Is it a bad flick? No.

Basically what you have is an amazing trailer stretched out for an hour and a half.

Short and skinny-- A special Police unit battles a new breed of villain known as “Engineers,” who are more or less monsters who have been implanted with this key that allows them to turn their wounds into weapons, resulting in outrageous splatter effects. If I sound less than enthusiastic or concerned with the plot, it’s because I feel the filmmakers were also.

And in a way, that’s o.k.

I suppose.

It’s not meant to be a riveting story, it’s meant to be just balls to the wall never ending gore. The problem is, it lives in a world where films like Ichi the Killer, Dead Alive and Martyrs exist. Films that while being the most in-fuck-sane splatter delights, also have stories and captivating characters that I have to watch. Shitty films rely on tits and gore to get people to watch them. Great flicks use them because it’s intrinsic to the story. This flick is neither. This plays like a portfolio or audition reel for a FX company. Had I never seen Ichi the Killer, had I not been a fan of Japanese or Italian trash, this might blow me away. But I have, so it doesn’t.

I’m not asking for master storytelling. But something has to keep my attention to at least get me from gore set piece to set piece.

But I love gore. I love splatter. I have to love a film that exists to just do every gore gag a team of artists ever dreamed of, even if there is no story to tie the gags together and make it interesting. Some of the gore gags, many in fact, are so fucking great to watch that I know I will spend many a future night with my friends yelling “Holy shit! Rewind!” How can I not recommend a film like that?

Then there are gags that are so poorly done-- not in that fun, oh look they at least tried, isn’t that inventive-- but in that we just ran out of shit so lets phone it in nonsense. How can I recommend a film like that?

Pacing also becomes a real issue. There is none. There is no build up to what will they do next, or can they top this, because it is just a garden hose spraying blood for 109 minutes.

But there are these incredible visual moments, that if the filmmaker had just gone down this road a little further and explored what happened with this character, or this object, would have made for incredible material. I wanna know about the chick in the gas mask who has sword blades for limbs, the vagina alligator (you read that right) or that fucked up sexual mutilation market. Any of those things that were totally glossed over would have made for infinitely more intriguing viewing material. Should I love the film for not giving me these things I want and allowing me to imagine for myself? Probably not, I think they were just lazy but they exist so I still get them. These items just remain as kind of fetishistic window dressing for an empty store. Lars, the web site director, had an interesting thought, though I think he meant it as a joke-- he called the flick post-exploitation. And he might be on to something. It’s an hour and a half long trailer of exploitation iconography with no connective tissue to hold it together.

See the film. You will enjoy moments of it. I’ve heard “Naked Lunch” should be read sporadically, a chapter here, a chapter there. Maybe this is the same. Put it on in the background and occasionally look up and yell “Holy fuck! Rewind!”

-Chris Sacks
Los Angeles, Ca