Getting home after seeing The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022-also reviewed) at the cinema with a friend, I was pleased to discover that I had got back just in time for the latest stream release at the film festival Cine-Excess, leading to me joining the jury.
Note:Review contains some plot details.
View on the film:
Detailing in a discussion after the screening/stream that the project had begun getting planned in 2017, with filming kicking off straight after lockdown was lifted, writer/director Kevin Schultz makes his feature film debut with a blunt-force, visceral Slasher atmosphere, setting the foundation with a excellent, extended one-take tracking shot, that Schultz & editor/cinematographer James Clark slice into, with close-ups on the bursts of gore.
Spending the majority of the title at in-door locations with just two people, Schultz dices a claustrophobic atmosphere from winding panning shots circling the brutal exchanges between Ron and Samantha,which shatter to whip-pans towards the blood-drench Slasher set-pieces.
Given only slivers to work from, Alison Thornton and Alex Zahara give very good performances as Samantha and Ron, with Thornton having Samantha's rage from the murder of her girlfriend burn through into her acts of revenge,while Zahara holds Ron's smirk,as he refuses to answer Samantha's questions over his deadly attacks.
Describing the film as "John Carpenter's Mean Girls", the screenplay by Schultz sadly misses getting near the mark of either, due to attempts at macabre humour coming off forced and flat, the longer Ron is spent tied up (which is for the majority of the film), the less dangerous the character is made to look,all wrapped up in shallow dips into Samantha's romantic past, that leave her an empty void of vengeance,as she is declared not guilty.
