Dead Hooker in a Trunk

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.

Spiritual awakening in the scenic byways of western Canada...but only sort of.

Less extreme horror exploitation than a null-budget anarcho-punk statement from identical twin sister auteurs Jen & Sylvia Soska (a.k.a. Twisted Twins), DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK is the visual equivalent of lo-fi riot grrrl garage rock—mashing up Robert Rodriguez, Harmony Korine, Nick Zedd, Amos Poe, and Eli Roth, with an occasional whiff of Greg Araki.

The movie has to be taken on its own terms. In keeping with a homage to no wave and grindhouse esthetics, the Soskas apparently consider continuity to be cisgender heteronormative fascism imposed by imperialist capitalist elitism: exterior shots filmed before & after a snowstorm are spliced together; one character's severed limb randomly appears re-attached; it seems that a lead role had to be reinvented on the fly when the actress cast for the part didn't show up on set and the only available substitute was the cameraman. Some viewers can roll with this; others can't.

Still, the script is energetic, brutal, funny, often quite sparkling, albeit the actors mumble and stumble through any dialogue more complicated that "F*&K!"

The plot? There's a dead hooker in the trunk: roll camera and--ACTION!

More specifically: Geek, her severely hungover twin sister Badass, and Badass' equally hungover punk-rawk pal Junkie are giving Geek's friend Goody Two-Shoes a lift home from his Christian youth ministry when, en route, they discover that someone's stashed drugs and a corpse in the boot of Badass' car.

So...call the police? It's not like they had anything to do with it, right? Well, that's another problem--

BADASS: "Last night is really fuzzy..."

Thus the quartet, uncertain whether they're psycho-killers, have to find an informal way to ditch a cadaver in suburban Vancouver in broad daylight in winter--and pious Goody Two-Shoes demands they do so while respecting the dignity of the deceased. Plus, they're all being hunted by the real murderer or murderers.

Complications, mayhem, mutilations, homicides' 'n' hijinx, along with gratuitous everything and a cameo appearance by God, ensue.

It all hangs together—often barely—by dint of the Soska sisters' relentless fan-sensibility attitude.

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 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.

Four very different friends, including two sisters, find themselves in an epic predicament when, after a night of partying, they discover a dead hooker in the trunk of their car. While trying to find out just who she is and how she got their, the group encounter several crazy situations, including a serial killer who is hot on their trail.

The film is a breath of fresh air in its originality; it sheds all genre clichés to offer an unpredictable, and for the most part entertaining ride. The film blends several genres, one minute acting as a brutal grindhouse slasher, the next a buddy road trip comedy. I works and it's an accomplishment in itself that a film that attempts to be so many different things never loses focus. Despite this, the film is not as effective as it could have been. The characters are underwritten and unlikable. Their reactions to the situations they encounter are often inappropriate or unrealistic to the point of being distracting at points (after having an eyeball knocked out, exactly how long can one go with no medical attention and a piece of duct tape over the socket?) Still, Dead Hooker in a Trunk is a creative, ambitious first feature from the Soska sisters. With a tighter script and a bigger budget, they certainly could be forces within the genre.

FrightMeter Grade: B-