Plank Face

"Plank Face" is a strange horror movie that largely eschews scares and gore in favour of sex and nudity. It takes a run at doing something that I think is fairly unique, or would be, if it had been pulled off a little better.

For a "unique" film, it opens with stunningly familiar material, in which we see the bad guys kill some people. Slashers so often begin with this - think "Scream" and "Halloween". If that's not familiar enough, it even ticks off the most famous of the horror movie "rules": having sex gets you killed.

The movie then lurches into more unfamiliar territory, with a credit sequence that, unlike its opening scene, does not seem to belong to a typical slasher. We are introduced to the protagonist, a hipster-slash-outdoorsman, and his girlfriend, who are hiking through the woods. There, they run into another hipster-type, who chokes out the protagonist (in a fairly unrealistic scene). The protagonist comes to, and finds the other hipster raping his girlfriend. He promptly murders her.

None of this is as shocking as you'd expect; it just doesn't connect. It's handled unbelievably, and I think a large part is the pacing: this all happens before you know what's what.

Next, the young man is imprisoned by some yahoos who live out in the woods. First, they torture him by hammering a nail into his foot - which also seems pretty unrealistic as there's not enough blood or pain from the actor - and then they force him to eat offal.

Soon - much too soon, I might add - our hipster/outdoorsman is a happy member of the tribe, if that's what it is.

Throughout the ordeal he never loses his cover-boy sheen, as though the hut these people live in is actually on the beaches of Malibu. You would expect some kind of physical transformation to go with his caveman-like regression. You don't get it, unless you count the titular Plankface, and constant nakedness.

Why does the protagonist fall in line with these cannibal freaks so quickly? Was the part at the beginning with the rapist-hipster supposed to show that he had something caveman-like in his nature?

The plot of the film is different; the handling, unfortunately, is not different enough.

At the end of "Plank Face," my first reaction was a shrug and a "huh." That's because there was really nothing interesting, new, creative or particularly coherent to latch onto. There was lots of sex, but nothing titillating or sexy. Some gore, but nothing amazing or over the top. And the story itself used several horror tropes that have been used dozens of times already.

The version I watched was on ScreamBox, and it started off with an associate producer who also did costumes, makeup, acting, etc, talking about how much fun the cast and crew had making the film and how hard they worked and basically pleading PLEASE LIKE OUR MOVIE. This desperate cry for acceptance didn't sit well with me and set it up for failure in my eyes right off the bat. But I still tried to keep an open mind because there were enough positive reviews to make me curious. So here we go.

Enter young couple having sex on the hood of their car in the woods. In short order, they are axed to death by a guy in a wooden mask. Next scene, it's now daylight, and we see another young couple in the woods. The young man is attacked from behind by another guy who puts the sleeper hold on him until he finally conks out as a woman in a bunny mask watches from behind a tree. The boyfriend then awakes to see his girlfriend being raped by the guy. As the girl is fighting back, he slams her head on the ground and my assumption was she was unconscious, but maybe he killed her? Anyway, the boyfriend-instead of yelling stop or running toward his girlfriend currently being assaulted-he slowwwwly walks up behind the rapist with a really big rock and hits him over the head with it. This slightly stuns the rapist, and the boyfriend-again, instead of like, pulling the rapist off his girlfriend and seeing if she's okay-just kind of stands there staring at the rapist as he regains his concentration. The rapist then starts talking some kind of nonsense that I couldn't hear because the audio was too poor then the boyfriend takes the rapists' knife, plunges it up into where the sun don't shine and then slashes his throat. He then begins to walk off. SUDDENLY...

The boyfriend is waking up shirtless in a cabin bound and gagged. What?? Just like that. Complete change of everything without even the benefit of a fade-out. So far I'm not appreciating the skill of the editor. So bunny face girl is there with her mother along with the axe murderer in Scene 1. While those three start fooling around, boyfriend gets himself loose and escapes, but is caught by grandma, who speaks in a weird mountain language. I suspect she is Nell all grown.

Well let me Cliffs Notes this for you...boyfriend gets indoctrinated into their ways and replaces the axe murder who suddenly dies but we don't know how or why he just does.

I can't say I was crazy about this film. In trying to think of something positive, I give it a couple of points for the quality of the photography, although the audio was problematic. The special effects were fine, but not amazing.

Of the negatives, the acting was subpar, but in fairness, the actors had little to work with. The script-oh the script-what there was. There wasn't a lot of conversation or discussion. It was either Granny Nell's clucking, various screaming or the dialogue that was spoken was difficult to hear. And the editing absolutely high school level. The biggest issue I had were the gaping plot holes, lack of logic and no exposition at all. I had lots of questions. For instance: does anyone ever miss all these people who are dying in the woods? Cause they really seem to be killing a lot of people.

But, I did manage to make it all the way through. I got pretty bored early on and just really never cared about the protagonist. The best I can do is a 4.

Good start but went down right from where it begins to be interesting. No story and too many flaws makes this film trash. I was disappointed hoping something will be interesting to come up but it goes worst as the film proceeds. It was a waste of time invested. 4/10.

As Descartes opined, man (and thus his mores) is essentially the sum of his past experiences. Plank Face is premised on whether a traumatic experience wipe out that person and and more pertinently his mores. Indie director Scott Schirmer poses this question in a well paced suspenceful admospheric woodlands setting, done largely through excellent cinematography using very little dialogue (reminiscent of Hagazussa). The suspense is retained by the question remaining open to the very end. The traumatic event could have been counted over a great period of time which would have added Greater realized, but all and all, a great film done on a lower than $ 10 000 budget.

No pun intended - and I may be exaggerating with the genius part ... maybe. But it is a movie where I think you won't have no feelings about. You'll either be fully on board or you will hate this. Yes I think that it will make you feel strong about it! No doubt about that.

Because the movie - well it is more than just a horror movie. More than a slasher - if you even would call it that. Because while it may look that way in the beginning - well you will find out quite quickly, there is more to it. And there is some foreshadowing to the main character. And boy he is brave ... he goes places ... I am not sure many would have the ... well you know what to do what he does. If I said tennis balls, would it make sense and not be offensive? We'll find out I assume. One thing is for sure, the movie has a lot of nudity, but also a lot of sick stuff ... this is definitely not for the sensitive people out there ... legacy? Maybe ... but definitely psychologically complex ...