Tag: teenage

The Witch Files

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★★★
“The Breakfast Coven.”

If John Hughes directed a film about witchcraft, it’d probably end up like this. For you have five stereotypical high-school girls in detention: Brooke the rich bitch (Ziolkoski); Greta the jock (Adrienne Rose-White); M.J. the timid mouse (Robinson); Jules the goth (Flatmo); and Claire the nerd (Taylor), who isn’t actually in detention, just doing a report on it for the school TV channel. [90% of the film is the ‘found footage’ she shoots of subsequent events, a conceit for which I usually don’t have much time… and here is no different, occasionally requiring pretzel-like contrivance.] Jules mysteriously triggers the fire-alarm to get them all out early. After she reveals this no big thing was part of her witchy skills, the other four enthusiastically agree to take part in a ceremony binding them together, into a coven.

At first, it’s remarkably easy: they basically just chant whatever they want, and it shows up. Life becomes a bowl of free designer clothes and undeserved ‘A’ grades. But, inevitably, there’s a price to pay, and the young women start to find that minor physical ailments are accelerating at a highly disturbing rate. [This is nicely tied into the historical portrayal of witches as wizened crones, explained as a result of the magical energy expended] While some of the girls want to stop their dabbling in occult practices, others have become addicted to their new-found powers and refuse to stop. Given the previous binding, this is a problem. Additionally, the town’s past offers a long association with witchcraft, and a recurring pattern of strange events, taking place every seventeen years. As in almost every American high-school horror film since Carrie, this builds to a showdown at a school party.

This over-familiarity is likely the main problem, with both characters and story-line coming over decidedly as nothing you haven’t seen before. Even if you never watched Charmed or The Craft (or Swedish take on the same, The Circle), the tropes in question will be entirely recognizable, and the film offers few if any surprises. Credit is due to the actresses, however, who take their two-dimensional characters and do a good job of bringing them to life. This keeps the film rolling along, when on occasion it threatens to stall out completely. Ziolkoski probably does best, helping the audience understand the allure of mystical power, though the entire ensemble gel together nicely.

In the end though, there isn’t sufficient here to set it apart from those which have gone before. It doesn’t help that the magical battles in the final third are well beyond the capacity of the budget to depict. The optical/digital effects unfortunately mostly feel like they were copy-pasted in from an eighties Full Moon Features project. There is one nice bit of vehicular mayhem, though even there, Final Destination did it better. If you haven’t ever seen a film about teenage girls and witchcraft, you could certainly do a lot worse. But there can’t be many of you out there.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Britt Flatmo, Holly Taylor, Alice Ziolkoski, Tara Robinson

The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion

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★★★
“Lucy  in disguise…”

The first in an intended trilogy, this stands on its own reasonably well, balancing between tying up the loose ends and leaving the future uncertain. The heroine is Ja-Yoon (Kim), who begins by escaping from a shadowy, quasi-governmental facility as a raw eight-year-old, despite being hunted by the woman in charge, Dr. Baek (Jo) and her minions. She is found by husband and wife farmers, and they adopt Ja-Yoon, who has no apparent memory of her early life as their own. Ten years later, with Mom suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the farm struggling financially, Ja-Yoon enters a nationwide singing contest. However, the resulting attention brings her firmly back on the radar of Dr. Baek and Nobleman (Choi), the other survivor from that night a decade ago. The not-so-good doctor won’t let Ja-Yoon escape this time.

After a messy opening, which establishes Dr. Baek as someone specializing in giving no damns at all, this certainly takes its time to get going. For most of the first hour and a half, it’s mostly Ja-Yoon and perky best friend Myung-hee (Go) interacting and progressing through the competition. Though when you hear her… ah, let’s just say “startling” and leave it at that, rendition of Danny Boy, you’ll wonder if perhaps she was selected as the Korean version of William Hung. Meanwhile, the villains are hovering nearby in ways which appear so obvious and suspicious, they would be rejected as painfully unsubtle by Auric Goldfinger.

Eventually, even they realize a more direct approach is needed, i.e. Nobleman storming the farmhouse and threatening everyone Ja-Yoon cares about if she refuses to co-operate. This proves successful, and she meekly goes off to see Dr Baek at her new facility. But as the title and the cover both suggest, Ja-Yoon might be quite comfortable, coming to terms with her inner superwoman. The final 30 minutes show her to be not so meek after all. The movie certainly makes up for lost time, with a slew of well-choreographed mayhem, as our heroine goes all Lucy on the asses of everyone within reach, now she’s using more than 10% of her brain. Or maybe all Hanna? For, in many ways, this is a cross between them, with the pseudo-scientific approach of the former, and the “innocent who strikes back” of the latter.

At more than two hours in length, it would probably have benefited from being about half an hour shorter. The entire “talent show” angle could have been covered just as effectively in about five minutes. And if the bad guys has been more direct, instead of opting for lurking and dropping ominous hints, that would have been a major time-saver as well. However, the twist near the end is handled effectively, and the resulting carnage is brutal and effective. I was left with more than slight interest in the next entry. It will hopefully provide more in the action department, and less in the way of poorly-executed exposition.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Kim Da-mi, Jo Min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Go Min-si
a.k.a. Manyeo

Counterfeiting in Suburbia

  By

★★½
“Fake it till you make it.”

High-schoolers Reilly (Albuquerque) and Erica (Wallace) have discovered a way to literally print money, forging hundred-dollar bills. They then use these to buy high-end fashion, and sell these ill-gotten gains on to their schoolmates for genuine cash. The more cautious Reilly wants to stop, but realizes she can do good by helping Karen (Butler), her aunt and guardian, who is in financial trouble. So when Erica is insistent they expand, Reilly goes along with it, and they use the school’s art-class resources to up their game, laundering the fake money through foreign exchange stores. However, this criminal empire comes under threat, after art teacher Tim Sylvester (MacCaull) discovers what they’re up to. Because by chance, he owes a large sum of money to some nasty people, and starts a relationship with Erica, to make sure she’ll keep working for his benefit.  Worse still, the Secret Service have been alerted to the flood of funny money, so are also investigating.

I have… questions. What made R+E get into counterfeiting to begin with? For when the film starts, they’re already printing out the Benjamins on their home printer. And where do you get the special paper? While there have been cases of people using inkjet printers for this purpose, it seems these involved wiping $5 bills, then reprinting them with higher denominations. [Googling to find this out has probably got me on a watch-list…] And while the film makes the point, especially in high-end stores, that most purchases using credit-cards means assistants are less familiar with spotting fake bills, this surely doesn’t apply to currency exchanges? As a credible piece of scripting, this ends up skipping most of the necessary check-boxes, and I doubt it’s based as much on a true story as claimed.

It’s not entirely without merit though. The underlying idea – teenagers gradually getting out of their depth, and not realizing it until they are too far in – is a decent one. The contrast between the two leads is effective as well: Erica is perpetually touting them as being like Thelma and Louise, and is unfazed when Reilly points out how that ends. There’s also a contrast in motives between the girls – though you wonder a bit why they’re friends, given their divergent natures. Reilly is entirely selfless, and is using her illicit income for what she perceives as “good” [though never quite considers the negative implications of her acts]. Erica, on the other hand, is apparently doing it for the thrill or the LOLs, and you’re never sure quite what this loose cannon might do.

By coincidence, this was watched the same weekend as Body of Sin, and the two films are similar. Both focus on two young women of disparate characters, whose decision to team up and go over the border of legality has severe consequences. Both also have severe problems in the script department. Body was perhaps better technically, but this gets the edge – simply for the sheer uselessness of the only sympathetic male character, which may arguably be more feminist than anything the women do. While some way short of great, it just about passes muster, if you’re in an undemanding Netflix mood.

Dir: Jason Bourque
Star: Larissa Albuquerque, Kayla Wallace, Sarah Butler, Matthew MacCaull

Into the Dark, by J.A. Sutherland

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

Alexis Carew is a third-generation settler on the planet Dalthus, and the ward of her grandfather, her parents having been killed in an accident. But her future is murky, for Dalthusian law prohibits women from inheriting property, such as her family’s estates. With the alternative being a marriage Alexis really doesn’t want, the 15-year-old girl instead signs up to become a midshipman in Her Majesty’s Navy (or, at least, the space version thereof), on the interstellar sloop Merlin. However, this is largely just exchanging one set of problems for another, whether winning the respect of her colleagues, fending off the too admiring ones, or adapting to the harsh life of outer space – and, stranger still, the “darkspace” which facilitates interstellar travel. And then there are the pirates…

This isn’t the first SF/sailing combination to feature a female protagonist, apparently being quite similar to David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. The first volume of that is still sitting in my “to read” list, so while I can’t directly compare them, Werner has you covered for a review of Weber’s book. They definitely seem to have a mutual inspiration in C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series, with a futuristic spin. Here, I’m not certain quite how well it works: some of the sailing elements definitely seem forced, even with the hand-waving nature of “darkspace”. For it basically behaves in whatever way is necessary for the plot to be jammed into Sutherland’s nautical peghole.

That’s probably the main weakness: it’s one especially apparent in the early going, when Alexis first goes into space, until my brain seemed to get used to it. On the plus side, she does make for an admirable heroine, one who uses her wits more than her fists. As such, the action quotient is fairly low; there’s a steep learning curve here, for both Alexis and the reader, as we all learn the mechanics of how things work in this strange universe. When that is finally out of the way, the energy ramps up: in particular, when a ship captured by the Merlin, is being taken back to port with Alexis at the helm, when the captured crew mutiny and retake the vessel.

This sequence likely the action highlight of this first volume, the rest being mostly long-distance space battles. Though with war breaking out right at the end, it’s likely things escalate further in subsequent volumes. Although the supporting characters are nicely drawn, I could perhaps have done with more of an antagonist.  The nearest this book has to offer never meets Alexis directly – his son being the closest she comes. Again, I suspect this angle may be further developed down the road. There’s enough promise shown here to keep the door open to continuing the series. But I should probably read On Basilisk Station first, as I suspect one series of pseudo-aquatic sci-fi is probably enough!

Author: J.A. Sutherland
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Alexis Carew series.

The Breadwinner

  By

★★★
“Burka-to-back.”

Around the turn of the millennium, Parvana (Chaudry) is an 11-year-old girl living in Kabul, Afghanistan – then under the strict religious rule of the Taliban, in the aftermath of the Russian retreat. Her father is arrested and taken off to prison, leaving his wife and children without a male guardian. Which is kinda important, because under Taliban law, women are not allowed out in public unaccompanied. With no other option, Parvana cuts her hair and dresses as a boy in order to be able to get supplies for her family. Teaming up with another boy-who-isn’t, Shauzia (Bhatia), they find work. Parvana starts saving for the bribes necessary to see, and hopefully win the release of, her father; Shauzia is saving up for her long-held dream of seeing the ocean. Of course, it’s never that easy, especially post-9/11, when the country is invaded by America and its allies.

A well-drawn exercise in paradox, it’s interesting to see liberal Hollywood attempt to juggle two of its favoured topics: feminism and Islam. Though in the end, this more or less says “Screw it,” and comes down firmly on the side of the former. For if you didn’t hate Islam before this film… you probably will by the time it’s over. Technically of course, the villain here is fundamentalism, in the malevolent shape of the Taliban; yet, this is the only kind of religion depicted in the movie. It’s not even clear if Parvana and her family are Muslim; they certainly don’t go to a mosque, and their existence seems entirely secular. On that basis, I’m quite surprised the film hasn’t been called out for Islamophobia, but I guess those gatekeepers were probably too busy nodding approvingly at the message of feminist liberation.

Moving on from tdubious socio-political messages which I can take or leave, as an animated feature, I liked this rather better. It intertwines Parvana’s efforts, both to contact her father and simply survive, with her telling the folk-tale of The Elephant King – making its hero her brother, who was previously killed by a land-mine left over from the Soviet occupation. The two threads use different yet complementary styles of animation to separate the “real” world from Parvana’s story, and it’s an effective way of depicting them. Parvana, too, makes for a solid heroine: brave and loyal to her family, while being too innocent and young to know the awkward questions she isn’t supposed to ask e.g WHY women aren’t allowed to go out unaccompanied.

Twomey was co-director of Oscar winner The Book of Kells, and it’s nice to see some animation that isn’t intent on being 3D and photo-realistic, so much as serving the story and the characters. It is sometimes a little hard to put aside the obvious intent as social propaganda, but I’ve never been one who felt you had to agree entirely with a film’s politics, in order to admire its artistic qualities. The latter are decent enough here to make for a worthwhile, if slightly too earnest, viewing experience.

Dir: Nora Twomey
Star (voice): Saara Chaudry, Soma Bhatia, Noorin Gulamgau, Kawa Ada

No Safe Haven, by Kyla Stone

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

I’ve read enough action heroine novels now to be more than familiar with the tropes of the genre. For example, I can do without ever reading another novel which puts fantasy creatures like elves and magic into a modern-day setting. The zombie apocalypse is another scenario which has been done to death. I mean, we even abandoned The Walking Dead, and watching that was pretty much muscle memory. However, this novel proves there’s still life in the genre, offering some interesting twists on it.

Though, admittedly, it’s not strictly a zombie scenario. More a 28 Days Later one, with a highly-infectious global pandemic, transmitted by bites, etc. which cause the victims to become extremely aggressive. On the fringes of this is Raven Nakamura, a young girl who is rather disaffected with her current life. She lives in the middle of nowhere, helping her taciturn father run the Haven Wildlife Refuge, a private zoo in Northern Georgia. Mom has already bailed, and Raven is on the verge of doing the same.

Then terrorists release the Hydra virus, and when her father becomes among the infected. Raven is suddenly thrown onto her own resources. On the plus side, she had always been taught survival skills, so is in better shape than most people to survive the collapse of the food distribution network. On the other hand, most people don’t have to deal with a group of bikers, who descend on the Haven Wildlife Refuge. If they’d just looted the place and left, that might not have been too bad. But when they start shooting the animals, Raven have had enough. And so have the animals.

For, to mis-quote Chekhov, “If in the first act you have large, genetically engineered wolves and an irritable tiger, then in a following one they should be let loose.” Such is the case here: right from the moment Vlad the tiger arrives, you just know someone is going to end up becoming a gratifying buffet. The animals probably do more of the actual violence than Raven, which is why the kick-butt quotient is relatively low. However, this is made up for in its impact, particularly the emotional toll it taken on our heroine, who really just wants the bikers to leave her alone.

While set in the same universe as the author’s Lost Sanctuary series, it seems to operate as a standalone entity. I must admit, this was a story that crept up on me. I’m usually quite strict about how much I read in a sitting, but confess that this was one where “Just one more chapter” happened on a number of occasions. Seeing the entirety of Lost Sanctuary on sale for 99 cents, the day I write this review, became a no-brainer purchase, regardless of whether or not it qualifies for the site. Now, I just have to find the time to read it!

Author: Kyla Stone
Publisher: Paper Moon Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
A side story in the 5-volume Lost Sanctuary series.

Yasmine

  By

★★½
“Cliches are cliches, in any language.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film from Brunei. I definitely haven’t seen an action heroine one. So I was keen to see this. Unfortunately, the results prove that over-familiar story elements know no international borders. Yasmine (Yus) is a moderately rebellious teenager, just starting college. She has a long-standing crush on a champion in silat, the local martial art, and to get his attention, joins the (rather small – as in, there are two other members) silat club at the college. She convinces her unwilling coach to enter them for the national tournament; but can she and her pals acquire the necessary skills to win the tournament and make Yasmine’s crush fall for her?

This is solid and even impressive from a technical point of view – especially considering I subsequently discovered this was either the country’s first or second commercial feature – sources vary – for half a century [Brunei’s last home-produced film was a guide to being a good citizen, produced in the sixties by the ministry of religious affairs!] It’s the script which needs some work, to put it mildly. I can only presume, never mind lacking film-making experience, those concerned had never seen a movie of the genre. Because what you get is basically a 109-minute montage of celluloid stereotypes. We march with cinematic inevitability, from her strict father’s (Rahadian) loving disapproval, through a crippled master of silat and the heroine flirting with the dark side, to the climatic confrontation with her nemesis. On the way, of course, Yasmine learns what the true meaning of the sport is. A clue: it’s not about getting a boyfriend. Who knew?

What mainly stops it from toppling over into entirely unwatchable saccharine are the characters. In particular, Yasmine herself generally comes over as likable and independent, rather than projecting “bratty entitlement,” as is often the case in teenage actresses. She gets good support from her club-mates (the tank-like Wahid and Songkono), and also the club coach (Dwi Sasono). He may not know quite as much about the subject as he claims, which is why his students have to seek external guidance. While the martial arts are nowhere near as hard-hitting as its Indonesian counterparts (The Raid or The Night Comes For Us), they’re competent enough. It no doubt helps there, the makers brought in Chan Man-ching, who has worked with Jackie Chan.

He can’t save the script, however. The kind of obvious melodramatic nonsense we get in volume here, might just have passed muster thirty-five years ago, when The Karate Kid came out. That’s the closest cousin to this, and I don’t feel it’s a movie which has aged well. I’m somewhat impressed by a Muslim country – even a progressive one like Brunei – choosing an action heroine for a rare foray into commercial film-making. However, I can think of any number of movies which they would have been better off imitating. And that is even allowing for the obviously family-friendly intent apparent in this well-intentioned yet ultimately flawed production.

Dir: Siti Kamaluddin
Star: Liyana Yus, Nadiah Wahid, Roy Songkono, Reza Rahadian

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

Kim Possible

  By

★★½
“A pale Kim-itation”

The new trend for Disney appears to be, live-action version of their beloved classic movies. This year alone, we can expect to see Dumbo, Aladdin and The Lion King, with Mulan to follow in 2020. A possible stalking horse for this was the live-action version of (somewhat) beloved TV series, Kim Possible, which ran for four seasons from 2002-07. It was pretty good, likely peaking with TV movie A Sitch In Time – but if the reaction to this adaptation is any guide, Disney may be in trouble. For this seems to have flopped, reportedly getting the lowest ratings of any Disney Channel Original Movie, and most fans of the original were far from impressed.

I found it a real grab-bag. Some elements were great, but others, utterly cringeworthy. Unfortunately, the latter included the main plot. As in the TV series, Kim Possible (Stanley) is a teenager, who has to juggle saving the world with high-school life, alongside her sidekick Ron Stoppable (Stanley) and tech genius Wade. This involves them facing supervillains such as Professor Dementor (Patton Oswalt, reprising his role from the original show), but in particular, Dr. Drakken (Stashwick) and his rather more competent and sarcastic sidekick, Shego (Taylor Ortega).

If they’d simply stuck to these tropes, this would have been fine, and when they do, the movie fairly crackles. The Kim/Ron dynamic is fine and there’s some good jokes in her school life, such her rushing desperately to get to class on the opposite side of campus, only to find the same teacher already waiting for her on arrival. Or there’s her dismissal of her mother’s concerns: “It’s just high-school; how hard can it be?” What makes that amusing, is Mom being played by Alyson Hannigan, famously part of the Scooby gang on Buffy – where high-school was situated on a portal to hell. This is the kind of under-the-radar wit for which I signed up. Then there are Drakken and Shego (below), who nail it perfectly. I’d have been fine with 85 minutes of their acidic banter.

Instead, however, there’s a really horrible plot about Kim befriending Athena (Wilson), another new student. I’m sorry, when did Kim Possible become a relationship drama? Jealousy of Athena – despite her being super-annoying –  causes Kim to suffer self-doubt, and fail when she is needed most… blah blah blah. Awful scripting, the portrayal of their relationship is sub-juvenile pap, which I’m sure would turn the stomach of any actual high-schooler. Worse, it goes beyond “flawed”, making the heroine weak and no longer heroic. And what’s with Kim being obsessed with joining the school’s soccer team? She was a cheerleader; these days, I guess that’s no longer an acceptable pastime for an aspirational role-model figure or whatever, in Disney’s Little Red Book.

It does eventually pay off, though in a way that makes no sense, with Kim suddenly regaining all her talents, purely when necessary to her plot. Though she still ends up needing help from her mother, her grandmother and Ron’s naked mole rat. Again: weak. And do not even get me started on the pointless cameo for Christy Carlson Romano, who voiced Kim originally. She shows up in one scene as singer Poppy Blu, whom Kim supposedly helped out of a sticky situation… with the IRS? What? No, really: what? Kim Possible, tax accountant?

I will confess that it did manage to keep my attention, and the pacing is generally brisk. But all the elements that work here are the ones where they are faithful to the tone and spirit of the original. The more the makers try to shoehorn in “girl power” and so forth, the more it flounders. It’s about as flaky an effort as you’d expect from a movie which was explicitly pitched as “Wonder Woman for the prepubescent set.” More evidence, as if any were needed, that when you conceive of something as a message first, and relegate entertainment to second-place, you are almost inevitably doomed to fail.

Dir: Adam Stein & Zach Lipovsky
Star: Sadie Stanley, Sean Giambrone, Ciara Riley Wilson, Todd Stashwick

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