Rape/Revenge flick review: MR RAPE'S FIRST DATE - 2013

Mr. Rape´s First Date

Director: Nik Box

2013

Horror/Short

Set in the future. The world has become a different place to live in. Censorship has taken such a leap forward that all entertainment is now forbidden. Crime rates have dropped and education has increased for 99 % of the population. However, the remaining 1 % lives like outcasts. One day Mr. Rape finds an old 14” monitor and immediately starts to hear voices from it, telling him what to do.

Before we get into the political aspects of this, speaking of the censorship going too far, I’d like to ask you a question. How do you keep your audience interested during a somewhat dull introduction to the future world? You can just state the facts and hope that the audience won’t become bored. The answer is of course by showing a woman’s tits and some pubic hair alternating from hip to hip. If you can alternate the grainy black and white imagery into negative colors once in a while to you make sure your audience is interested.

I figure there’s a political statement to be said here. Stay the fuck away from censoring everything; let the people decide for themselves what’s good or bad for them. Less government involvement and more individual thinking is the way it should be. Is the TV really to blame for all the things that has gone bad to the world? Nik Box seems to make a point of this! Maybe the education rates have gone up in the future where the flick is set but it seems to be a damn boring world. Maybe the boredom creates the violence rather than the old saying – violence creates violence. It’s an attractive idea nevertheless.

The film is made in grainy black and white and it has a silent movie feel to it. I don’t think it’s some kind of hommage to the old movies but it looks very good. I really like the voyeuristic feel to some of the scenes. At first when Mr. Rape sneaks around it’s obvious but even later we get the feeling that we – the audience, are the true voyeurs!

There is sex and there is violence in the flick, it’s even quite disturbing. But it’s never a pornographic film. Sure, we get to see some tits but that’s all. We get to figure the rest out for ourselves. I really like the music choice for the rape scenes. I realize that it’s not for everyone with loud punk rock music put it gets your attention and it certainly makes you wake up when something happens.

I think this is an interesting little piece, and I think there is something to be told. Some of the scenes are a complete mystery to me as far as metaphors goes, some are spot on. I have no idea if my interpretation of this is intended but I hope so, it brings some much more to the movie that just a straight forward shocking movie. Oh! And yes, there is a revenge involved!

6/10

You can get it here: http://www.deadgoodfilmslike.co.uk/

Extreme Flick Week: I spit on your corpse, I piss on your grave - 2001

This is a translation of a review written in Swedish from 2005.

I spit on your corpse, I piss on your grave

Director: Eric Stanze

2001

Extreme

Sandy (Emily Haack)voluntarily let herself be kidnapped by her ex boyfriend (Eric Stanze). She soon realizes that sex is not the only thing he’s after. Three men are chained up in the basement and Kevin – the boyfriend, describes in detail why he’s going to torture and kill them before her eyes and finally do the same with her! Sandy acts fast, she overtake Kevin and kills him. But what she does next is not in the lines of normal behaviour. She doesn’t free the other hostages at all, neither does she call the police. Instead she keeps them chained up and starts to torture them both mentally and physically to a certain death. She’s totally out of control!

I’m not entirely sure if this really should be classifies an and “extreme” film but it’s very nasty and deals with themes you’d never se in a big budget Hollywood film so I guess that makes it legitimate!

This is the third film by Eric Stanze that I see. I really like his style when it comes to telling the kind of storylines that he does. This might not be the best of his films but it sure has its moments. I recognize his style and there’s some guts and intestines’ of course. There is also lots of naked skin so if you’re looking for that kind of stuff you won’t be disappointed! But if the intent were to make the viewer sick to the stomach it’s not enough. There is something missing that I really can’t put my finger on. The pace it a bit low and you’ll have to wait both for the nakedness and the torture.

There’s no doubt that other rape/revenge flicks has inspired Stanze to make this one. Classics like I Spit on you Grave, Last House of the Left and House on the Edge of the Park were obviously in Stanzes head when he wrote the script! The nostalgia is obvious and the cruelties are visualized in a way were there’s really no emotions present. It makes you feel almost like a voyeur and still it’s as far from entertaining violence as you can come! There are shock values and the disgusting violence sort of feels real!

Emily Haack plays the leading roll with the same brilliance that made her presence in Stanzes Scrapbook to great! She’s really a very good actress which is something you’re not too used to when it comes to extreme violence movies such as this one. The other actors are ok but nothing more and nothing less for that matter. They can all be ignored there’s really no use analyzing their contribution to the movie.

A fun trivia about the film is when the sealed bags with faked body parts and stuff like that were found someone called the police and Eric Stanze had to explain that he was a film maker and that this was left overs from the film rather than the real deal. Several policemen and some coroner arrived to the scene and Stanze had to tell his story over and over again. This somehow got the attention of the press of course and soon Eric Stanze could be proud of making TOO good special effects for his movies!

If you like rape/revenge flicks I think this one will suit you just fine!

Review - Gutterballs - 2008

Gutterballs
Regi: Ryan Nicholson
2008
Horror

Two gangs are rivals to each other and they meet at the local bowling alley. One thing leads to another and after a while one of the guys – Steve, has had it. He’s been humiliated for the last time and wants revenge real soon! When one of the girls in the other gang forgets her purse is he there waiting for her with some of his friends. It’s dark and they attack the girl with everything they’ve got. They brutally rape her and the rest of the movie, the main story begins. Someone is killing the bowlers one by one in bloody and perverted ways.

My only earlier encounter with Ryan Nicholson is Live Feed, a movie that had a fantastic cover that attracted me to it like few other films have.Unfortunate it was a real disaster. This movie is available with a very pleasing image on the cover too. A parody of Maniac, there is even a paraphrase of the tagline I Warned You Not to Bowl Tonight. On this release we are spared that kind of humour though, thankfully!

The actors are all quite bad but that’s something you’ll have to take when it comes to movies like this one. The main and most important thing is that the murder scenes are innovative and entertaining, and they are most of the time. I wouldn’t say that the murderous ways are a surprise all the time but since Ryan Nicholson doesn’t seem to be afraid to show genitals, real or fake, there is a lot of perverted ways someone can die in. There is obviously some sex in the movie, not any really pornographic scenes but a bit more than you might be used to from the typical slasher.

I think the murderer looks pretty cool even if the first appearance has kind of a comical effect. I really understand that the characters get killed in this movie by the way. They are so annoying that I couldn’t stand them for very long either. That guy, Steve… I wouldn’t last many minutes if I was in the same room as him, such a self centred asshole, a real loser. He complains about everything and many of the other characters do too. You can’t wait for them to die one by one!

The ending sequence feels pretty forced but you have to see this for what it is. It’s a kind of slasher and all the characters shouldn’t me likeable. But on the other hand, it doesn’t get very exciting if you can’t feel sorry for them either. But I don’t really think that Ryan Nicholson means to make this movie exciting or thrilling, it doesn’t really have that style. I think it’s made for pure entertainment and what more can you ask for than a bowling pin rape? Well, the revenge obviously!

Review: The Thrill of a Kill - 2011

The Thrill of a Kill

Director: Lars-Erik Lie

2011

Horror

A young girl runs off from home. She roams the forest which is the best way for her to calm down. But not this day! She is attacked and taken to a cabin nearby where she’s molested and tortured by a serial killer maniac.

This is an ultra low budget film! They usually don’t have more plot than I’ve just described – and they don’t have to! The main thing about watching them isn’t the deep plot anyway, I’m not looking for multiple layers of storylines and I’m quite happy with what this presents in that sense. Neither is low budget flick known for masterful performances of the actors and that’s fine too!

What’s important is that the ambition to make something is there. That the crew and actors aren’t satisfied with just anything, they should want to shake the grounds a little bit. And I think this film does just that. It isn’t really inventive but the feel of it is quite raw and the serial killer maniac is a real son of a bitch! I don’t know if it’s the Norwegian language or something else but he seems so friendly yet so grim! He doesn’t seem to have any emotions at all to come in his way when it comes to tormenting the young girls he has captured.

Speaking of the language, my Norwegian is not good and I had a hard time getting the lines most of the time. But there are a lot of different accents in the film and I didn’t have problems with all of them! Strange that mother and daughter doesn’t use the same dialect but I guess that’s beside the point. Who am I to know if the daughter grew up in the same surroundings as her mother?

Let’s go to the fun parts – the gore! Because we can talk about the other stuff for hours, but what we’re really interested in is the gore right? I’m just being honest here, the main thing about a low budget horror/splatter movie is the gore and that’s the truth! It doesn’t matter how good the storyline is, the gore is always in focus! This is not the most violent film I’ve seen in the matter but I think it’s one of the more perverted and sadistic actually. There are some pretty traditional splatter scenes but most of it is more or less realistic! I have no complaints about the gore at all but I wanted it to be sleazier at times. In the very beginning of the movie eroticism is hinted and insinuated by low camera angles and later with topless shots (even if they’re from behind) but it never takes the full step into nakedness.

As it becomes a rape/revenge film of sorts the ending is the most intense part (DUH!). This is where the perpetrator is punished and gets what’s coming to him. This isn’t actually a spoiler since its pretty standard but I’m not going to tell you what’ll happen to him. But I can tell you that I sure wouldn’t want to trade places with him…