Scorned

Mark Jones (Leprechaun) & Sadie Katz (House of Bad) have put together a really fun dark comedy.

The premise is simple, a pair of love birds head out for a romantic weekend but the plans are derailed when the boyfriend(Billy Zane) is found out to be a cheater. The girlfriend (AnnaLynne McCord) learns of the situation and becomes unglued and then the fun begins.

Many of Mark Jones films feature malevolent midget monsters but with Scorned Jones & Katz have created the monster girlfriend that every man should rightfully fear.

The movie is worth seeing just to watch AnnaLynne McCord (90210, Dallas) ratchet up the crazy!!!

Directed and co-written by Mark Jones, Scorned adds nothing new to a well worn sub-genre of horror, that of the vengeful female unleashing hell after becoming victim to infidelity etc. Approaching this with any sort of hope for a bar raiser will only induce a crushing disappointment, but if able to accept it on its formulaic terms then it's a good torture porn time waster.

Plot finds AnnaLynne McCord as the woman scorned, her beau, played by Billy Zane, has been cheating on her with her best friend, Viva Bianca. Caught out by incriminating text messages, she lures the cheaters to an idyllic retreat and subsequently tortures them at will. The narrative drip feeds a troubled childhood angle into the mix, while there's some twists and turns to keep things lively in the final third. Tech credits are more than adequate, while performances from the three principles also scrub up nicely for the material to hand. 6.5/10

Rich love-rat Kevin (Billy Zane) cheats on his girlfriend Sadie (AnnaLynne McCord) with her sexy BFF Jennifer (Viva Bianca). When Sadie rumbles the infidelity (after finding saucy text messages on Kevin's cellphone) she decides to teach the naughty pair a lesson they won't forget.

Halfway through Scorned and I was about to write the film off as a total failure, when I suddenly realised that the ridiculous script and overblown performances were intentional: I was actually watching a dark comedy! I guess the fact that I couldn't discern the film's intended nature for quite some time still makes it something of a failure, but after my epiphany, the rest of the movie proved far more bearable, with AnnaLynne McCord's performance being a master-class in OTT cinematic craziness.

With Sadie prancing around in her panties, sexy Jennifer showing us exactly how she managed to turn Kevin's head, some reasonably sadistic violence (including a nasty hobbling scene inspired by Misery), and the hilarious sight of an escaped convict, tattooed over his entire face, thumbing a lift in the rain, Scorned actually proved to be a reasonably fun way to waste some time. While not the finest title on Billy Zane's filmography, it's not the biggest embarrassment on it either (there are so many to choose from).

The acting is not so great, not at all, not by a long shot, like C or D-List acting, but the movie is so funny that it's impossible not to watch and enjoy. Storyline could have been much, much deeper, with better background and build-up, but I mean, you just can't help stay glued.

The movie begins with a corny song over a laughable text message conversation so I knew right away this wasn't going to be something I would want to brag about seeing. The plot is about a complete psycho (AnnaLynne McCord) who discovers her boyfriend (Billy Zane) is cheating on her with her best friend (Viva Bianca). So she ties them both up and spends the bulk of the movie threatening and torturing them.

AnnaLynne McCord, with her horrible Southern accent and tacky hair extensions, offers up an extremely campy performance. You will undoubtedly spend most of the time viewing this laughing your ass off at her. She seems to especially enjoy using profanity like a child who has just discovered dirty words. She's really the whole show here. Whether you find anything to like about this movie depends entirely upon how much you enjoy her bad acting. Well, whether it's bad or whether it's "so brilliant that you just think it's bad" is up to you to decide. I know which side of that I come down on.

Billy Zane, once a respectable actor, has become moviedom's biggest garbage man. He keeps appearing in trash and getting paid for it. Viva Bianca is the only reason I checked this out in the first place. She looks amazing, even with that terrible wig on. Sadly, she plays the whole thing straight like she believes she's in Fatal Attraction or Misery. Don't get me wrong -- her acting isn't bad. It's fine, actually. It's just that opposite the scenery-chewing AnnaLynne McCord, she maybe should have tried to play the part a little more tongue-in-cheek. The script and direction did her no favors anyway. Director Mark Jones appears to have the same amount of talent as you would expect from your average Lifetime TV movie director. The story here is full of clichés and offers nothing to interest your average viewer, who has probably seen a version of this story done before and better. As a thriller, it's pretty weak. As an unintentional comedy, it's good for some laughs. Go into it with the right expectations and you might enjoy it.