Call Back

Not since Neighbors has a soundtrack completely killed a movie for me. The script was good. The main actors were good. The directing was good BUT...

Some sub-pretentious idiot who was given a "Classical Music For Dummies" CD walked in and said, "Ya know what'd class this picture up? Classsssical Mee-ewsic!" Add proceeded to put every song from Classical Music For Dummies on the soundtrack. Only Bolero at the beginning made any sense as a clever throwback to the movie 10.

It made me hate this otherwise 6-7 star movie and give it a 3.

Seriously - get a not-stupid music guy and rescore the whole thing. Listen to Mahler's 5th, for instance.

GRRRRR!

Levi (Rob Benedict from 'Felicity'), a cocky horror movie director who made a splash with his first movie, hopes to seduce the actress he's letting think is up for the lead role of his newest film. He invites her back to his place for a 'call back', once there she turns the tables on him with her girlfriend whom he ridiculed earlier at the casting call.

This film goes on far too long (a good 15 minutes or more could've been trimmed down from it) and for most of the movie I lacked any sympathy for any of the characters and as such didn't really care what happened to any of them. If I hadn't found this on Instant Netflix one night, I really doubt I would've bothered going out of my way to see it in the least. The ladies aren't too hard on the eyes, so the nudity bumps it up a star, but trust me the film's nothing special.

Eye Candy: Chase Monroe gets topless, as does another unknown actress (Also Chantelle Barry's right breast pops out at one point early in the film but it's edited out with a black bar)

My Grade: D

I have to say, I read the Netflix reviews which were so-so and saw the low score on here, and had some trepidation when I streamed it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It's clearly a low-budget film, but, for what it was, it was done very well. Having worked as a grip in the industry, I'd guess this movie was made for under a million dollars, and they seemed to squeeze everything out. Despite there being only one real location, the shots weren't repetitive and I was never bored with how the film looked. Some of the gore is great, and the acting is pretty solid, most particularly from the lead, Levi, who was very strong as a stereotypical LA director ass. Movie is, for the most part, quite well-paced, and the elevation of torture levels goes beyond what I expected to see. It's a slow burn with classical music, so if you're looking for "Saw" and fancy fat-cutting editing, this isn't what you're going for. But if you like good torture, pretty girls performing that torture, and a nice back and forth with plot, you'll enjoy this film.

I am still a fan of the "torture porn" sun-genre of horror and found this film to be one of the best films of that genre.

Although I hated Levi I still felt horrible for him as the two lesbian actresses tortured him and performed the horrible things from Levi's film VICE. The story did a great job of taking the character development and switching the sympathy from the actresses to Levi.

The torture scenes were well executed. Rob Benedict screamed and cried as he was abused and hurt by the actresses more believably than any actor I've seen since Michelle Tomlinson, in THE CELLAR DOOR. The special f/x were executed in a "minimalist" but effective fashion.

All in all, I'd recommend this film. It is definitely a decent hybrid of the "rape revenge" and the "torture porn" sub-genres of horror.