Rating: D+
Dir: Bobby Blood
Star: Fiona Kennedy, Nailya Shakirova, Brad Stein, Rachel Rigall
Nice tits. That’s the best thing I can say about this, which starts well enough, ends okay… and in the middle, implodes entirely into what surely ranks among the dullest and most technically inept films I’ve seen this year. The central character is Nurse Darla Perkins, played by Kennedy. Though Google somehow leads the cast with some actress instead having the unconvincing pseudonym of Mircalla Karnstein. It then also manages to attach the role to a completely different Fiona Kennedy, a Scottish singer (albeit one who did have a minor role as Holly in The Wicker Man). I blame AI, somehow. Though that I prefer to discuss Google’s ineptitude, rather than the movie, should tell you a great deal about the film’s general merits.
Like all the characters, Darla’s dialogue is post-sync’d. I’m not averse to that per se – it does at least mean the lines are audible, not always the case in films of this budget. However, it feels like they had two people do all the voices, and appear to be reciting the dialogue will all the energy and enthusiasm of someone announcing railway train delays. I guess the lugubrious dubbing fits Darla having spent a year in a near-catatonic state. This condition is the result of her being witness to a nasty home invasion by a trio of thugs fleeing a robbery, led by Wayne Starkey (Stein). They kill the homeowners, for whom Nurse Perkins was caring, raping Darla and leaving her for dead.
This is grimly nasty, with a decent exploding head, and clearly influenced by the likes of Last House on the Left. The problems arise thereafter, during a middle sequence in which little of interest happens. There’s a weird subplot where Darla apparently sells her soul to the Devil in a Satanic ritual, getting a pentagram tattooed on her chest (top, which seems a waste. Did I mention her tits?). This is apparently necessary in order for her to take eventual revenge on Wayne and his cronies. They – and what are the odds? – end up in exactly the same hospital where Darla is working, after completing her lengthy rehabilitation. This involves penis severing, face removal and general unpleasantness.
It’s getting from the first twenty to the final ten minutes where the film struggles, and that’s putting it very charitably. For instance, the medical personnel here are woefully unconvincing, even by the standards of eighties grindhouse for which Mr. Blood seems to be aiming. It looks like they were costumed entirely on clearance items from the “Sexy Nurse” aisle at Spirit Halloween, setting the bar low in regard to production standards generally. Any efforts at performance, and there might be something in Kennedy, who certainly goes at her role with gusto, are buried by the flat dubbing, which wipes out all emotion across the board. I will say this, however: add an extra “O” to the title, and you would be well on your way to the finest episode of Animaniacs in history.