Dead Hooker in a Trunk

Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009)

* (out of 4)

Badass (Sylvia Soska), Geek (Jen Soska), Junkie (Rikki Gagne) and Goody Two Shoes (C.J. Wallis) discover a dead hooker in their trunk and that's about it. The Soska twins directed, wrote and stars in this movie that seems to have gotten some pretty glowing reviews but I'm a little confused as to why because I found the film incredibly hard to get through. The film isn't a complete disaster so I'll start off with the only good thing. I think the vision of the film was actually quite good and it's hard to believe that this thing was shot for just a couple thousand dollars. I give the sisters credit for certainly having an eye because they've made this film look quite professional and that there is saying quite a bit considering how most low-budget horror films look. With that said, the rest of the film was pretty much dreadful with the story being the most annoying thing. I'm not really sure what the point of the film was except to come off like a Quentin Tarantino movie and mix countless genres together with quick dialogue, over-the-top violence and other bizarre matters. The problem here is that none of it works as the story never makes a bit of sense and the characters are all just annoying to the point where you're hoping they all die. The movie has one drawn out sequence after another and sometimes we get some graphic gore but more often than not it's just dialogue full of F-bombs. The performances aren't the greatest in the world but they are slightly better than we typically see in this type of picture. I know many are calling this a "terrific homage to grindhouse pictures" but I found the film to be far from that. I guess people will have to make up their own minds but while the Soska girls show talent here, the final result is quite horrid.

The Soska sisters are two of the more interesting characters working in horror today... identical twins with a seriously twisted outlook on life who have thus far written, directed, produced, and starred in several shorts and two full length indie movies, Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009) and body modification horror American Mary (2012). Suitably impressed by the latter, I felt compelled to check out their debut feature; sadly, Dead Hooker is nowhere near as an accomplished effort, being yet another weak Tarantino-style grind-house homage that wants to be both ultra-cool edgy thriller AND over-the-top splat-stick, but which ends up simply being a mess.

Jen Soska plays 'Geek', a bible-thumping church-goer; Sylvia plays her sister 'Badass', the yin to her yang, a tattooed bitch in a tight black vest who refuses to take crap from anyone. Together with 'Goody Two Shoes' (C.J. Wallis), Jen's virginal boyfriend, and crap punk-rock singer 'Junkie' (Rikki Gagne), they are thrown into a world of chaos and violence after the discovery of a dead hooker and some bags of cocaine in the trunk of their car.

While I admire the Soska's for their attitude and obvious enthusiasm, I cannot bring myself to praise what is very clearly the work of naive newcomers; behind the admittedly nifty title lies a poorly written wreck of a film with embarrassingly bad dialogue and some truly terrible acting, not least from the sisters themselves. The action meanders aimlessly from one frustratingly logic-free scene to the next, the characters making ridiculously bad decisions, shrugging off severe (and probably fatal) injuries, and somehow developing incredible fighting skills along the way. About the only real fun to be had is with some cheap and cheerful OTT gore.

Thankfully, American Mary suggests that Jen and Sylvia have since honed their writing skills and are now happy to appear in cameos, leaving the main roles to real actors. A wise decision ladies.

I read some pretty positive reviews for this film, and am always willing to support indy film.

but seriously WTF! I just payed 7 bucks to rent this, I feel so strongly about it that I will ask for my money back from the store.

I could only sit through 20 minutes of it. When the movie starts the first thing you will notice is just how terrible the audio is.

quickly followed by the lighting, camera work. and editing.

you will not know what the hell is going on.

Then when the performances start you will face palm at the writing and execution.

The thing that bothers me most is that the film makers have cast themselves in the lead roles, when really, if they cared at all about film making, they would have stayed on the other side of the camera, at least that way they could have attempted to limit the damage of every other terrible element at work.

0 out of 10

I liked the title, sounds a bit like those good old exploitations but what a terrible thing this was. Once started I thought, yes, this is going to be good but once the girls are watching the trunk I knew what I was getting. Trash.

Written by the Soska sisters and even played and directed by them it is obviously a ultra low budget. There aren't any real effects to see because it's done off screen, well, most of them. But there is a lot of red stuff that I can confirm. Sadly, it's the script and a lot of talking that made it almost unwatchable. I must admit that I grabbed the remote and had the fast forward button ready to push. Some parts are really okay but to many scenes are ridiculous and boring.

Maybe I they had a lot of fun but I rather should let this flick in the trunk straight to the bin.

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I recently saw the film American Mary which was directed by the Soska Twins. I was pretty impressed, as it was quite an interesting and fairly original horror concoction. With this in mind I had to see their debut movie, the brilliantly titled Dead Hooker in a Trunk. Well, after seeing it, all I can say is that they definitely got a lot better. In fairness, this movie seems to have been made on an ultra-low budget, we're taking peanuts here. But even cutting the Soska's some slack on this front, that doesn't change my view that Dead Hooker in a Trunk is a really terrible movie.

Its plot-line is certainly high-concept - four friends find a dead hooker in the trunk of their car. That's it more or less. A strong story is certainly no requirement in a good film but a movie needs to get other things right in the absence of one. And on a technical and artistic level this is an abomination. It has terrible camera-work and sound; really bad acting and an awful script. It's overall just too amateurish to offer very much to anybody. I am nevertheless pleased that these two Canadian sisters have gone on to do better things – as apart from anything else, there should be more women directors out there – but this debut just isn't good on any level I am afraid.