Leaving Scars

"Diane Carlson" (Lisa Boyle) is an actress who just happens to be attending a party in Hollywood when a friend of hers named "Bianca Wallace" (Linda Lee) quickly approaches and asks for the keys to her car. While Diane is giving them to her, Bianca also puts something into Diane's pants pocket prior to rushing out. More concerned with other issues she doesn't bother to look to see what Bianca gave her. Neither does she see the gun pointed at Bianca from the man she leaves with. While all of this is going on Diane's boyfriend is cheating on her in one of the bedrooms which causes Diane to become ill and rush to the bathroom. When she gets there she sees a man by the name of "Michael Taylor" (Robin Downs) passed out by the toilet and because of the drugs and alcohol she has recently ingested she soon joins him on the bathroom floor. Neither of them realize that their lives are to become very quickly intertwined in the deadly drama that is soon to enfold. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that Lisa Boyle does an outstanding job as the self-absorbed actress whose world is about to slide out-of-control. I also liked the manner in which the bad guys were depicted as the scum that they really were. Be that as it may, although some scenes were a bit too unrealistic, I still thought it was a fairly enjoyable movie and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

There is no way to do this movie justice. It is quite simply the worst piece of filmmaking that has ever been released, straight to DVD. The characters are so flat they can be equated to a 6th century view of the earth's shape. The actors take the movie far too seriously. Geoffrey Stewart who played Leo Goldman, is the worst offender. He looks desperate, like this is his big shot to get into Hollywood. The other actors pretty blatantly know that it's a poor script and will be poor movie. Stewart on the other hand manages to come off as a failed actor who got one chance on screen and came into the role totally misreading the role. I have never seen anyone stand out so much in a B movie as being the worst actor. Usually, the actors are all equally bad, but this is not the case with Stewart. The plot in the movie is incomprehensible, and the dialogue is so monumentally bad it hurts. I will never watch anything this bad again, goodbye brain cells, I'll miss you.

First of all, you won't find the cover image, or anything quite like it in the movie, itself. Dianna (Lisa Boyles) becomes a target after one of her friends meets a violent end. The thugs are after a stolen computer disk, and they'll kill most of the cast to get it. The acting is so-so, and there is a plot, although it gets watered down a little with gratuitous sex scenes (good, if you like that sort of thing, otherwise they're an opportunity to raid the fridge). The DVD image quality and audio quality (on this side of the DVD) are OK. Although there was some poor acting, the script left something to be desired, and the movie dragged a little in some places, overall, it was entertaining. If you're looking for a lot of nude scenes, you'll be disappointed. The "effects" are pretty good, in that they don't try to show things that are going to look really fake. The gory scenes leave a lot to your imagination, and that works, for the most part.

In summary: I really wanted to see Lisa in those zip-thru pants, but otherwise the movie wasn't bad, for a B movie.

Lisa Boyle is beautiful, looks great with a gun (too bad she gets to use one only at the very end), her acting is OK and she deserves a better vehicle than this low-budget thriller, where she plays an aspiring LA actress who gets hold of a computer disk that some bad guys are after. Although the film is amateurishly directed, it is at least a step up from some other entries in the "Women Who Kick Butt" DVD box set, as the cinematography is more competent and the sound can actually be heard almost all the time. But perhaps the most amusing part of this DVD is that it includes an audio commentary (!), and a very casual and unorthodox one at that. The producer and the director order and eat a pizza as they are commenting (!), they explain how they tried to work around the problem of their low budget (although the film is set in LA, most of it was shot in Boston), and they're not afraid to poke fun at their film or even at themselves. I give the film *1/2 out of 4, but one extra half-a-star for the commentary.