Rating: C
Dir: Mary Beth McAndrews
Star: Jamie Alvey, Brandi Botkin, Garrett Murphy, Bob Wilcox
This does offer a different take on the rape-revenge film. But it might be not different enough – or, perhaps, too different, I’m not sure. It begins as you would expect with Abby (Botkin) and her pals going to a party in a remote cabin organized by Cody (Wilcox), on whom she has a crush. However, Cody and his frat-boy buddies have different plans. As if drugging and raping the women wasn’t enough, the next morning they are hunted down like animals. Abby is able to reach a nearby road, and flags down a car driven by Clare (Alvey, also writer of the script) and Gray (Murphy), who are on their way home from a wedding.
It turns out to be very fortuitous, because the couple are experienced and enthusiastic vigilantes, well-practiced in the science (or is it an art?) of taking out those they deem guilty. Cody and his pals quickly find the boot on the other foot. They are now the ones being hunted through the woods, and Abby ends up going along with her rescuers in their pursuit. The early stages of this are a little rough, with little logic to the action of Cody’s posse: for example, do none of their victims ever tell anyone where they’re going? It’s also remarkably lucky how Clare and Gray just happen to be in the area at exactly the moment the script requires. I’d have had them watching Cody, having heard rumours. Problem solved.
Things do perk up as they get going, because it is a spin on the genre I haven’t seen before. Of course, there are obvious influences. At one point, a victim says to Gray, “Who the fuck do you think you are? Fucking Dexter or some shit?” to which he replies, “Nah. I’m better.” Well, I’ll be the judge of that, sir, and respectfully, I beg to differ. Alvey, incidentally, seems strikingly fond of having her characters drop the c-bomb, to a degree I was left wondering if she was Australian, or perhaps Scottish. Because I heard “cunt” more in ninety minutes here, than over the past decade out of actual American mouths. Well, not counting Chris when she’s referring to car-pool lane violators, at least.
A bigger issue is Clare and Gray become more problematic, the further we get in. And this is probably the biggest difference to Dexter Morgan. While I was always rooting against Cody, my sympathies with the vigilante power couple ebbed away. Eventually, it felt they weren’t really that different from him. They basically hijack Abby’s righteous vengeance for their own amusement, leaving her robbed of agency. If she’d been a moral counterweight to them, it might have helped avoid this. Less obvious speechifying from almost everybody would have been welcome too, especially when it’s in lieu of obvious actions. This is not terrible, to be clear, helped by good performances by most of the cast. However, I’d say it’s less smart in moral posturing than it thinks.