...And Now For Something Completely Predictable
By Rich Bruso
July, 2005
Oh, to be young again, when all movie ideas were still fresh. Hey, they were dead all along! How original. And who would have thought the bad guy didn't really die? Ooh, look, a car chase! And what about that frumpy woman with the glasses and her hair up in a bun? Who would have thought she was beautiful with her hair down and glasses off? And an all-girl cult is an absolutely brilliant premise for a movie!
Okay, okay, maybe I'm just a tad jaded, but you would be too, especially after this month's movie, Sisters of Death. Sounds exciting, right? Oh, how wrong you are.
Where shall we begin? The dark filters on the lenses for "night" filming? The generic all-girl cult? The mysterious invitations to a luxurious resort? The electric fence that doesn't reach the ground? Maybe the "we're locked in the house with a murderer" plot line, made famous by the board game and movie Clue, along with about a trillion zillion other movies. Well, at least there's a pool. And what would a cult movie be without a little skinny dipping, eh?
It turns out it would be this movie. The girls actually are going to go dipping, but decide instead to wander around and try to find some clothes. Scratching my head, I glance at the DVD box. PG? PG!! Now who in their right minds makes a horror movie about an all-girl cult and goes for a PG rating, then casts a former Playboy playmate for the lead? I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think her acting skills got her the magazine shoot. Although, as a plot twist, a PG rating was surprising.
Actually, acting skills weren't exactly this movie's forte. Continuity also suffered, as did lighting, props, script, cinematography, set decorating, and probably catering, too. At least the sound guys got it right. Scratch that, there's the boom mike. Well, at least no animals were harmed in the making of the movie, right? Right??
So, a crazed loner hires two toughs to bring six beautiful women out to his secluded resort. Any cheap horror movie fan can see the problem already. It's a simple matter of guy/girl ratios, and, under penalty of law, there are only two possible outcomes to an imbalance like this: Either we end up with one guy and one girl, or one guy and one girl live, then the girl kills the guy. Guess which one we got?
Also required by law is a cheap plaster bust of Nefertiti, so the bad guy has something to shoot. Admittedly, the bust doesn't really fit in well with typical Southwestern decor, but that's something for the bigger budget movies to think about. And since we're suspending disbelief by a shoestring, why not add in a noose hanging three feet off the ground, a completely improbable shower scene, a flute solo, and an antique hand-cranked Gatling gun. Did we miss anything? Oh, yeah, wildlife, consisting of one tarantula and one rattlesnake, along with the bra-mounted tarantula stunt double.
All of this would be forgivable if not for the final showdown scene. Bad guy grabs girl, and puts her in his dead daughter's dress. Girl is tied to chair, then has noose put around her neck. Proceed with the insane rant, then unveil the Gatling gun, loaded alternately with real bullets and blanks, for a high-speed game of Russian Roulette. Various odd bits of scenery fall apart to the sound of random gunfire, which ends when the boyfriend regains consciousness and gets the girl free. Bang, Bang, bad guys dead, then toss a barrel of gunpowder at the electric fence, and ride off into the sunset.
Well, she rode off into the sunset. See the discussion of ratios above.
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