She Kills

I picked up She Kills at Family Video. I was happy to find it and gave it a spin. I liked the film for the most part. One of the selling points was the tribute to the old style grindhouse movies. It was also my biggest problem with the film. Director Ron Bonk tried so hard to be a certain type of film he forgot to make this one more his own. It is like a greatest hits of scenes from other films I have seen. But they did it first and they were original. There have been many films it seems trying to do this type of tribute film. It's all one scene after another copied from better movies with a bunch of animated digital scratches thrown on it. Ron's film is better than most. I think he knows about these types of films and maybe even experienced them. But I also feel that this style he chose overall kind of hurts the film. She Kills has enough crazy and original ideas that it did not need the gimmicks. I really loved the Sadie character and I think Jennie Russo did a very good job. Overall the acting is in pace with the story and the overall feel of the film. It is over the top. Some of it is fun and pretty well done while some is a bit annoying.

Taking inspiration from films like "Thriller: They Call Her One Eye" and many exploitation films of the 70s, She Kills moves at a good pace and has good technical quality. The sound design is fun in places and the acting, while not great, is fun and ads to the insanity. It's a wild ride to be sure, and one that I intend to take again when I rewatch the film. There is so much going on, I am sure I missed some of the gags. Action moves pretty quickly and the lighting is really good as well. I have to hand it to Ron and his team for going places many films only hint at, without making me regret watching. It's still all in fun. So many films today seem to just push atrocities in my face and tell me it is entertainment. It's not. It is disgusting and I turn it off. Ron keeps things fun and light, no matter how nasty it gets.

Ron Bonk also did one of my two favorite Hi-8 segments so I am looking forward to what he does next. After the disappointing Empire State of the Dead, I feel he is back on track with this film. It is a good movie to watch with friends who are open minded and get a laugh out of movies like this. In the end, I was entertained and that is what we watch movies for. I gave it 5, and would have gone a bit higher if so much of this didn't feel stolen from other films. But I give it an A for effort! Makes a nice triple bill with Night of Something Strange and Dreaming Purple Neon. All films that express love for an age of cinema sadly long gone. And all of them, like this movie, are really crazy movies where anything can happen, and probably will.

I'm gonna be absolutely honest here. I only watched 15 minutes of this. It is some of the most ridiculous acting I have come across in a really long time. When I started it and realized that it was going to be rough, I allowed it the 15 minutes to at least give it a chance. I just couldn't do it. I've seen 3 year old kids act better than this. This is supposed to be a rape revenge film but I've seen chihuahua's rape stuffed animals more viciously than this!

I have absolutely no idea how this has a 6.3 rating. I hate when I read reviews that talk about fake scores but this film is one of the first films that I've come across and can honestly say that folks have been REALLY, REALLY, REALLY generous with their ratings.

If you want to take your chances on it, by all means, do so. If you do start it, you are a real trooper if you can make it past 15 minutes in. You've been warned!!

This movie is clearly a satire on the grindhouse genre. It has a lot of clever parts to it and I really wanted it to turn out better than it did. The problem is not in the ideas, but it is in the consistent execution. I like the over-the-top dramatic acting, except sometiimes the characters aren't over-the-top. I like the laughs from the "poor editiing." These remind me of old Benny Hill sketches with poor editing. These laughs come occasionally and are the best part. A lot of the other laughs aren't very funny. They are just gross or they are just stupid people saying stupid things.

I'm glad I watched this one, but I would never watch it again.

This has to be the worst movie ever made in English.

This parody to 70's Grindhouse movies is good. Yes. There are scenes that made a lot of reviewers very uncomfortable, that they were unable to watch the entire film. Those scenes of sexual assault in She Kills, were made with a comedy element. Not like the scenes with the movies "Thriller :A Cruel Picture, AKA They Call Her One Eye, I Spit On Your Grave, Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom and other sexploitation movies that didn't tone down the sexual assaults. Those two movies that I mentioned, those sexual assault scenes were brutal. Here in She Kills, they took a lighter touch and even paid homage to Thriller with the eye patch as well as other exploitation and mainstream movies. The sexual in nature scenes were more of a comedy gross factor, than making the viewers think that this could be an actual assault taking place on film. The filmmakers and the actors are all in on the joke. They know it's a bad movie and they put their all of the worst into it. With double stand-ins, burned film, the dialogs doesn't switch up with the actor's mouths, the use of a dog and a cat being used as weapons for a fight, the use of not to scale models of buildings, roads and cars. There are even scenes with the crew in the shot.

It's a funny film. You have to stay with it. It doesn't go down easy, but you will laugh and groan at the same time.