VOD Review: Wolf Mother (2017)

"The movie is a mess, but Najarra shines."

We decided to check out Wolf Mother because it's been looming out there in "Waiting For Release" land for the better part of the last year and a half, and it looked like a cool, off-beat Thriller.

And because we love the hell out of Najarra Townsend.

Having now finally seen it after so long, I have to say that it's not going to be for everybody. If you like pulpy "That dame had a pretty mug on her" kinds of flicks, and if you don't care about coherent plots as long as there are some stylish visuals and some twisted avenues are explored, then you might dig it.

Might.

Ben is a petty thief and a scumbag in general who is on the run for shooting a Cop. Zelda is a former child star turned prostitute who survives on the streets the best she can. Both of them have shameful pasts that they can't come to grips with, and both of them want to kill themselves, but can't find the courage to do so.

TWO PEAS IN A TWISTED POD.

When an 8-year-old starlet is kidnapped by a gang of Satanic pimps called The Band, the two of them form an uneasy partnership to rescue the girl, in an effort to atone for their sins, after which they will help each other commit suicide.

HOLLYWOOD ATE HER UP AND SPIT HER OUT.

On  the road to redemption, Zelda and Ben take jobs in a greasy spoon, and fight off the romantic urges that are beginning to come to life between them.

WOLF MOTHER IN ACTION.

On one hand this movie is a fun little slice of pulpy noir that has some great and twisted ideas going for it. Najarra Townsend's performance made the movie watchable for us, as she owned every second that she was on-screen. She's an Indie darling in every sense of the word, and every since we saw her in Dawning (review HERE) and Contracted (review HERE), we've wondered why she hasn't blown up more.

On the other, Wolf Mother feels like a disjointed attempt to to a pulpier version of a Tarantino film. Much of the dialogue was crude and tried way too hard to feel like it came from some hard-boiled Mike Hammer novel or something.

The plot made little sense either. The movie centers around two people who are living sinful lives who meet each other, and decide to seek redemption by rescuing a child who was kidnapped by a Satanic gang. That's all well and good, but none of it plays out in any sort of logical way. When the two decide to seek out the gang, who has fled north to San Francisco, they decide to take a job in diner in the desert to save money for the rescue... because leaving an 8-year-old girl in the clutches of a gang of Satanic child traffickers is somehow good for the child? "Sure, maybe she'll get raped over and over again, beaten, abused, and maybe even killed, but let's gets jobs for a few weeks?"

Let's not forget that they have two rotting corpses in the trunk of the stolen car that they're driving too. Because that wouldn't give them away in the scorching heat of the desert or anything.

There was a lot of potential in two characters giving chase to an evil group of guys like The Band, and I personally expected it to get all kinds of violent and twisted, but nothing really ever came of it. At the end, when they finally catch up with the gang, the girl was already found alive, and the way that they all "faced off" was clunky and made little sense.

BUT NAJARRA, SHE ROCKS IT.

Plenty of gun violence towards the beginning and end, and some rotting corpses.

WOLF MOTHER SHOOTING BITCHES.

This movie wades in the seedy side of the pool, so there's plenty of nudity and disturbing sexual elements to be had.

HNNNNNNNNNG.

Wolf Mother is a stylish, twisted movie that is definitely way more style than substance. If you're watching this one, it's because you like character studies and noirish pulp. I liked it solely because Najarra Townsend gave a hell of a performance, and we've long said that she deserves bigger roles in better movies.

For her alone, we give this one a 3 out of 5 rating. Without her, it's a 1.

C+

Wolf Mother is available now on VOD.

Najarra Townsend is a sexy bunch of untapped acting potential.

VOD Reveiw: 68 Kill (2017)

"AnnaLynne McCord is a sexy savage."

Until now, we thought that Trent Haaga was just a B-grade actor who has starred in movies like Sutures, Starry Eyes, and a bunch of old Troma flicks like Citizen Toxie.

But no, he's also a writer who penned two movies like  Deadgirl (review HERE) and Cheap Thrills (review HERE), both of which had a decidedly nasty bent to them. Based off of his work on those two movies alone, and the fact that AnnaLynne McCord is a walking sex bomb, we knew that we had to see 68 Kill.

Having now seen it, I'm even more baffled by the fact that AnnaLynne McCord isn't a bigger star, because she's hell on wheels in this one.

Chip is a shit-shoveling loser whose insanely hot, whiskey-tango girlfriend, Liza, wants more out of life than living in a trailer and struggling to make ends meet. That "making ends meet" part involves her having sex with guys for money, which Chip isn't exactly thrilled about, so the two of them hatch a plan to rob her sugar daddy for $68,000, which will put them on easy street. I'm not sure how 68k puts anyone on easy street, but hey, times are tough.

YEAH, SHE INSPIRES THOSE KINDS OF SICK, LONGING LOOKS IN PEOPLE.

Of course the robbery goes horribly wrong when Liza reveals her insane, murderous true self, and she and Chip are forced to kidnap a girl named Violet who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No worries though, because Liza plans to sell her to her way-creepy brother, who makes Liza look like an angel by comparison.

OH GIRL, YOU NEED TO RUN.

Chip being the nice guy that he is though, isn't sure that the he can let sweet Violet suffer such a cruel fate, and so things go from bad to worse to WTF! as he tries to do the right thing and not become a degenerate like everyone around him.

Crazy, bloody twists and turns ensue.

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES.

This movie is basically about a likable guy who has a crazy girlfriend, and all the shit he has to go through to get rid of her... and that shit is all pretty bloody, twisted, and insane.

The script is what makes this movie so good, that and the actors. As for the written part, yes, this world of 68 Kill is crazy, over-the-top, and more than a bit twisted, but it's populated by genuine people who all feel real, instead of merely being the type of goofy caricatures that tend to populate these types of movies. In a movie that features three prominent female characters, it's nice to see that it was written deftly enough not to feel like male bashing was the intent too, given the amount of shit that Chip had to suffer through.

AnnaLynne McCord is brilliant as the sociopathic sex kitten, Liza. I say brilliant because she doesn't play her in a cartoonish, over-the-top way the whole time, but instead brings a realistic vulnerability to her that makes her sympathetic, and even likable. And man, is she ever ridiculously sexy. Matthew Gray Gubler is equally impressive as lovable loser Chip. He usually tends to play likable guys, and here he just comes off as extra likable as a guy who can't seem to catch any sort of break, and you can't help but feel for him. It's nice to see him in something other than a predictable, case-of-the-week TV show for a change.

The real revelation for us though was Alisha Boe as Violet. Equal parts of sweet and sinisterly sassy, Violet was a nice romantic interest for Chip, and Boe played her perfectly. The girl has a bright career ahead of her.

SORRY, BUT WE'RE NOT CRIMINAL MINDS FANS ANYMORE.

There is no shortage of bloody action in this one, in true grindhouse fashion.

68 KILL INDEED.

As twisted and sexually-charged as 68 Kill is, it doesn't get gratuitous at all with the nudity.

DON'T HAVE TO TELL US TWICE.

"You shovel shit for a living, I suck dick!"
"Ain't too often you get a sweetie like that offer up her pooper, no questions asked. Man, I been tryin' to get that."

IT'S ONLY 68 GRAND. RELAX!

I could easily dismiss 68 Kill as a B-grade, grindhouse wannabe that relies on shock to thrill its audience, but then I'd be doing a disservice to a smart script and a great cast who played some lively characters, and that would not be fair.

This is a twisted and fun flick that we ended up liking WAY more than we thought we would, and if you like darkly comedic thrillers steeped heavily in the trappings of noir and grindhouse goodness, then you should give it a go.

B+

68 Kill is available on VOD now. 

AnnaLynne McCord rocks our socks.

VOD Review: 31 (2016) #31daysofhorror

"Alright, Rob Zombie. That's Better."

*SUBMITTED BY: Me, because kicking off our 31 Days of Horror binge-watching with a brand new Horror flick called 31 sounded perfect. 

Here's the thing: I truly think that Rob Zombie is a one-note filmmaker who peaked with The Devil's Rejects. The guy's got vision, and he's definitely got a unique and compelling visual style, but man the dude can't write to save his life.

Zombie really needs to direct a movie that someone else wrote and conceptualized, and he needs to leave his wife out of it. I've said it before, and it still stands.

I loved House of 1000 Corpses, even though it was far from perfect; and I truly think that The Devil's Rejects is a modern-day classic. Since then though, he's had a run of films that have gotten gradually worse.

Halloween (Review HERE) was a good remake of a classic film that was almost impossible to remake. He did more right with this one than he did wrong. Halloween 2 (Review HERE) was so shitty that it made me physically angry. It was this movie that really showed Zombie's flaws, and in a big way. The Retarded World of El Superbeasto (Review HERE) was painfully bad. Great animation, but everything else about it was shit. The Lords of Salem (Review HERE) was an incoherent mess that felt more like a self-masturbatory project than it did a movie.

Looking back, maybe it was Bill Moseley and Sid Haig that made his first two efforts so damned entertaining. I don't know.

So being that we've gone from fans of Rob Zombie's movies to absolute haters over the course of his 6-film career, we didn't expect much at all from 31. I'm happy to say that while he still sucks a s a writer, that 31 is his best movie since Halloween, and we really liked it for the most part.

On Halloween, 1976, a gang of raunchy carnies are heading through the remote countryside in a Winnebago when they're attacked by some guys in striped pajamas. Everyone is killed except for Charly, Panda, Roscoe, Venus, and Peter Periwinkle, who are taken to some old warehouse complex, chained up, and forced to play a game called 31 by an old dude and two old chicks who are dressed like Olde English Aristocrats, wigs and all.

WHAT ARE THEY ON ABOUT?

Every year, these aristocrats (Father Murder, Sister Serpent, and Sister Dragon) kidnap a gang of losers, and force them to survive for 12 hours while being hunted by maniacal killers called Heads. Not sure why any of this happens, or what the moniker of "Heads" mean, but then neither is the guy who wrote the movie, so, moot point.

AND WHY ARE THEY CLOWNS?

So, the game of 31 begins with a midget clown dressed in Nazi gear named Sick Head. Then we get Crazy-Head and Zany-Head, two chainsaw-wielding bothers who are pretty adamant about fucking all of Charly's holes. Then come the super-tall German dude in a tutu, Death Head, and his tiny girlfriend, Sex-Head. When all of these heads prove to be inefficient at killing the carnies, Doom-Head gets the call, and everyone is fucked.

YEAH, THIS GUY MEANS BUSINESS.

The single thing that made me really dig this movie was Richard Brake. His performance as Doom-Head was brilliant. It was a bit over-the-top thanks to some of the dialogue that Rob Zombie wrote for him, but holy hell was he ever an excellent villain. He opens the movie with a bang, and when he shows up later on to begin the final hunt, he owns every minute of runtime until the credits roll. I would honestly love seeing a sequel about the exploits of Doom-Head. The dude owned this movie.

Gotta say I liked the way it ended too.

Seeing E.G. Daily on-screen again, especially in such a sexy & sinister role, was great too. In the 80's, she was an adorable little pixie who had supporting roles in a bunch of movies that we loved, and she's still got that special thing about her.

31 also excels in the gore department.

THE REST OF THE CAST WAS SOLID IN THIS ONE TOO.

Up until the carnies get attacked and kidnapped by the dudes in the striped pajamas, it was business as  usual for this Rob Zombie movie: Bad dialogue, swearing for swearing's sake, bad dialogue, trashy characters with silly names, bad dialogue...

THAT NAPKIN THAT SHERRI MOON IS WEARING WAS PRETTY COOL THOUGH.

Where do these names come from? Schizo-Head? Psycho-Head? Sex-Head? Venus Virgo? Panda?

Come on, man. Do you know how stupid that shit sounds?

AND WHAT'S WITH THOSE DASTARDLY, OLD-TIMEY GOONS!

Lots and lots of bloody goodness throughout this one to make Gorehounds smile.

THAT GIRL TAKES A BEATING...

There's some nudity in this one, including an appearance by 80's Porn superstar, Ginger Lynn.

AND SEX-HEAD WAS SUPER CUTE.

There's plenty not to like about 31, and if you're not a fan of Rob Zombie's movies, then you pretty much already know what those things are, but he's made a step back towards the good side of the film-making fence with this one. For me, it's worth seeing for Richard Brake's performance alone, but it's got enough going for it to make it worthwhile overall.

It's definitely worth a rental. 

C+ or B-. Not sure which. Either way, 3 heads out of 5.

31 is available now on VOD.

The ladies of 31.