Donkey Punch

The girlfriends Lisa (Sian Breckin), Kim (Jaime Winstone) and Tammi (Nichola Burley) travel from Leeds to Mallorca, Spain, to spend a couple of days together having good-time on the beach. They meet Marcus (Jay Taylor), Bluey (Tom Burke) and Josh (Julian Morris) in a bar where they steal a bottle of champagne for fun. The young men tell that they are the crew of a motor pleasure yacht and they invite the girls to visit the vessel, where they introduce the chief-engineer Sean (Robert Boulter). The seven youngsters use ecstasy and smoke the powerful Russian Ice; Bluey talks about kinky sex including Donkey Punch and Dirty Sanchez; and they decide to navigate to the Mediterranean deep sea to see the sunset. The easy Lisa has sex with Bluey first and then anal sex with Josh; Vic has sex with Marcus and Tammi stays on the main deck talking to Sean. When Josh decides to practice Donkey Punch on Lisa, he accidentally kills the girl, in the beginning of a nightmarish gore night.

"Donkey Punch" begins erotic, with three sexy actresses very exposed, and ends gore after a weird accident. The title refers to a fictitious and mortal practice of anal sex, when the penetrated partner is punched on the head or neck to tight the anal passage and increase the orgasm of the partner. The greatest surprise in the story is that none of the partners use condom, i.e., all of them has unprotected sex. "Donkey Punch" will never be nominated to any Award, but it is entertaining and I liked it. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Prazeres Mortais" ("Deadly Pleasures")

The content of graphic sex, sexual violence, drug taking and murder are aimed at an audience that wants to be titillated, and in this modest aim "Donkey Punch" more or less succeeds.Yet somehow Director Oliver Blackburn squanders reliable staple teen horror fare into an indigestible mess which is difficult to stomach.

Four young men and three young women, party, have sex, and then become embroiled in a deathfest when one of the girls dies during a sex act.The acting is fairly good, the characters are fine and the girls, Sian Breckin,Nichola Burley and Jaime Winston (daughter of Ray) look good and are a teenage boys dream, well "up for it".

A setting on a boat always has dramatic potential, confined space, isolation, no escape. It also has some drawbacks, physically you are limited with what you can do.This is where Blackburn errs.The first half hour of scene setting as the characters get to know each other is fine, and the sex scene is convincing. But once the bloodletting starts everything spirals out of control.The actions of the characters are inconsistent at best, and unbelievable at worst.This is no psychological thriller, if you don't know what to do - kill someone,that appears to be the maxim.Each sequence is so episodic, so stand alone, that there appears to be little link with what else is going on.By the end the dramatic tension has evaporated and you just want EVERYONE to die, but quickly.

Apparently this was shot in 24 days, which is quick. But this is no excuse for an inadequate script and screenplay.

Firstly this is not a slasher movie nor could it even loosely be described as a horror it can barely even be described as a thriller as it's largely quite boring, the sex is not explicit and the violence not extreme.

I personally didn't feel the film was misogynistic and was one area where the film did succeed by not overtly portraying the females as victims except in places to (unsuccessfully) elicit sympathy and create tension. The female characters are simply one of two opposing sides that develop as a result of the titular sexual act which accidentally results in death which is an alternative to traditional good and bad set ups (as seen in say Eden Lake). If this element had been developed and handled properly it could have lead to an interesting moral conflict instead of lazily resorting to the thriller default plot devices of anger, fear and friends turning on each other.

In addition to the script problems some judicious editing to reduce the running time to around eighty minutes (from 95) would massively help the films leaden pacing which contributes to and ultimately cripples what could have been an interesting and original drama/thriller.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. The Leeds lasses on a jolly girls excursion made it seem quite parochial, to the extent that the Yanks will probably need subtitles, and there is a central moral vacuousness (in the deeds) which is nonetheless appropriately dealt with in terms of who gets what and how. Very often this kind of film leaves you frustrated in terms of dénouement, but I thought that comeuppance was most appropriately dealt out and the ending doesn't let you down, inasmuch as you can figure on how things might develop post-movie (imagine this going to court!). I thought the acting was really good, there was a good dose of (black) humour and the film could be read on many levels (as much as a class conflict as anything else). Great little film, hard to spot the low budget.

Donkey Punch is more than competently directed, almost every aspect of it is superbly executed - save for the tiny matter called screenplay. The plot is so tired words cannot begin to describe it. There is not one event that cannot be foreseen from miles ahead by anyone who has seen more than two thriller movies in recent years.

The director is obviously very talented, and even the acting is above average compared to this type of fare (I'm looking at you My Bloody Valentine 3D with your silent movie-type overacting) but the plot is such a bore and there is a distinct lack of suspense throughout that instead of generating thrills it almost put me to sleep.

Any real chance of characterization sinks as soon as the characters begin to do awfully predictable and silly things, just for the sake of packing a punch to the audience - which in turn fails because everyone can see them coming.

And to think that British public funding is going to such stinking waste of material and talent is beyond comprehension. I am all for subsidizing mainstream films but Donkey Punch is a knockoff of dozens of movies we have seen, most of them better written.

Just a touch of originality would have elevated Donkey Punch to at least an average level, as it is now it is just not worth the time and investment. On the plus side: the soundtrack is awesome.