Intriguing and interesting Victorian-set slasher

kannibalcorpsegrinder

Following a grisly accident in her past, a woman sent to live with a wealthy bureaucrat learns a special trigger causes her to kill those around her and forces him to uncover the dark secret behind this in order to save her.

This is quite a rather middling effort which is about equally bad and good points. The best points here is based on the Victorian setting which is quite effectively utilized at detailing the type of society without focusing on the traditional tropes that are featured in these films. By including their aristocracy-like air in how they react to each other and the manner in which they refer to the authorities in which they sign over the guardianship to get her in their care and how they gather at the police station is all about exploring these Victorian-era settings that are so common-place in these films yet are all accomplished in the realm of a slasher effort and is quite enjoyable for that reason. The fact that there's a twist to the slashing here in which it's based on the hypnotism effect which gets triggered at the most inopportune times so there's never a true indication of when she's going to snap which allows these to come as a real shock while also being shocking at the ingenuity needed to kill off her victims as this has a rather fun time doling out a really unique series of kills within this that is far more inventive and grisly than most slashers of the time. These issues here work but there's some problems that crop up in that the discovery of her hypnotic state and resulting killing mode are so late in the film that it really makes the psychology he attempts to use in aiding him look incredibly weak and pointless. Trying this is quite impressive overall, but there's just so many scenes that go by so slowly of him trying out his hand at this type of methodology that it leaves a gaping questions about his excellence in the field as well as not managing to accomplish anything of any value which causes this to feel incredibly drawn-out despite being only a traditionally-paced effort. This really holds the film down somewhat as they're two quite imposing drawbacks even though it's still quite enjoyable.

Today's Rating/R: Graphic Violence and Nudity.

score 8/10

kannibalcorpsegrinder 25 August 2014

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3075310/