Rating: C-
Dir: Julian Richards
Star: Jemma Dallender, Costas Mandylor, Britt McKillip, Jesse Moss
I dunno, maybe I’m turning into a psychopath or something? I watch something like this, which is clearly intended to horrify and appall the viewer. But all I find myself thinking is, “Meh.” Am I now so desensitized, that watching the abduction, torture and murder of young women, no longer has an effect on me? Or is it just that this isn’t very good? I’ve a feeling it’s more the latter, rather than blossoming signs of psychopathy in my id, since I have not, as yet, stared being cruel to animals, setting fires or wetting the bed. That’s a relief, though guess I’ll have to find something else to do with the basement.
This takes place in rural America, where John Stone (Mandylor) and his daughter, Zoe (Dallender), form a familial serial-killer pairing, hunting in the local bars for loose ladies. Lulled into a false sense of security by Zoe, the victims head home expecting nothing more than a spot of kinky sex. Instead, they find themselves tied up in John’s basement. If they’re lucky, Zoe gives them a way out of the subsequent agony. Oh, yeah: for bonus points of creepiness, John is screwing Zoe on a regular basis, Mrs. Stone having previously committed suicide. Investigating the disappearances are Deputy Scott Walker (Moss) – like Stone, he’s a former soldier – and freshly arrived in the area is Jennifer (McKillip), a drifter who might perhaps have an agenda.
We open with Zoe sitting at the kitchen table, about to put a gun in her mouth, and everything that follows depicts how she reached that point. It’s never particularly convincing, because she seems both to be utterly under her father’s control, and willfully independent – whatever the plot happens to need, at that particular moment. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that John’s behaviour is tied to his experiences in the military, though the treatment of PTSD here, feels about fifty years out of date. Now, he’s got a philosophy, expressed in rants like, “I’m a hunter. I thin the fucking herd, like you’d do with deer or any other kind of goddamn pest… I save the world from vermin like you.” Yep, it’s Serial Killer #37: We Shall Cleanse The World.
Despite some gnarly gore in the early proceedings, when John tries to teach Zoe how to tidy up – it involves a chainsaw (top) – there’s really not much here that achieves any impact. The performances aren’t bad: Mandylor brings his experience to bear on a relatively thankless character, and similarly, Dallendor does what she can, despite not having much to work with. The script seems to have all the right pieces, in an order approaching reasonably correct, so I think we have to lay the lack of impact at the feet of Richards. I saw his feature debut, Darklands, at a film festival around 1997. I see that got the same grade as this did, two decades later. Not exactly what I’d call progress and development.