|
 |
DONKEY PUNCH
|
 |
By Dianne Brooks
Donkey Punch
is a strange title to say the least but it is clarified soon
enough. This film is another entry in Magnet Releasing's
"6-Shooter Film Series" which so far has given us Let The Right One
In,
Timecrimes
(both previously reviewed here) and Special,
to be followed by Big Man Japan
and Eden
Log.
The series means to introduce the best in worldwide genre film from up
and coming filmmakers and each selection hails from a different
country, including one from the U.S.
So we know going in that Donkey Punch
is some kind of genre (read horror) film. In the world of
film studies, from which I hail, "genre" is simply a way of
categorizing films by type thus: action, melodrama, film noir, musical,
and yes, horror/thriller are all genres. In the film
distribution world genre seems to mean low budget, often foreign films,
targeted at a specific group, and usually thriller, horror, or
slasher. Thus, a costume period film would not be a genre
piece nor would a woman's film or to use the perjorative, "chick
flick". I don't yet understand why this is but, oh well.
Here the set up signals slasher as in young
people (girls) being punished for bad (sexual) behavior.
Three British babes, Kim (Jamie Winstone), Tammi (Nichola Burley) and
Lisa (Sian Breckin) are up to nothing but trouble during their girl's
weekend in Mallorca (actually Capetown, S.A.) It's sun and fun and
booze until a trio of boys Marcus (Jay Taylor), Bluey (Tom Burke) and
the seemingly innocent Josh (Julian Morris) beckon them back to the
yacht they have just finished crewing, and whose owners are
conveniently absent. The next thing you know they're partying
on the open waters, far from shore.
By this time the characters have started to clarify themselves, or at
least you think so. While sensible Sean (Robert Boulter), who had
stayed behind on the ship when the boys were trawling for chicks, and
reluctant Jaime are on deck talking about broken hearts, some rough and
sexy stuff is happening below. It all turns fatal when Josh
takes a story about something called a "donkey punch" too literally and
Lisa winds up dead. Suddenly the film veers "off course",
away from the comfortably predictable. The characters start
to shift and change and the film gets further and further out of your
control.
As writer/director Olly Blackburn and
co-writer David Bloom emphasize, this was never meant to be run of the
mill horror: there's no scary monster, there's no supernatural
power. It is meant to be a bit more of a character study with
shifting points of identification that invite the viewer to imagine
what they might do in the same circumstance. Amazingly the
young cast, some with no prior film experience, do an excellent job,
changing tone and mood smoothly and convincingly.
This film is one in a series produced
by a new U.K. based film studio, Warp X whose mission it is to make low
budget films of high quality using cutting edge digital
technology. Another film from this production team
was the widely praised This is England. Warp X means to provide an
avenue into film for newer people, with the help of the public funding
arms like U.K. Film Council.
I don't usually associate the Brits with genre, unless you count
Boyle's 28 Days but they do have a small studio tradition, as in the
Ealing comedies of the 1950s. Maybe there is a new commitment
to horror/thriller which, given the fact that Alfred Hitchcock hailed
from the U.K. makes absolutely perfect sense. I wouldn't call
Donkey Punch "hitchcockian" (a term a despise anyway) but it is better
than most low budget B pics, which is honestly what genre seems to mean.
Donkey
Punch
opens January 23, 2009
Directed by Olly Blackburn; written by Olly Blackburn and David Bloom;
Director of photography, Nanu Segal; produced by Angus Lamont, Robin
Gutch and Mark Herbert; edited by Kate Evans, A.C.E.; music by
Francois-Etudes Chanfrault. Released by Magnet. Running time: 95 minutes.
With:
Robert Boulter (Sean), Sian Brekin (Lisa), Tom Burke (Bluey), Nichola
Burley (Tammi), Julian Morris (Josh), Jay Taylor (Marcus) and Jaime
Winstone (Kim).
© Writemovies
2009
|
|
|
