Tag: USA

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines

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★★
“I wonder what they were thinking?”

Having enjoyed the previous animated Wonder Woman film, this was a significant disappointment. It doesn’t seem to fit in to any established universe and loos designed more as a quick cash-in on the success of the live-action version, than existing out of artistic desire. It begins with a broken, modern-day update of the latter’s opening, with the plane of Air Force pilot Steve Trevor (Donovan) making a crash-landing inside the bubble which has protected Themyscira  over the ages. He’s desperate to return to tell the world about the demonic entities which attacked him, and Diana (Dawson, who played Artemis in the previous animated version) rebels against her mother and the decision of the other Amazons to imprison Steve, going with him to the outside world.

Except, there’s basically no explanation as to Diana’s revolt, beyond a throwaway line about a prophecy. And in the next scene, Diana is sitting in the back of a cab on the way to house of historian Dr. Julia Kapatelis. Demonic entities? What are they? With those entirely forgotten, the film then focuses on the doctor’s daughter, Vanessa (Avgeropoulos), who turns bad, becomes Silver Swan, and eventually teams up with Doctor Poison and a slew of B-villains, of whom I’ve never heard, e.g. Giganta, Cheetah, Doctor Cyber. They plan to attack Themyscira and profit from its technology, and to that goal have revived and powered-up Medusa, who ends up becoming more of a Med-zilla.

This is all full of ridiculous and contrived circumstances. For instance, Diana “forgets” the location of Themyscira. But – what are the odds – there’s a fountain from which she can drink, which will restore her knowledge! And Julia discovered the location in her research! Or, the dispatch of Medusa will turn everyone whom she has petrified, back to being human again. Hmm, must have missed that bit in the mythology. It will certainly lead to some very confused ancient Greek warriors, who suddenly find themselves inhabiting the 21st-century… It feels as if the writers were making stuff up as they went along, and repeatedly painted themselves into corners, from which they could only fabricate escapes out of thin air.

All of which I could take, were the animation decent. When in motion, it’s okay, and some of the action scenes work moderately well. But otherwise, it’s painfully basic, with characters’ faces not moving, except for their mouths. Up until Medusa appears, there’s no indication that any of the antagonists are able to pose a genuine threat to our heroine. Their ludicrously-named group, “Villainy, Inc”, feels like something out of a superhero spoof like Mystery Men. While the initial set-up make it looks like Vanessa will become Diana’s main opponent, she just ends up just another faceless minion.  As someone familiar only with the various adaptations and not the source comic-books, this wasn’t worth my time. Heck, even the unaired TV pilot was more entertaining. 

Dir: Sam Liu, Justin Copeland
Star (voice):  Rosario Dawson, Jeffrey Donovan, Marie Avgeropoulos, Adrienne C. Moore

Outlaw Women

  By

★★½
“In which Iron Mae eventually breaks.”

The city of Silver Creek is on the way out, and many of its inhabitants are leaving, including town doctor Bob Ridgeway (Nixon). Originally heading to Kansas City, he is convinced at gunpoint to take up a position instead in “Las Mujeres.” That’s Spanish for “The women,” and is an appropriate name since the place is a gynocratic society, where the ladies are in charge. Top of the heap is Iron Mae McLeod (Windsor), who runs the local saloon and ensures that the the other women in the town are kept safe from exploitation. She does, however, have to navigate the straits between aspirational gambler Woody Callaway (Rober) and outlaw Frank Slater. Ridgeway, meanwhile, because the target of affection for both Beth Larrabee (Balenda), one of Mae’s enforcers, and her big sister and star of the saloon’s show, Ellen. But when all of Mae’s money is about to be transferred out of Silver Creek, and becomes a target for Slater and his gang, romance has to take a back seat.

This was shot in Cinecolor, at a time (1952) when many more expensive productions were still in black and white. That helps up the production value, though it otherwise remains an obviously low budget approach. It’s a shame the makers didn’t quite use that freedom to make something truly subversive. The ending instead manages to be almost cringeworthily patriarchal – particularly following, as it does, a gun-battle in which we see, again, that firearms are the great equalizer, allowing Mae and her gals to play their part in holding off the outlaws. Up until this disappointing coda, it has been a fairly decent romp, with Windsor holding things together effectively. She gets good support from Balenda, as well as Maria Hart, playing bouncer Dora. She casually manages to judo-flip the fastest gun in Silver Creek, after he refuses to give up his gun, while simultaneously disarming him. Dora can also strike a match on her teeth, an impressive party trick for either sex.

Coming in at a brisk 75 minutes, it still manages to waste some precious time, on things like musical numbers by a barbershop quartet called The Four Dandies. tnd The film doesn’t delve into the implications of its idea as far it might. Despite the noble intentions of Mae, Las Mujeres seems little if any different from any other town in the wild West. Though that could be the point, I suppose. I did like the pointed way in which the system – in the form of male-only suffrage – is the tool used by Callway to dismantle Mae’s gynocracy. Though as noted, the ending manages to embarrass the entire film, effectively dismantling the strong portrayal of Mae which we had enjoyed to that point. That aside, there’s no denying the movie remains well ahead of its time, paving the way for probably better entries, such as Johnny Guitar and Woman They Almost Lynched, later in the decade.

Dir: Sam Newfield, Ron Ormond
Star: Marie Windsor, Richard Rober, Allan Nixon, Carla Balenda

Riot Girls

  By

★★
“Two girls, one gun.”

After a disease has wiped out all adults, the town of Potters Bluff has divided into two camps, delineated by the river running through the town. On the west are the Titans, a quasi-fascist order of jocks operating out of the old high school and led by Jeremy, whose motto is “Strength, power, respect.” On the east are the free-spirited remainder, living under and protected by Jack (Bourgeois). However, after hijacking the contents of a Titan truck, Jack is abducted by them and held hostage. A three-person party sets out on a rescue mission: Jack’s sister Nat (Iseman), her best friend  – and painfully obvious lesbian, right down to the mohawk – Scratch (Kwiatkowski), and Sony (Friese), a former Titan who recently defected to the East, and whose inside knowledge is essential to their survival and the success of the mission.

This provides a slightly different twist on the usual post-apocalyptic scenario, though the idea dates back at least to Roger Corman’s 1970 film Gas-s-s-s, in which a deadly gas wiped out everyone over the age of 25. Canadian show Between also explored similar territory, and the conflict-driven nature here brings us almost into Battle Royale territory. Though it’s more of a team sport than an individual pursuit, and natural division instead of artificial construct. But I have to wonder, how did Potters Bluff reach this point? What’s the back story which saw, for example, Jack and Jeremy become leaders of their factions and implacable enemies? I suspect this may have been more entertaining than what we actually get. And why is the soundtrack apparently fascinated with hair metal songs from a long bygone era? [I’m pretty sure it shares one with the 35-year-old Return of the Living Dead…]

After a bright, comic-book styled opening sequence to set the scene, at first it seems this may be building and then subverting expectations. For example, when on a foraging expedition, Scratch is delighted to come across a vibrator… But in a twist, her interest is purely for the batteries it contains. However, the further on it goes, the safer and more predictable everything seems to become. The hurdles Nat, Scratch and Sony have to overcome on their journey, are precisely the ones you’d expect (although there is one eye-poppingly brutal head-shot), and it all inevitably leads to a confrontation with Jeremy and his troops in their high-school gymnasium.

Most irritatingly, it ends up getting too bogged down in class and gender politics. The Titans are largely defined as the bad guys almost purely because they are white, straight and male. Meanwhile, it’s “diversity = good” for the Eastsiders – even if its tenets like affirmative action are a civilized conceit, which wouldn’t last two days in a proper apocalypse. Consequently, it’s absolutely no surprise Nat and Scratch end up as An Item – not minutes after the former has spurned a heterosexual advance, and while Nat’s brother is still in the clutches of his enemies. I guess, for some, the line between free love utopia and devastated dystopia is severely blurred.

Dir: Jovanka Vuckovic
Star: Paloma Kwiatkowski, Madison Iseman, Alexandre Bourgeois, Ajay Friese

Satanic Panic

  By

★★★½
“Good girls go to hell. Bad girls come from there.”

It’s the first day as a pizza delivery gal for Samantha Craft (Griffith), and things aren’t going well, with no tips being received. When given the chance of a delivery to a rich neighbourhood, she pounces – only to find herself getting stiffed again. This time, she sneaks in to demand her gratuity, which drops her in the middle of a satanic ceremony overseen by coven head, Danica Ross (Romijn). They’re attempting to summon Baphonet, but have hit a snag. Their intended vessel, Danica’s daughter Judy (Modine), no longer qualifies as a virgin, so Sam’s presence is highly convenient. For Sam? Not so much. Though perhaps to her benefit, there’s a bit of a power struggle in the coven, with Gypsy (Myrin) fed up of playing the second satanic banana to Danica.

This is largely anchored by Romijn, from the moment we see her literally up to her elbows in a dead body, groping around for its soul. You might not realize how much she matters, until a moment where it looks like she has abruptly cashed in her chips. The sense of disappointment I felt was palpable, and it was a great relief to find this was a red herring. She hits just the right spot between coolness and insanity, and is a lot of fun to watch. Modine brings the moody teenager to the max, though you can see why finding out your mother intends to sacrifice you would make you a bit grumpy. She gets some deliciously foul-mouthed lines, such as, “They’re not going to stop until you’re strapped naked to a barbed-wire altar with the 15-foot beast of Gehenna and his double-pronged demon dong walking out of your cooch chute like it’s a revolving door of ground beef.” Towards more picturesque speech, as Reader’s Digest used to say.

In comparison to this mother-daughter pairing from (literally) hell, Sam is a little bland: likeable enough, yet needs a better character arc. The Sam we see at the end feels only slightly changed from the one being shaken down for a $5 “security deposit” by her boss at the beginning. Otherwise, it’s definitely a case of the bad girls also having more fun. There are nods toward social commentary: the war here is both class-related and generational i.e. boomer vs. millennial. Much the same goes for the gender depictions, where almost without exception, all the men are incompetent idiots. Yet this is all handled lightly enough to avoid being ham-handed, and any message remains subservient to the entertainment content, as it should.

Not skimping on the red stuff, it skews strongly towards practical rather than CGI, which is always laudable in my book. It builds towards a decent finale, even if not quite delivering the killer rabbit demon god for which I was hoping. There’s still enough here to make for a cheerfully bloody time, even beyond watching Romijn wipe the floor with her younger co-stars.

Dir: Chelsea Stardust
Star: Hayley Griffith, Rebecca Romijn, Ruby Modine, Arden Myrin

SheChotic

  By

★½
“You’ll need a break.”

Within about two minutes of starting this, I realized I had made a terrible mistake, and was watching something barely reaching the amateur level of film production. Still, I soldiered on – albeit for some loose definition of “soldiered” – until the bitter end, mostly so I could issue an informed warning about this to any prospective viewers. Maxine (Mitchell) is rather upset when she discovers her boyfriend, music video producer Lance (Watts) has been cheating on her with Lana (Bryant). Mind you, she’s clearly a bit unhinged already: for example, telling him she’s pregnant when she isn’t. So it’s not much of a surprise when her reaction to his two-timing is to kidnap Lance, tie him up in her basement and submit him to various indignities, along with seeking revenge on Lana. Which, apparently, includes sleeping with her father (Walker).

If this all sounds like completely ludicrous and implausible nonsense… I have done my job as a reviewer, because that’s exactly what it is, buttressed by poor audio quality, questionable directorial decisions (the conversation where the camera spins around the participants like a hyperactive house-fly was an especially dubious choice) and a final twist which managed to be both out of left field and entirely predictable at the same time. About the only thing which I did quite like, was the way Maxine’s personality splits into two distinct characters. One is urging her on to do ever more malicious deeds, while the other is trying to take a higher moral path. Surprisingly – considering the ineptness everywhere else – it’s decently handled on both sides of the camera. Even if I doubt anyone ever thought, “I want an erotic thriller which largely avoids actually nudity, with a black, female version of Gollum in it,” this aspect is likely responsible for this avoiding a dreaded and rarely awarded one-star rating.

I was amused by the po-faced disclaimer from the director which opens this: “Due to my strong convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses support of violence, abuse against women or other subject matter that may be considered offensive.” Several points come to mind. Firstly, if you have to add a disclaimer to your film like that, you’re doing it wrong. Secondly, it’s little more than empty virtue signaling anyway: It’d be far more notable if a director stated “I wholeheartedly endorse violence.” Thirdly, any abuse here is far more by women: what is Mr. Fiori’s stance on that? Sadly, it appears we will never know, save for the unlikely event of there being a SheChotic 2. Fourthly and finally, it’s never a good sign when the text which starts your movie is worthy of deeper analysis and commentary than 95% of what follows it. Though if it had instead simply read, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” it would certainly have been equally valid.

Dir: Leandre Fiori
Star: Erica Mitchell, Robert D Watts, Brittany Bryant, Jason Walker

Truck Stop Women

  By

★★★
“Blood is thicker than water. But gasoline is thicker still.”

Ostensibly, Anna (Dressler) runs a New Mexico truck-stop, catering to drivers and ensuring they are kept fed and watered as they run their rigs across country. However, she has several more lucrative businesses. It seems that a majority of her waitresses, for example, moonlight as hookers in the brothel Anna runs. But the key side-line of work is sending her gals out to lure in unsuspecting truckers, typically with an alluring combination of fake breakdowns and tight shorts. When the truckers stop, their vehicles are hijacked, the contents stolen and the trucks themselves repainted and sold on.

It’s this which brings Anna to the attention of the East coast mafia, who send over a couple of goons to muscle in and make Anna an offer she can’t refuse. Not helping matters, Anna’s daughter, Rose (Jennings), is tired of being Mom’s servant, and wants her independence, so hooks up with Smith (Martino), one of the goons. When Anna gets word of a truck carrying bearer bonds passing through her territory, she starts to plan her biggest heist ever. But can Rose be trusted to play her part? Or will she be prepared to sacrifice her own family, in order to exchange roadside life in New Mexico for the bright, big city lights of Las Vegas?

This is generally a brisk, breezy film, which managed to beat Convoy to the punch by four years. The soundtrack is pure country-and-western cheese, songs about the joys of trucks and trucking, and relentlessly upbeat [performed by Bobby Hart, at the time Claudia Jennings’s boyfriend]. This becomes horribly inappropriate at the film’s end: without spoiling it, there’s the death of one major character, and we immediately cut to the end credits, playing out over yet another relentlessly upbeat song about the joys of trucks and trucking. Ouch. In general though, this is entertaining nonsense. It’s particularly notable for the way it portrays working class Southern rednecks in a generally positive way. Ok, outside of the whole “career criminal” thing. For they are depicted as smart – Anna especially –  and certainly more moral than the mob muscle, who are trigger-happy from the very opening scene.

Things are spearheaded by the presence of B-movie queen Jennings, already present on this site for The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Unholy Rollers and ‘Gator Bait. Though getting less screen-time than her mom,. Rose is the highly watchable centre around which the plot revolves. For you’re never quite sure where her loyalties lie, right up until the final scene. Is she passing information from Anna to the mafia? Or the other way round? Or both? Throw in a healthy amount of female nudity (not least notably from Russ Meyer favorite Uschi Digard) and you’ve got a film which, if unable to spell the word “subtlety”, couldn’t be much more drive-in if it tried.

Fun fact: this film played a role in wrecking the presidential aspirations of Texas senator Phil Gramm in 1995. It came out that  in the seventies he had become “interested in investing in what he called ‘sexploitation’ films after a private viewing of the film.” Yeah, Jennings had that effect on a lot of people.

Dir: Mark L. Lester
Star: Lieux Dressler, Claudia Jennings, Dennis Fimple, John Martino

Pickings

  By

★★
“Pap fiction.”

I am not a fan of Quentin Tarantino, outside of Kill Bill. Even as early as Reservoir Dogs, I found his style to be self-indulgent, and could never hear his characters speaking in their own voices, only QT’s. He seems to be capable only of cobbling together elements and influences from obscure, yet generally superior movies, and sprinkling them with pop-culture riffs and dialogue that’s so fake-sounding and artificial, it needs a warning label. So, while I appreciate the irony of someone ripping off the master of rip-off cinema, as Morgan does here, it’s not a world into which I willingly travel.

The influence here is palpable from the opening scene, when bar owner Jo Lee-Haywood (Price) is interrogating a thug she has captured and, it turns out, is tied up in a backroom of the bar she runs. Jo ends up talking about motivational speaker Tony Robbins, and how everyone is motivated by pleasure or fear, in a speech which couldn’t be more Quentin Tarantino, if it were licking the heroine’s bare feet. More or less from then on, it seemed painfully apparent this was the kind of film I was going to have to endure, rather than enjoy. And that was largely correct.

Jo, it turns out, is in debt to some rather nasty people, in particular a gangster named Sam “Hollywood” Barone (Urbas). He sends his henchmen to make Jo and her daughter, Scarlet (Vincent), an offer they can’t refuse, involving handing over the bar. Only, Jo is all, “Nah, we’re good, thanks,” and is having none of it. For she is not exactly the innocent bar-owner she seems, but came to the small Michigan town in order to escape a particularly brutal past. This isn’t her first time at the crime rodeo, shall we say – as we find out via another Tarantino-esque device, the needlessly convoluted time-line.

Morgan also appears to be a fan of Sin City, throwing in stylistic flourishes such as switching to rotoscoped animation at random. Most of these are more aggrandisements than art, save for Hollywood always being depicted in black-and-white. That’s a great way of indicating his status as a character straight out of film noir. The rest, though? Style for the sake of it, down to the cribbing of musical cues lifted from Morricone scored spaghetti Westerns, and a character who seems to have wandered straight off those same dusty streets. 

And it’s a shame, as in Jo, the film has a character which could have been a classic – even if the whole “left in a coma” thing is also cribbed from a certain QT film you’ve probably seen. Price plays her character like a velvet glove cast in iron (that’s one cult film not referenced!), and it soon becomes apparent that, when it comes to protecting Scarlet, Jo has no limits. Exploring this aspect, rather than making both story-line and players subservient to the movie’s look and feel, would have helped avoid this coming over like a fan submission to TarantinoCon 2018.

Dir: Usher Morgan
Star: Elyse Price, Yaron Urbas, Katie Vincent, Joe Trombino

Immortal Wars: Resurgence

  By

★★
“Let there be light!”

First, the good news. Whatever the issue was with its predecessor in the lighting department, it has been corrected. You can actually see what is going on. After spending the entire previous movie peering into murky darkness, trying to work out who was doing what and to whom, this was a blessed relied. Now, the bad news: it still falls some way short of interesting, so merits a mere half-star advance. Indeed, if anything, it’s a bit more tedious, not least because it clocks in at 112 minutes, without having anything like 112 minutes of content.

It does carry on immediately from Immortal Wars, so you might as well consider them as one single movie – watching one or the other would not provide anything close to a complete experience. Heroine Trikalypse (Gerhardy) continues her revolt against the evil Dominion Harvey (Roberts), with the help of her fellow rebel “deviants” – those who possess special powers. Apparently, this involves her escaping from Dominion’s facility… purely so she can break back into it. Not sure what that was all about. It certainly explains the expanded running time, with a lot of traipsing about, both through tunnels and across the (mercifully, well-lit!) desert, as Dominion’s henchwoman Hart (Alayne) tries to stop them.

There is no shortage of action, admittedly. It just isn’t very well-executed action, and for supposedly superpowered mutants, they seem to keep forgetting to use their superpowers much. We also discover the whole “fight to the death” thing from the first film was more true in the spirit than the actual observance, with Trikalypse’s BFF Iro not exactly as deceased as we were led to believe. Of course, as the rebels fight their way towards the inevitable confrontation between Trikalypse and Dominion, there are casualties, though it would be a stretch to say that any of them provided an emotional impact.

It’s all very predictable, such as the way that Dominion, despite his claimed aversion to deviants, has his own platoon of them. Yet, for someone who supposedly rules the entire United States, he can only apparently command a couple of dozen people. His actions also defy simple logic. If ever I become an evil overlord, and know the precise location of a group of my enemies who are coming to attack me, I will not send out a henchwoman to engage in banter and hand-to-hand combat. I’m taking off and nuking the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure…

And, again: Bill Oberst is listed second in the credits, yet barely appears. [He may not appear at all, but I did genuinely doze off for a bit in the middle, so can’t be 100% sure] At least this time, Lujan does have the good grace to provide something of a satisfactory conclusion: another area in which it does improve on the first part. Overall though, the plodding nature of the core narrative largely negates these improvements, and combined with the extended duration, you’re left with something which you need to be in a highly forgiving mood to sit through.

Dir: Joe Lujan
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Eric Roberts, Ben Stobber, Camille Alayne 

Hooker With a Hacksaw

  By

★★
“Great title. Film? Not so much.”

There are times when I feel I need a ★¾ rating. Two stars here would suggest a degree of genuine competence, which this undeniably lacks. But on the other hand, ★½ suggests something which is largely unmemorable, and that isn’t the case either. You won’t forget this. In particular, you won’t forget the scene where the heroine yanks some (suspiciously sausagey) intestines out of a victim, rubs them over her face and then – there’s no other way to describe this – masturbates the intestines. That’s three words I never thought I would write in a row. On that basis (and that basis alone), I’ll err on the side of generous.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. S’funny, you wait ages for a movie about a phone-sex operator turned vigilante, and then two show up in a week. For after Barracuda, we get this  – despite the title, that’s the true day-job of Kirsten (Meltedhair, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here, presuming that’s a pseudonym). The problems do start when she agrees to meet one of her customers, which eventually brings her into contact with Raymond (Crowe) and his gang of ludicrously incompetent snuff-movie producers. After escaping from them, she tools up with the titular bit of hardware and vows to take revenge – especially after they kidnap her BFF, Ali (Herkert). As well as on any other abusers of women across whom she stumbles.

Farmer has been making cheap video flicks for over thirty years now, but on the evidence of this, he doesn’t seem to have learned much. Vast swathes of it are empty and meaningless padding, e.g. Kirsten goes to a “drive-in”. This sequence apparently exists purely so Farmer can insert footage of scream queen Linnea Quigley, going by her age, taken from a long-ago Donald Farmer movie. And it’s pretty clear Kirsten was just parked by the side of the road, not in an actual drive-in. So why bother, even if it does provide the only actual nudity here. For despite her supposed occupation, Ms. Meltedhair is clearly a serious actress, unwilling to pop her top for a cheap exploitation flick like this. I’ll leave the application of the appropriate amount of sarcasm to you.

Though, actually, she’s probably the best thing about this, not that it’s saying particular much. Kirsten has a likeable personality, once you get past a prickly exterior. And, in contrast to the heroine in Barracuda, she is justified in her vengeful actions, even if Raymond is never more than a caricature. When present, the gore is copious, yet also so amateurish to be much more amusing than horrific, and to the film’s credit, I think that this aspect is intentional. However, there’s far too much dead weight in the scenes between, for this to come close to passing muster. Any potential in the idea is all but entirely squandered, and even at a terse 70 minutes, this outstays its welcome. Hobo With a Shotgun, it most definitely is not.

Dir: Donald Farmer + Caroline Kopko
Star: Kasper Meltedhair, Jason Crowe, Colleen Herkert, Steve Guynn

Immortal Wars

  By

★½
“Batteries not included.”

For whatever reason – presumably misguided stylistic reasons – the great bulk of the film is buried in darkness. Seriously, three-quarters of the film feels like it’s illuminated solely by natural lighting. And given it mostly takes place underground, in rooms with no windows, this is a major problem. The movie reaches its literally darkest moment during an early scene where the camera pans over an underlit set to an even more underlit door where someone has entered to deliver a message. You cannot see who it is. You just hear a disembodied voice, before the camera pans back. It’s a horrible mis-step, whether due to poor shooting, a poor transfer, or a bit of both. It largely dooms the movie, to the point where even an energetic final third is unable to rescue proceedings. For how can you begin to enjoy something you can’t see?

The story takes place in a future world, now divided into ten sectors. A small fraction of the population, known as “deviants”, have developed superpowers, becoming the subject of fear and hatred by regular humans. For popular amusement, there’s an annual competition in which each of the ten sectors capture and nominate their top fighting deviant. They are then taken to a central location and made to battle each other to the death, in a globally-televised contest run by Dominion Harvey (Roberts), which is watched by just about everyone else. So, basically: The Hunger Games crossed with X-Men. On a very, very much smaller budget.

The main heroine is Trikalypse (Gerhardy), one of the ten combatants taking part in this year’s model. Though for the first hour, it’s more chatty, as she bonds with another of the fighters – inevitably, of course, one she ends up fighting later on. But it is refreshingly female-oriented, with both of the finalists being women, as well as the super-boss that the winner then has to take on. However, the film then ends – literally going to the end-credits – just as that fight starts. Fortunately, I didn’t watch this until after the sequel was also available, otherwise I would have been very annoyed. It’s the sort of cliff-hanger you expect from a free e-book on Amazon, not an actual feature film.

Despite the lack of originality, it’s a decent concept and I’d have forgiven this, if the fights had actually been better than mediocre. Instead, as well as the lighting problem, they’re not very well-choreographed, though do have occasional moments which are somewhat effective. I was most impressed with Cruz as bad bitch Dekay, who had the presence, the look and the apparent skills, to keep me at least somewhat interested. But this was small consolation for something which, far too often, crossed the boundary into being genuinely unwatchable. It even managed to waste the talents of Bill Oberst, who shows up for exactly one scene – though at least that’s in daylight – while Tom Sizemore also manages to cameo his way through the darkness. I’m not exactly eagerly looking forward to the sequel, but it’s there…

Dir: Joe Lujan
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Lindsey Cruz, Eric Roberts, Taylor Kilgore