s on the viewer here.

Dir: Gee-woong Nam
Star: So-yun Lee, Dae-tong Kim, Soo-baek Bae, Ho-kyum Kim

Hellcat’s Revenge

  By

★★½
“Mums of Anarchy”

The leader of all-girl biker gang the Hellcats is brutally beaten and murdered, by Repo (Kosobucki). Her replacement, Kat (Neeld), tries to get to the bottom of the killing, and take vengeance on the perpetrators. Complicating matters is Repo’s position in the Vipers, another motorcycle club with whom the Hellcats have previously had generally friendly relations. Part of that is due to Kat’s on-again, off-again relationship with their leader, Snake (Kabasinski); he also has the advantage of being cosy with some of the local cops, who divert confiscated drugs back to the Vipers for resale. But was he aware of – or did Snake perhaps even order? – Repo’s actions?

This is a mix of elements that work well, and those that don’t. The characters and performances aren’t bad. Neeld nails the right “do not mess with me” attitude – even if it seemed as if some of her tattoos were rubbing off on occasion! – looking and acting the part required, as well handling the action required better than I anticipate. And normally, a director putting himself in his own film is a red flag which screams “vanity project”, yet Kabasinski is equally solid in his role. Though disturbingly, he reminded me of Axl Rose some of the time. To varying degrees, this compatibility extends throughout the cast, e.g. the cops look like cops. You’d be surprised how often that is not the case in low-budget films.

Yet other aspects come up short. Most obviously: for a biker movie, it has a remarkable lack of… well, bikes. In fact, while I may have blinked and missed it, I don’t think there is a single shot of a Hellcat on, or indeed anywhere near, a motorcycle, at any point in the film. There’s also an ambivalent approach to female nudity. While there are plenty of that low-budget staple, the strip-club scene, the men involved are strikingly bored by it. Which may be the point: yet if they’re not interested, why should viewers be? And Neeld remains resolutely clothed. If you’re going to tout having a Playboy cover-girl in your B-movie… Well, it’s not unreasonable to expect a bit more than (admittedly, impressive!) cleavage.

There are other problems: the scenes don’t flow into one another, and some seem to have needless padding in them. Here’s an example: in one sequence, Kat is being briefed by her lieutenant Stone at a railway station. Six words of meaningful dialogue are preceded by twenty seconds of Stone walking along the platform to reach her boss. In terms of content, there’s simply isn’t enough here for the length, not least because we know from the start who the perpetrator was, significantly reducing the mystery. Sure, there’s a twist, though since even I could see it coming, it won’t be sitting beside The Sixth Sense in cinematic history. Given the obviously limited resources, this still isn’t bad, and I’d not mind seeing more of Neeld. However, my attention was held only intermittently throughout, rather than consistently.

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Lisa Neeld, Len Kabasinski, Deborah Dutch, Mark Kosobucki

Viking Siege

  By

★★★
“Tree’s company…”

This has the potential to be truly bad, and you need to be willing to look past ropey production values, a possibly deliberately shaky grasp of period (unless “Daisy” really was a popular girls’ name in early medieval times…) and uncertainty as to whether or not this is intended to be a comedy. Yet, I have to admire its “everything including the kitchen sink” approach: throwing together elements from genres as disparate as Vikings, zombies, aliens, sword ‘n’ sorcery and female vengeance shows… well, ambition, at the very least.

The story starts with a group of women, led by Atheled (McTernan), infiltrating a priory. They seek revenge on the monks, because of a sideline in human trafficking which has cost the women dearly. Their plan for vengeance is somewhat derailed by a local lord turning up, and entirely derailed by the arrival of a horde of Vikings, in turn hotly pursued by what can only be described as demonic shrubbery – not for nothing are they referred to and credited as “tree bastards.” To survive through the night is going to take an unholy alliance between the various parties, as well as some captives in the basement – fortunately, those include someone who can speak Viking (McNab). Given their radically different goals, this will present problems of its own.

Wisely, for budgetary reasons, action is largely constrained to the main hall of the priory, with occasional forays outside. This set-up is very Night of the Living Dead, and the tree bastards are also infectious, albeit not quite in the traditional zombie sense. However, it’s in the creatures that the film’s limited resources are most painfully obvious, with them being little more than obviously blokes in masks. Although the boss shrub does occasionally look impressive, when shot from the right angle, it feels a bit much, and is a case where less might well have been more. Just make them nameless berserkers, you’d have much the same impact and save yourself a lot of time, money and effort.

The chief saving grace are the performances. McTernan has the inner steel to go with her crossbow bolts; her colleagues, Seren (Hoult) and Rosalind (Schnitzler) in particular, are very easy to root for; and the nameless translator has perhaps the most interesting character. It’s these that kept me watching, such as in the atmospheric scene when the backstory of the tree bastards is explained. Though told rather than shown, it’s delivered with enough energy to prove more effective than some other elements (martial arts? gunpowder?), which had me sighing in irritation.

To be perfectly clear, it’s a case where you need to go in with your expectations suitably managed, i.e. keep ’em on the low-down. Based on the blandly generic DVD sleeve and title, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered, and certainly would not have expected any action heroines. As such, this was a pleasant surprise, and it kept me more entertained than I feared it might. My advice is, treat it as a loving tribute to a whole slew of B-movie genres, no more and no less.

Dir: Jack Burton
Star: Michelle McTernan, Rosanna Hoult, Samantha Schnitzler, Adam McNab

The Pact Series Omnibus One, by Alex Villavasso

  By

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

This got off to a frankly rocky start, to the point that a few pages in, this felt like it might become a very rare DNF (Did Not Finish) book. It’s an incredibly clumsy and stilted opening, depicting the internal conversation between Sailor Ray and the demon who inhabits her. Literally, “Why am I reading this?” bad. Still, I persisted: and in the end, the story redeemed itself, though the final third was considerably weaker overall.

Sailor comes from a family of hunters, and after an incident where her father was killed and she was mortally wounded, she made a deal with the demon Vartal. He would save her, and let her take vengeance on those responsible for the death of her parents; in return, once she has had her revenge, he can have her soul. The best thing you can say about that agreement is: well, it made sense at the time. She’s now suffering a hardcore case of buyer’s remorse, and while trying to track down the perpetrators, is also attempting to figure out some way she can renege on the deal.

This omnibus collects the first three volumes in one: Sailor Ray and the Darkest Night, Sailor Ray and the Dark Descent and Sailor Ray and the Beautiful Lie. Though at a total length of around four hundred pages, this is basically not much more than regular novel length. Key to salvaging the book is Sailor, and in particular her savage approach to the demons, with little thought for their human vessels, who are deemed unsalvageable more often than not. She likes to blame this brutality on the insidious effects of Vartal; I think the nasty truth is, it’s as much her own inclinations as “the devil made me do it.”

The first two parts concern her investigation into a drug called Sphinx, which makes the user more susceptible to possession, though the connection to her parents’ deaths is vague. It’s being sold out of a nightclub in her base of Chicago, and her attempt to infiltrate the club leads to multiple deaths of friends and enemies – both on the night and thereafter. The highlight, however, is likely the flashback sequence where she relives the death of her father. This took place during a particularly ferocious battle against devil worshippers and hellspawn called sweepers – described as “a huge, demonized praying mantis/earthworm hybrid.” Damn. It’s very solid action-horror, and feels like you’re reading about the final boss in a particularly malevolent Resident Evil game.

The third volume takes a severely unexpected right turn, with Sailor and her gal-pal Val going on a road-trip. Their car breaks down at a diner; fortunately, the owners take care of them and invite them to stay until the vehicle is fixed. While it’s highly obvious something bad is going to happen, it takes far too long to do so, with the pair sitting around watching television in the meantime. It’s about as interesting as that sounds. Again, Villavasso redeems himself at the end with some crunchy ultra-violence. The overall impact is remarkably uneven, with the very final section almost red-herringing much of what has happened to that point. Yet Sailor is such an abrasively fiery character, I might still want to check in on her progress down the line – at least in a further omnibus.

Author: Alex Villavasso
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, as an e-book only.
Books 1-3 of the Pact series.