Review: Lipstick & Bullets

Lipstick & Bullets

Short film compilation

www.renderyard.com

Red Princess Blues

Director: Alex Ferrari

2010

A young girl is lured into the bar tent of a carnival by some sleazy dude. He wants more from her than she’s willing to give him and suddenly she’s in deep trouble. She is however saved by a knife throwing woman – Princess. That’s more or less what it is to it. The storyline is very simple and the film is mostly one scene – and about 11 minutes long. It’s pretty intense, well acted and nicely casted. I adore the mise-en-scène and I think it would have made a great intro to a feature film! There is some action involved that’s really nice. Ok, there are a few mistakes there but nothing that’s really alarming and draws the attention from the good aspects. I really enjoyed this one!

Red Princess Blues: Genesis

Director: Alex Ferrari, Dan Cregan

2011

This is a prequel of sorts to the above film. It’s animated and tells the background story to the character of the princess. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the live short but the story seems very important for understanding the knife throwers persona. I see this as a bonus but not so much more really.

Broken

Director: Alex Ferrari

2005

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of this before but this is actually THE movie by Alex Ferrari! This is what the critics praised and this is what won a whole bunch of prizes at film festivals around the world. I think it’s an interesting piece and it has some philosophical point to it as well. Most of it is more like a thriller/action though and it’s said to have cost about $8000 to make. It seems like a lot to me if you take in consideration what you get for the money. It’s a debut short – yes, and the actor is ok, put there’s no real point to it. You more or less get a scene that could be placed inside a feature film and nothing more. Ok, there is and end but not necessarily a beginning to the storyline but it are very vague and aren’t explored enough.

The picture quality in this one is less perfect than in the other shorts, but this is also the oldest part and there may not be a way to refresh the material past a certain point. I can’t really grasp the technical aspect of it. As a whole I enjoyed this short but I would waste any vast amount on money on it.

Cyn

Director: Alex Ferrari

2007

The last entry on this blu-ray is a five minute short called Cyn, it kind of goes in the lines of the other shorts on this compilation. It’s about captivity and revenge; of pacifism and violence. It’s a cool little scene and there are some twists to it that’s interesting. Not all the answers are given but I don’t know if that’s really intended or if it’s just coincidence. It takes some effort to ask the questions in the first place too.

---

The button line of this compilation BD is that all the shorts are above average but are also pointless of sorts. They are well crafted but there is little or no soul in them. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what I mean and I think that’s about as close as I can get. As a whole I think that the extra material is what makes most sense here. There is loads of it and if you’re an ambitious filmmaker you can surely pick up an advice or two from the interviews and making of documentaries. 

Buy it HERE

Review: Slaughter Disc - 2005

Slaughter Disc

Director: David Kwitmire

2005

Horror

Mike loves pornography, you could say that he’s obsessed by it. In his quest for finding the ultimate rush he finds and orders a new film. It’s, according to what he’s heard, the strongest and toughest film on the market. It’s expensive, but when he’s looking at the official website he can’t help himself. He must have a copy and orders it. A couple of weeks later there’s a knock at the door and he finally gets the very wished-for movie. On the DVD Andromeda Strange appears – pornography in the ultimate sick way.

2006-10-27

The beginning of the movie looks kind of amateurish but there’s not a shadow of a doubt that this movie is going to show everything. I’m not sure if the opening credit is over before there’s penetration on screen. Some movies balances on the edge to pornography but Slaughter Disc take it one step further – it IS pornographic!

But regardless of the content there’s no real eroticism and I think that goes along with the pretext “Porn Kills”. Because it feels kind of silly to make an anti porn film so pornographic, don’t you think? I’m not going to give away all of the slimy content in the movie but I can mention some bondage, murder and maiming, cannibalism and necrophilia as some of the perversions in the film. There’s also some emetophilia but not nearly as much as in the hyped Slaughtered Vomit Dolls.

                         

But despite of sexual deviants, or perhaps because of them, it’s quite obvious how Mike descends into a spiral of decadence and psychosis. The pornography means everything to him and he loses his friends one by one, his girlfriend and his job. There’s only Andromeda Strange and what boundaries she’s going to shatter in the next scene of the DVD.

The cost of making Slaughter Disc was about ten thousand dollars and it took two weeks to shoot. It’s unique! I think I can guarantee that you haven’t seen anything like it before. But regardless if you hate or love it I don’t think it leaves anyone untouched. The synopsis is similar to David Cronenbergs Videodrome in some ways, and the more modern Brainscan. The grey zone of reality and imagination blurs for the characters. It treats pornography in a negative sense as well as Videodrome focused negative on society and the problems with it.

Perhaps we should be glad that the original script wasn’t filmed. It was stashed away for about a decade and was packed with ten times more gore and pornography. And we should be pleased that it's not more convincing than it is, then it was surely be illegal!