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A proper opening scene for a film should establish tone and theme. It should give the audience a reasonable expectation for what is to come while also wetting their appetites. So, what does it say when a film opens with a son being forced at gun point to have sex with his recently tortured mother only to have her shot and killed midway through the act and he just keeps right on having sex with her now dead body? Surprisingly, not as much as you might think.
A quartet of females, sisters Andrea and Cami, Cami's girlfriend Julia, and their cousin Magdalena, head out into the country for some drinking and relaxation. Unfortunately, the local serial killer and his son get wind of their arrival and decide to set upon them with predictably violent results.
Yes, I said THE local serial killer, because the film makes it clear that people around there seem to be fully aware of his violent tendencies and are basically kosher with it. But before I get into the (many) issues with the script, we first have to talk about the violence as it is the big selling point for the film. Besides the aforementioned murder/incest/necrophilia bit, the film features the expected scenes of gang rape, shootings, stabbing, beatings, and assorted other violence. It's bloody, it's grim, and it's all staged reasonably well, but it's also oddly unaffecting. Part of this is because the film places it's most vile bits early on so that everything afterwards pales in comparison. Another part is that for as hard as the film tries, other films have done it better and done it more disturbingly (ie A Serbian Film, The Man Behind the Sun, Frontiers, etc). But the biggest part is that you simply don't give a damn about any of these characters.
Which brings us back around to the script. In short, it's bad. The begin with, the film has almost no plot; group of gals get wrecked by psycho and his son. That's it, no other twists or surprises, it's the same run of the mill home invasion plot you've likely seen dozens of times at this point. But that's not the worst of it, for as basic as the story is, the characters are even worse. The four ladies are given little personality and even less back story. So much so that they feel less like proper characters and more like place holders where characters are supposed to be. This somewhat surprising as most of the first act of the film is devoted to them hanging out and talking about heir feelings, it just doesn't amount to anything.
Main girl Andrea kinda comes off as kinda stiff and surly, but you never get what her deal is or why she is so gruff. Her sister Cami probably comes of the most likable of the bunch, but only because she seems a little bubbly and a touch innocent, just like her sister you will end the film knowing essentially nothing about her. Her girlfriend Julia manages to be pretty unlikable, since she keeps telling Cami how much she loves her, but can't even wait a whole day before putting the movies on Cami's cousin Magdalena. Speaking of Magdalena, she achieves the feat of being the least likable of the bunch; not only does she make out with her cousin's girlfriend, but the movie makes it known that she has a long term boyfriend, meaning she is cheating on him too. Charming.
Now, if you are think that this relationship drama is gonna has some pay off, don't get your hopes up. Just as Julia is doing a strip tease for both Cami and Magdalena's benefit and Andrea looks on less than pleased with this development, the killers shows up and none of it is ever mentioned again. You quickly realize that the last 30-ish minutes of film were kinda pointless and most of it could have been removed without significantly altering the film.
The second act fairs better. Once the villains make an appearance the film finally finds some energy and forward momentum. The ladies all get violated to one degree or another, with Magdalena easily getting the worst of it. Afterwards, the killers just up and leave and the remaining femmes call the cops. This is when we find out that local law enforcement knows all about the two criminals in question and has long let them do their own thing. Because reasons. The girls eventually convince the country bumpkin cops to pursue the killers back their hideout and the film swiftly loses any pretense at being a serious film as quickly falls into a string of increasingly preposterous violent set pieces.
The third act starts by revealing that the evil daddy guy is the illegitimate offspring on Rambo and John Wick. I joke, but it's not far off. The dude goes from being a run of the mill rapist and suddenly becomes a walking murder machine. Not once, but twice in the film a group of four armed individuals have guns drawn on him at a distance of about 15-20 feet and yet he walks away both times completely unharmed, but with the good guys dead or dying. He goes about killing the hell out of just about everybody while the 'heroes' are so grossly incompetent it's surprising they have survived to adulthood. It's stupid.
In the end, after beating the dick out of the son (literally) and dissolving the dad in acid (cuz shooting him eight times didn't do the trick), Andrea finds the incest baby the dad made with his sister and decides the baby its intently evil because of his parents and shoots it. Yep, our heroic final girl shoots a baby. Karma comes quick and she is immediately gunned down by the police. The end.
This is a bad movie. The characters are empty, the story is simple, and the action is ridiculous. There is lots of violence, but there is nothing holding it together. About the only person I could see become engage with this is a viewer who is just starting to tip their toes into extreme cinema and haven't seen any of the good ones yet.
3/10
score 3/10
Ky-D 18 October 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6187984/ |
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26-3-2021 12:05:04