Ash visits Austin, TX

Ash is one of those bobbleheads that doesn’t like to be tied down. Confined to my desk for a number of years, he has served his purpose as Grand Overseer of my procrastination, keeping an ever vigilant eye on everything I did. Kinda creepy if you think about it. As a result I felt it was time to send him on his merry way. Travel the countryside! See the sights!

After making a trip from Florida to Colorado, Ash was placed in a tiny little box and shipped about a thousand miles south to Austin, Texas, where one Peter S. Hall, who not only runs the fantastic blog Horror’s Not Dead, but serves as Associate Editor for Horror Squad and SciFi Squad, and writes for Cinematical and Hollywood.com. The fucker’s prolific, lemme tell ya. Since it’s been awhile, I’d place the date this photo was taken around mid-July, and as you can see, it was a hot one in Texas that day.

So far Ash has been all around the country, and I bet he’s achin’ to come to yours. If you’d like to receive Ash, shoot me an e-mail and we can work out the details.

A few months back my friends Dan of Castle Vardulon and Rachel of Zombots!!! decided to hold a little drinking game set to Twilight. In the end I learned I have a horrible speaking voice, Rachel laughs at everything I say, and Dan is probably ashamed to know me.

Ignore the holiday and timely references, for I have been incredibly lazy and only slightly afraid of having people hear my shrill voice quickly degrade into incoherent and offensive ramblings, which I blame on the alcohol. Really, I’m only funny in print. The real stars of this show are Dan, Rachel, and the awkward feelings my inappropriate and poorly timed comments elicit throughout. The first few minutes are introduction, as well as timing cues, a rundown of the rules, and other unnecessary jibber jabber, but some of it is pretty funny and worth a listen.

The rules are as follows:

Take a sip…

-Whenever Edward or Bella attempts to express an emotion
-Whenever they use slo-mo
-Whenever a scary musical sting tries to shock us
-Whenever you see a male vampire shirtless
-Whenever Bella does something clumsy
-Whenever someone says the word “vampire”
-Whenever someone compliments Bella or the vampire family, take a sip
-Whenever vampires have a reflection

Finish your drink…

-Whenever a vampire sparkles in the sunlight

Go easy. My bottle of wine was gone by the halfway point, and I Love Horror, Castle Vardulon, and Zombots!!! accept no responsibility for your inability to handle your liquor, you fucking newbs. Now crack open the booze and enjoy the festivities. Thanks to Comixed.com for the image.

Since Fangoria.com more or less went belly-up, I’m reposting this for the sake of posterity. The initial post gave a snippet of the article and linked to Fangoria, so at least this way I will now have the entire thing online. So enjoy. Or don’t. Whatever.

For much of the 1980s, the horror industry was dominated by the Friday the 13th franchise, an unstoppable machine fueled by blood and driven by everyone’s favorite hockey mask-wearing and machete-wielding psychopath, the inimitable Jason Voorhees. Spanning eleven original films, one remake, and countless other mediums, Victor Miller’s story of a killer “motivated by the love for her child” set off a chain of events that led to the creation and cultivation of one of horror’s most beloved characters and franchises.

While the Friday the 13th franchise was exceedingly popular during the eighties, its looming presence on the horror landscape and financial success tapered off over time. With a film being released roughly every year from 1980 to 1989 (’83 and ‘87 being the only exceptions), only one was released in the 90’s (1993’s Jason Goes to Hell), and Jason X, which sought to update the character for the future, was released in 2002. Neither of these films contained the original title of Friday the 13th, and we wouldn’t see it again until Platinum Dunes’ remake / re-imagining was released in 2009. Even though Jason faded into relative obscurity and the popularity of the franchise waned, his presence remained a fixture of the horror industry, proving his status as bonafide horror icon and the series as an indispensable horror mainstay.

While it can be argued that Friday the 13th was an essential aspect of the horror industry in the eighties and nineties, there is no debate that the first decade of the twenty-first century is characterized by the Saw franchise. The film has received its fair share of criticism, especially among the horror community, yet has picked up the slack left by Friday the 13th, serving as not only a means of introducing Generation Z and the tail end of Generation Y to horror, but also by reinvigorating the popularity and importance of the horror franchise. The Saw franchise can then be considered the Friday the 13th of the new millennium, sharing a number of similarities that go beyond their impact on the industry.

As I highlighted above, eight Friday the 13th films were released in the eighties before the output declined drastically over the next twenty years. With its nascent stages long gone, the Saw franchise has released a new film every October since 2004. Saw VI was released on October 23rd of this year, and Saw VII has already been greenlit. Given the sheer number of films made in each franchise, keeping the momentum alive is difficult. A franchise can run out of steam, or in essence “jump the shark” by changing the formula that made it so popular in an attempt to take the series in another direction. This could be due to a perceived lack of interest, a bored executive who like screwing with the fans, or just a genuine desire to keep the series from becoming stale. It happened with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which had nothing to do with the prior too films and was suspiciously devoid of Michael Myers. Following this, Michael was reintroduced in the next film. While the circumstances regarding the decisions to do so remain unclear, both Friday the 13 and Saw are guilty of this transgression.

A common bone of contention among fans of Friday the 13th is the “death” of Jason in part four and the attempt to take the series in a new direction with part five, subtitled “A New Beginning.” This was met with backlash from fans, resulting in Jason’s return in part six to hack and slash his way through sexy co-eds, only this time in full-on zombie mode. In the end, that’s all the fans wanted to see: their now iconic antagonist fuckin’ some serious shit up. No need for story, no need for emotion. Just murder, mayhem, and occasionally some tits for good measure. The damage, however, had been done, and while part six remains a fan favorite and received favorable reviews, the popularity and financial success of the series began a slow decline.

A loose parallel can be found in the Saw franchise, particularly in part three which concluded with the death of the infamous Jigsaw himself, John Kramer. With part four, much like in the fifth Friday the 13th installment, we’re introduced to a new, replacement killer, with hints and allusions to the original found throughout. Is it any coincidence that both films were some of the franchises’ most poorly received? The appeal of the first film, and by extension Saws II and III wasn’t just in its clever traps, it was the attempt of the filmmakers to inject a story amidst the chaos. Kramer is made to be a highly sympathetic, albeit psychotic, character, with his traps serving as a metaphor for the path his victims have chosen in life. The death of John was the death of the motivation behind the entire series, and thus dooming the series to mindless repetition. This sentiment was expressed by Elizabeth Weizman of the New York Daily News, who considered the conspicuous absence of Tobin Bell from the fifth film to be its biggest drawback, cheapening the series and allowing it to fall into a state of convention. Unfortunately, while Friday the 13th realized the error of its ways and attempted to bring back the original formula, Saw is too grounded in reality to do such a thing.

This brings us to the characters proper. Although widely divergent in terms of personality, Jason Voorhees and John Kramer share a common bond. Let’s begin with Jason. A highly sympathetic character, he was left to drown by the promiscuous camp counselors, and, ignoring the inherent gaps in logic that surround his death and subsequent reappearance, grew up to be nothing more than a deformed, hydrocephalic man-child driven by revenge to exact punishment on those who murdered his mother. His malformed brain knows little more than to seek out and kill everyone he comes across, whether or not they had anything to do with his mother’s death.1 The love for his mother is exemplified in part two, when it is revealed that Jason kept his mother’s decapitated head, its new resting place a crudely constructed shrine.

Compare this with Kramer. In Saw II we’re introduced to John Kramer, a dying man desperate to get his message out to the masses before he dies. We also learn after his death that his lapse into madness is the direct result of two things: the cancer eating away at his brain and the unintentional miscarriage of his unborn child, the latter of which was caused by a drug addict his wife Jill had attempted to help on numerous occasions. By revealing the impetus for his actions, Kramer’s character and motives are given credence. The miscarriage caused John and his wife to grow apart, ultimately ending in divorce. A short time thereafter he gets cancer and begins his killing spree with whom he feels is the catalyst for his unhappiness: the man who has squandered his life with drugs and whose actions led to the loss of his child who never even had the option. It is then in this way Jason Voorhees and John Kramer are kindred souls: motivated by love – Jason for his mother and Kramer for his unborn daughter – and driven by revenge.

Saw and Friday the 13th possess a unique, if relatively incongruent relationship. Their primary antagonists are paradoxical, designed to draw the ire of the audience yet remaining highly sympathetic, and their deaths signify the decline of the franchises in terms of their popularity among the fans and financial success. The sheer frequency at which the films have been released is astounding, while their impact and prevalence has helped to define a generation of horror fans. While it’s safe to say that Friday the 13th has done all it can do, the legacy of the Saw franchise is up for debate. Will the filmmakers find a way to bring back Jigsaw, or will it continue on, hoping to buck the trend and rejuvenate the series with a new Jigsaw and unexpected twists? Only time will tell.

^{1 A glimpse of humanity, however, is found when he spares a cabin full of children in Friday the 13th Part VI, proving that though mindless he may be, he still harbors a sense of right and wrong in that shriveled brain of his.}

This will hopefully be the first of a series of regular (or irregular) contributions from one Victor De Oliveira, a tubby Brazilian with a penchant for writing screenplays and esoteric bullshit not many people would care to read. Except you, because you’re all lovely, intelligent people. Right?  Recently he placed as a finalist in the First Glance Films Screenplay Competition, and after a period of depression involving an endless bottle of Jack Daniels and lots of “cutting,” he emerged from his cave and wrote this. Victor likes puppies and Phillip K. Dick, and is one opinionated motherfucker. He’ll fit in nicely here. Enjoy!

I don’t generally find children to be scary. I know, weird. So I don’t often watch movies that feature bad seed, because, well, that shit is kind of cheesy. But recently I gave in to some preternatural whim (I am a physicalist after all) and sat down to watch Christian Alvart’s Case 39. More than anything, I think Ian McShane did it. I blame him. I was hoping that Swearengen was going to break through at some point and there’d be at least one scene where, amidst sloppy fellatio, he’d give in to some monologizing impulse and talk about his abusive childhood, and headless heathens, liberally applying “fuck”, “shit” and “cocksucker” with Victorian eloquence and felicity. I was disappointed.

I’m not really interested in talking about the movie. I’m far more interested in trying to work out just why there have been so many of these films recently. Aeons ago, I think one could argue that it was due to the shock of encasing so much evil in something that is so benign, innocent and small. Much of horror, after all, is based on perversion. I consulted with my pastor and he said that the last time this opinion was valid was roughly 5,000 years ago, when the world was yet young and man was knocking about with the dinosaurs. I’m willing to admit that an irregular, timid movie-going crowd may still feel same faint pulse from the evil’s corporeal form, but surely this can’t be enough to justify a slew of films.

I’m of the opinion that we are culturally susceptible to a fear of children now, more than ever before and that this is a mental prison of our own social construct. Films like Case 39 have at root more in common with Law Abiding Citizen than with their horror brothers and sisters. This is why: The fear we are exposed to in these cases is not a fear of the unknown, or of evil incarnate, instead, it is a fear of systemic paralysis or injustice.

There are generally four kinds of peril one encounters in a horror film – existential, moral, asset and legal. Existential terror is a terror that menaces the continuity of life, the end result of which is death. Moral terror jeopardizes sanity and souls (a fate worse than death). Asset terror robs us of the things that enrich our lives (imagine an unknown assassin intent on rubbing out everyone you love while leaving you unharmed). Legal terror mitigates protagonist actions, and is a consequence of how we relate and ultimately deal with other terrors. In traditional horror, the legal aspect is light, if not altogether absent. Very rarely do we have protagonists in the midst of crises stop to ask the always germane, “What are we going to do about all of these bodies?” If the protagonist is responsible for a death, he/she is always vindicated through defense, and the Dead Thing is either a thing or another adult human. The legal threat is distant, especially in light of everything else they’ve been through.

This framework is inverted in the bad seed story. There is existential, potentially even moral terror, but the greatest terror is one of paralysis, especially for the parent. A parent is responsible for their child for eighteen years. They are legally bonded, and the welfare of their child is a legal obligation. Failure to meet such obligation is loaded with all sorts of unsavory, punitive checks (prison, loss of employment, loss of standing, prison, prison, prison rape, social stigma, damages, lawyer fees, loss of livelihood, prison, prison rape, loss of autonomy, etc.) – in short, failure to meet such obligations will really muck up one’s pretty, considered little life.

It wasn’t very long ago that children were chattel property to be done with as we pleased. Child labor laws have been present for a scant century, mandatory education even less so, and discipline was something enforced with a belt, a switch, and a fist. Now we fret over what we feed them, what activities they engage in, what they watch, the languages they’re exposed to, and whether or not the people who tend over them while we work actually have three-dimensional lives (Do they drink, do they sometimes think about sex, are they on occasion unhappy with their existence?) because everything and anything that hints at the darker aspects of our psyche will surely lead to rape in sadistic cult rituals serving to strengthen the rule of Satan on this Earth (mid-eighties to early nineties, I’m looking at you). Only virginal sentinels will do when it comes to the care of our children. And this paranoid, shadow-McCarthyism that sees every adult (especially males) as potential killers, kidnappers, and rapists, has lead to an unforgiving gallows-structure of laws, laws that we demand in the protection of our children. These laws find their most visible expression in a bulging, useless sex offender registry that destroys countless, nameless lives while offering up an illusion of security that is shattered again and again every single day.

Why have we built this system? Because we live in a country where gen Xers and Yers are attempting to atone for the sins of their absent parents and broken homes, trying to be some ridiculous paragon of paranoid love, and manifesting their disappointments and their fears within the confines of the justice system. Poorly conceived and even more poorly understood, they never imagined that the system of protection they cried for could turn on them, could see them as the child murderer, the abuser, the neglecter. Or maybe as a culture, we have some tenuous conception of just how easy it is to pass from one side of the line to the other. Maybe that’s the source of the anxiety, the fear that has given rise to so many renditions and explorations of the same paralyzing theme: What if our children spoil, go rotten? What if they are bad to the core; evil genetically, shade-bound spiritually? I’m sure such thoughts flash-fire from peripheral neuron to peripheral neuron as parents encounter those moments when child cruelty passes into the terrain of the incomprehensibly absurd, or the way a child can manifest their superiority over a pet in an instance of abuse. What’s hiding behind those eyes, behind that face?

The product: Our interactions with children are moderated by the state, by the system we have built. It is very hard to convince agents of the state that what they perceive as infanticide was actually an act of heroic self-defense against the ancient half-fish goddess Atargatis in the form of an eight year old girl. Crazy, I know. So that even though mounting evidence tells us KILL IT WITH FIRE, the protagonist constantly has to justify their inaction with – This is a child, do you know what they do with child murderers in the slammer? And so the horror is given ground, is nurtured, is allowed to grow until it finally culminates into a moment of absolute moral crisis where the protagonist allows themselves to die, or transgresses the line and kills a child (and the evil within it). This is the moment where legally, the character has joined the ranks of countless child murderers to be dealt with an iron fist. The supernatural may have passed, but the Kafkaesque horror of the system we’ve built lies ahead.

That’s the best I can do. That’s why I think we find children scary. Because we’ve disempowered ourselves by valuing them too highly; by infantilizing children (making them more innocent, more “child-like” than they may actually be) we’ve built our cage. Or, infantilizing is inadequate and absurd. What we’ve done to children is this: We’ve dehumanized them.

I may try to throw something else together for you cats. While I busy myself with that, here’s your line of contemplation for the week: Why are homeless people so into Jesus?

Adios!

I’ll make this short.

Is there a standard to which horror bloggers must live up to, or is it solely about the love of the genre? I admire anyone who can spend countless thankless hours churning out content simply because they love horror films, but at some point it becomes mere muscle memory. My viewpoint is clearly biased, grounded firmly in my academic background and inability to tolerate mediocrity in all its facets.  When I started I Love Horror, I was impressed with the sheer quality of many of the horror bloggers out there. They were frequently mentioned and discussed among what was a modest but respectable group of bloggers, but over time, and in spite of churning out quality content on a consistent basis, they have been overshadowed by shock-and-awe marketing campaigns and link whoring. As it stands, I’ve become utterly sickened at what has come to pass for respectable writing.

Sucking the SEO Dick

Horror blogging has become nothing more than a loose collection of sycophantic link whores. The love and appreciation for the craft of writing is mostly gone. In its place a giant self-congratulatory circle jerk, the credo of which has become “quantity over quality,” with a number of so-called writers churning out post after post of laughably bad content in order to reach the top of a largely worthless rating system. Content designed to draw readers has been replaced by quick updates featuring the most banal of material, lacking anything that can be considered depth or intelligence. Quickie top ten lists, interviews with other bloggers and the like are nothing more than excuses to churn out a new post every day at the expense of quality.

Of course, not every site does this. The sites I love and respect are still there, creating great content, and there are a handful of new sites out there that have impressed me with their ability to remain consistent without sacrificing quality. But those guilty of such indiscretions do it egregiously and without shame, thinking that this is expected of them. In the end, they receive the recognition while good, honest writers get left in the dust. Yes, they are not entirely free of blame. You can’t be seen unless you do a modicum of self-promotion, but there has been a marked difference in the level of exposure these blogs have seen since I first started blogging and now. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence. As a result, these newer bloggers are missing out on some top quality writing.

You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours

One of things I love(d) most about horror blogging was the sense of community. When someone wrote a piece worthy of mention, others picked up on it, promoted it, showcased it, and even provided rebuttals to it. These days are mostly gone now, replaced by fucking STUPID awards created ex nihilo simply for the sake of receiving a fucking link. The awards, which are seemingly created every other fucking week, are almost always given to the same set of sites, with bloggers truly deserving of recognition being left in the dust for whichever blogs are sucking the most dick. Recently I was given an award by Max the Drunken Severed Head, and while I appreciate the gesture good sir, I refused to follow suit. Yes, I’ll mention it, and I’ll give my thanks, but that’s about it.

Much of the inspiration for this article has to do with this. I don’t give a shit if you’re nominated for an award. Stop pandering for votes and write. Write because you love to write, not because you feel it’s expected of you because you have a blog. Therein lies the problem. Blogging is nothing more than an outlet for creative expressionism, and you’re fucking diluting this by spewing out shit on a daily basis as if you have a quota to make. Fucking stop it.

Will this piss people off? Well, if it doesn’t then either more people agreed with me than I thought or I did something wrong. Do I care? Fuck no. You know why? Because I write for no one else but me.

No disrespect to Mr. Romero, but do you know what you’ve done? “Oh, I’ll just create the zombie as we know it today and in turn influence a million filmmakers without an original bone in their bodies to emulate everything I did except poorly.” Seriously. The modern conception of the zombie is no longer the subtle metaphor we all know and love, but instead an excuse for someone, ANYONE to make a horror film.

Know what’s great, though? That rare breed of filmmaker who sees a popular trend and warps it into something genuinely unique. Here’s a list of those films, even I did hate some of them. Know of any I forgot? E-mail me.

Pontypool Well this is just obvious, given my love for the film, but one can’t deny this clever spin on the zombie trope by making the source of infection the English language and by replacing their lust for human flesh with the desire to “chew their way through the mouth of another person” as a means of escape. Director Bruce McDonad even went so far as to make the claim that the infected individuals in the film were not zombies, preferring instead to call them “Conversationalists.” While they are clearly not zombies due to them, you know, being alive and all, one could easily make the claim that Pontypool is indeed a pseduo-zombie film, and one of the most clever ones I have ever seen.

Les Revenants A couple of years back there was a pilot for a show called Babylon Fields that was never picked up. The premise behind the show was that the dead have risen from their graves and, instead of seeking human flesh, simply want to be reintegrated into society. Three years prior a little French film called Les Revenants utilized this theme, and in turn created a wonderful dramatic thriller that made me deathly afraid of old people. More of a drama than a thriller, Les Revenants focuses both on how this small French town is dealing with this unexpected wave of visitors and just what exactly they’re up to. It’s a slow burn, errs more on the side of drama, and features a relatively ambiguous ending that keeps you guessing.

Deadgirl I hated this movie. Most films that feature necrophilia are tongue-in-cheek, or at the very least simply implied. This one isn’t. A couple of teens decide to skip school and, naturally, make their way to an abandoned hospital to drink, smoke and be stereotypical hooligans. Throughout the course of their exploration they come across a girl tied to a table. Presumably dead, they fuck it. Then they shoot it. Then they learn she’s not really dead, but in fact something that resembles what we would consider a zombie. They fuck it some more. Then when she dries up (as even the pseudo-dead are wont to do), they fuck the bullet hole. Absolute revulsion ensues. My distaste for damn near everything in the film aside, I can’t help but admire the unique spin the obviously fucked-in-the-head filmmakers put on a common trope.

The Revenant (review) I caught this film first at Fantastic Fest then at the Denver Film Festival. I’m fairly certain writer/director D. Kerry Prior was drunk during the former’s Q&A. The Revenant centers around war vet Bart who, despite being killed in the Middle East can’t seem to stay dead. During the day he “passes out,” and at night he is reanimated. When awake, he must drink blood or he becomes incredibly weak. A key moment in the film involves a discussion with his best friend Joey over what exactly he is. The terms zombie and vampire are thrown around until they settle upon a Revenant, an amalgamation of the two. Despite being a bit on the long side and going from buddy horror/comedy to a more serious film, Prior made a darkly funny movie that poked a bit of fun at the living dead.

Make Out With Violence (review) If you read my review you will see I was not too fond of this film. Way too long, and more or less a giant music video, it deals with the disappearance and discovery of young Gwendolyn Hearst, who has for reasons unexplained in the film been tied to a tree and reanimated as a zombie. Two brothers who were friends with her when she was alive find her and take her home, and as the story progresses we’re treated to what can only be described as a coming-of-age teen comedy that deals with life, love and the living dead. Although not technically a zombie film in, well, any sense of the word, it manages to take a common theme found in movies – teenage love, friendship, etc – and center it around one of the brother’s lingering affections for Gwendolyn when she was alive. My personal distaste for the film aside, I admire the scope of the film and what it attempted to do, I just felt it wasn’t executed in the right way.

If you have seen Triangle by Chris Smith, for the love of God shoot me an e-mail with your explanation. I haven’t seen a mindfuck like that since Primer.

Last night (2/13) at 10 PM, MTV kicked off a seven week movie series, affectionately referred to as “Home is Where the Horror Is,” with the dreadful Paris Hilton vehicle House of Wax. Although kicking off with a terrible remake starring a chlamydia-infested socialite who got famous for being a chlamydia-infested socialite, four of the seven movies on the list are actually movies I would consider taking time out of my day to watch.

The schedule is as follows.

13-Feb   HOUSE OF WAX

20-Feb   THE AMITYVILLE HORROR

27-Feb   LAND OF THE DEAD

6-Mar   THE HILLS HAVE EYES

13-Mar  SLITHER

20-Mar  DEEP BLUE SEA

26-Mar  HOUSE OF THE DEVIL

Working under the presumption that the first two and fourth film are the remakes, the inclusion of Land of the Dead, Slither, Deep Blue Sea, and especially House of the Devil actually make me grin a shifty grin of amusement. I would have expected films like Prom Night, or Sorority Row, to appeal to the base demographic of the channel. Which is fine. They have a job to do and appealing to dyed-in-the-wool horror fans is probably not on their list of things to do. But they threw me for a loop, throwing in a mix of gory remakes, cheesy zombie flicks, comedies, pseudo-cult classics, and a new and incredibly well-received bonafide horror film.

Whether or not the films will be edited to appease the parents of MTV’s core demographic is anyone’s case, though one can easily be led to believe they won’t be, as this promo demonstrates. It features scenes from House of Wax, they’re graphic, and it opens with Paris Hilton gettin’ all stabbed and shit.

Someone at MTV has the right idea. Kudos. Tune in, especially if you haven’t seen House of the Devil. I wasn’t too fond of it, but no self-respecting horror fan should go without seeing it.

MTV, if you’re listening, here are some recommendations for your next horror installment, should you choose to do so. Whether or not you can acquire the rights to air any of these films is none of my concern. Just do it. For the fans. And for me. ‘Cause I asked politely. Kinda.

The Burrowers (review)
Session 9 (review)
[REC]
Pontypool

Just a thought.

Director: Rick Jacobson
Year: 2009
Country: USA

I am not familiar with exploitation films. My modus operandi is the cinematic output of the past decade or so, with a few older films sneaking in from time to time to remind me just why I got into horror in the first place. As a result, I am unable to compare Bitch Slap, the throwback to said films by Rick Jacobson. Jacobson brings with him years of experience directing schlock, with shows such as Baywatch, Xena: Warrior Princess, and movies such as Bloodsport VI and VIII taking up a noticeable chunk of space on his curriculum vitae. As such, I have no basis of comparison for his cleavage laden foray into 70s nostalgia. This is probably a good thing, as I was able to eschew constant comparisons to classic exploitation films and just lose myself in breasts, bad acting and sexual euphemisms.

Bitch Slap follows three sexy femme fatales as they seek to recover $200 million dollars in diamonds from a drug kingpin that have been stashed in a remote area of the desert. There’s Hel, the self-imposed leader of the group; Camero, the bad ass with severe trust issues; and Trixie, the naive stripper brought along for the ride by Hel, much to Camero’s chagrin. Their little desert adventure is made all the more tumultuous by the intrusions of a nosy local cop, the very likely possibility that they’re being hunted by several drug kingpins, Camero’s desire to kill Trixie every five minutes, and the fact that they don’t know where the diamonds are actually hidden. As the sun beats down, alliances shift and harsh truths are revealed, resulting in one Hell of a wild ride. And cleavage. Lots and lots of cleavage.

The beauty of Bitch Slap lies not in its bevy of buxom beauties bouncing around in almost no clothes, but in the fact that it actually sports something that resembles a coherent plot. The story is intricate enough to keep your attention, providing enough back story, albeit in a fairly convoluted manner, to make the actions and progression of the story more than just an excuse to show skin. It certainly took me by surprise, and actually caused me to overlook the dreadful acting from time to time. Sort of. The abundance of tits might have helped as well.

Shockingly enough, there were only a few brief moments of exposed cleavage, mostly relegated to strippers, with the main characters remaining PG-13 for the duration of the film. That’s not to say these three lassies, one of which resembled a dude in the right light and another who is a bonafide cougar,  didn’t put on a show. Much of the action in the film was spent stroking the hypersexualized mind of the male audience, with scenes that included fights with seemingly bottomless buckets of cold water and making out with each other in scenes that could rival the softcore porn you might find on late night Cinemax. In between this was rapid-fire dialogue so loaded with euphemisms you’re likely to let slip during a heated moment with your significant other and call her vagina an axe wound.

Is Bitch Slap a good movie? No. Is it a fun movie? Shit yes. The almost-cartoonish gore, relatively engaging plot that keeps you guessing, and hilarious dialogue spouted by laughably bad actors results in two hours of mind-numbing enjoyment on par with one of the better Roland Emmerich films, like Independence Day.