the jaded viewer

Sick Girl

Sick Girl (2009)

Directed by Eben McGarr

The anticipation I had for Sick Girl is easily documented. The PSA trailer is black humor genius. So it was my assumption we'd get the same tone for the movie. We'd see a sadistic serial killer, with a dark sense of humor killing for illogical reasons and ending in a pinnacle of extreme violence.

Well sometimes what you think in your head comes out way cooler than what you see in the movie.

Sick Girl does have moments of gore and splatter that gorehounds would vote in the sick shit Hall of Fame. Izzy is easily one of the most demented serial killers ever to come to life on film. Her acts of brutality are so shocking it's hard to put in words (don't worry I'll try). But that's the extent of wow factor. The story, the characters and the acting are a little boring and the ending a little blah.

So what does this all equal? Sick Girl accomplishes what it set out to do. Make you wince, make you sick and definitely makes you feel uncomfortable.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Sick Girl is the story of Izzy, a girl that wants to protect her little brother, bang her older brother and torture everyone else out in the barn. Izzy is raising her younger brother, Kevin, by herself.

Their parents are deceased and her older brother, Rusty, (who she has incestuous fantasies about), is away in the Marines. When Izzy learns that her little brother is being bullied at school, she does what any unstable, psychopathic, homicidal sister (with no impulse control) would do.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's get the inevitable comparisons out of the way. Sick Girl closely resembles Eric Stanze's Scrapbook which is the pinnacle of indie horror fuckedupness. It's serial killing, done in Rural Town, USA and the mundane turning insane.

Shot on video and armed with a shoestring budget McGarr shows us the simple story of Izzy (short for Isabella) and her life when she's sane and her life when she's insane. The tragedy here is Sick Girl is like 65% normal life, and 35% looney tunes. As a jaded viewer, I've seen shit most people would think warrants prison. So if McGarr's first feature is designed to shock, he's got to get over that 50% threshold of amping his movie with 1 and half hour energy drink of fuckedupness.

Sick Girl almost plays out like a porn movie. Think of this as "Gorn". Each normal scene sets up a scene of pure, uncensored torturous gore and splatter. As much as you'd like to fast forward and get to the good stuff, you feel the need to watch the set up. I mean technically it's not necessary but for horror, its best to know the motivation for the kill scenes.

So what do we see when Izzy isn't maiming and going all Jigsaw?

Izzy has flashbacks of her brother training on some kung fu
Izzy tickles and plays with her little brother
Izzy visit's her brother's teacher
Izzy has Christmas gift exchange with her brother and her late father's best friend Barney
Izzy rides with a stranger who gives her a lift
Izzy has flashbacks of her late brother and his GF

As much as these scenes are suppose to give us some insight into Izzy's head...it actually doesn't do shit. We all know Izzy is mentally unstable and we, the viewer are here to see her be mentally unstable. Its like watching a movie that's designed to shock and punch you mentally in the face nards. So what are these WTF moments that closely resemble gorn?


Read on gorn-hounds!

Izzy pees on a nun
Izzy slits a dude's throat
Izzy goes postal on a school bus
Izzy kisses her brother (incest alert!)
Izzy makes a tweeny boy kill his BFFs (by making him drown and stab them)
Izzy holds survivors hostage in a barn
Izzy smashes tweeny bully's head with a sledgehammer
Izzy makes the hostages pee in a bucket
Izzy breaks tweeny boy's arm and dresses him as a Christmas tree
Izzy castrates a dude
Izzy rapes a girl with dude's castrated penis (yeah you read that right)

So like seeing an orgy of flesh, we see an orgy of death. And I'm not going to lie, it's truly disturbing to witness such depravity and uber violence especially coming from Izzy. Which goes to say something about Leslie Andrew's performance. At times, the dialogue she recites sounds like a 3rd grade play, at other times she delivers lines that amp up and portray a very disturbed Manson like killer. The times we do see what was promised by the PSA trailer of trademarked black humor, is the time Andrew's performance generates some comfortable ha ha's and LOLs. She's got that Ellen Page Hard Candy look that can make you fall in love. A hooded sweatshirt, short hair can only equal somebody who is a sadistic little monster and for some unknown reason it's slightly infatuating. Izzy's little brother Kevin (Charlie Trepany) does a decent job playing the lovable innocent as does Barney (John McGarr) who plays a pseudo father figure to both Barney and Izzy.

But whereas indie shock horror goes beyond the usual torture porn is when we sense the motives of the slasher are developed. I can watch the movie 2-3 more times and I still wouldn't understand why Izzy has gone all ballistic (though at the end, some reason is given). Did she snap? Is she reveng-ing everybody who she hates or has ridiculed her and her family? Does she hate the Marines? Does she hate farm animals? Trust me, it's not clear at all.

Sick Girl is gorn at its finest. But an awesome movie it is not. It falls right in place in the middle and as much as I tried to find something that could give it a better "ooomph" in the spinkick department, I could not. I mean when was the last time you went, "that sex scene in that porno is awesome...I gotta share this with others." See what I mean?

Sick Girl is mock and shock movie that purees mundane Americana and unrelenting violence into a cocktail of visual splatter overdrive. Eben McGarr is clearly going to not make a movie as insane as this, I'm hoping he doesn't. But the one thing Sick Girl has accomplished, it's making sure you feel dirty after watching it.

Just like porn.

Gore-ipedia

See Izzy's list of torture

Nude-ipedia

It's not porn..it's gorn!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Straight out of Synapse Films, Sick Girl is now out on DVD. It's also available on Amazon.com. Check out the MySpace site for more info.

If you are a fringe fan of extreme horror, I'd say go watch Sick Girl. It would definitely be a movie that would be traded for back before DVDs and the Interwebs. I would even go as far to say that it may reach cult classic status like Scrapbook has.

The MySpace site has a nice interview with Leslie Andrews which is definitely worth a listen.

So in conclusion, if you don't feel like porn, watch some gorn. And Sick Girl is the perfect movie for it.

Rating:

Check out the trailers.

Sick Girl "Thank You For Not Talking" PSA

Teaser Trailer




The Trailer



Tags:
sick girl, sick girl trailer , sick girl review , 2009 horror movies, leslie andrews, 2009 horror dvd, splatter movies, horror blog

Labels: gore, gratuitous nudity, incest death squad, juno, sick girl, sick girl psa trailer, sick girl teaser, sick girl trailer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Incest Death Squad

Incest Death Squad (2009)

Directed by Corey Udler

Well if you're reading this review, you probably realized that my quote is on the cover of the DVD box.

Yup, it's right damn in front in bold freakin letters it reads:

"Are you going to hell if you see this movie? Probably so."

I still stand by that quote. Because after watching Incest Death Squad, you really are going to hell if you see this flick. It's probably what right wing, Christian conservatives will tell you but I'm sure they've never seen a Rated R flick in their lives. But seriously, I've never seen a film which casually displays religious iconography and then counters it with a brother and sister soaked in blood while going all incesty.

Yes folks. Incest Death Squad has incest, it has death and it has a squad. Not necessarily in that order.

IDS is a mixed bag of screwball comedy, Tromaville humor, perverse exploitation and some wicked foreplay. But it also has a few moments of lag, some shaky camera shots and a letdown of an ending.

So you take the good and the bad and you come out with a modern day exploitation film that fucks with your head but leaves no traumatic scarring to the most jaded viewer. And my hype for the film was just that. I was hoping Udler would push the proverbial 'sploitation frontier and take it to the next level. Sort of like where Nekromantik took that other fetish that should not be named.

So want to head to hell as well? Keep reading.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Meet Jeb and Amber Wayne, an incestuous brother and sister who have been given a message from God. KILL ALL TOURISTS.

Meet, AaronBurg, a big city newspaper reporter sent to the Northwoods of Wisconsin to get a story on Chronic Wasting Diseas. What Aaron doesn't know is that his life will soon be turned into an orgy of bloodlust at the hands of the Waynes.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

So with a title called Incest Death Squad you're going to get my attention. I mean how do you treat the first word with anything but disdain and disgust. With necrophilia and bestiality as the other parts of the trio of fuckedupness, you really have to either go with an artsy fartsy approach, be a bizzare comedy or go all grindhouse.

Here IDS goes 2 of 3 by adding comedy to such an exploitation bonanza. The movie is set up in two parallel storylines, one involving Jeb (Greg Johnson) and Amber (Carmela Wiese) Wayne, our bro and sis children of God who use Amber's lusty vixen to lure dumb redneck fisherman to their deaths. The other storyline is one revolving around Aaron (Tom Lodewyck), our intrepid reporter as he digs for facts and meets a motel owner (Melissa Jo Murphy) as they venture off into a budding relationship.

The Jeb and Amber scenes are where we get our fix of horror. Jeb is a minister of death and is the one who invokes the Creator to fulfill his missions. But I really dug the performance by Wiese as Amber. She puts the I in IDS, playing a local Venus fly trap with her lusty sexpot advances on the man population. In the one penultimate scene that lives up to the "I" in the title, they get all down and naked covered in blood. It's not as gritty and sick as it seems but is highly uncomfortable.

In our comedy portion, we follow the slapstick adventures of Aaron and Andrea. Aaron, gets his assignments from a cameo from Lloyd Kaufman (complete with Poultrygeist branding on his shirt). It's pure Troma madness ("I want more dead hookers!") and Kaufman as the newspaper editor is his indie horror DIY best.

Aaron and Andrea scenes were mostly snoozy consisting of casual conversating and pizza eating. These scenes of very Troma-ish humor and visual aided ha ha's were ill timed and sometimes overplayed. I just didn't find any LOLs in Aaron's ineptitude. I mean this dude is hooking up with people left and right and playing the goofball. It felt a little imbalanced but the biggest thing that grinded my gears was towards the end where he encounters the squad.

It's the ending that could have been the complete WTF moment here. Jeb gets holy on a corpse and Amber wants to marry now hostage Aaron. Confused and bewildered, I was hoping we'd see these two get their comeuppance (but then there would be no IDS2). I felt we could have seen some serious carnage and total insanity. But it ended on a quiet whimper.

I think I totally overhyped this movie in my head after watching the trailer. So it didn't live up to my expectations but hell not a lot of movies do. Udler does a good job in his first feature flick taking a good concept and story and adding some comedy and vulgarity to the mix. Kudos to Udler for taking a chance on making a flick that defies all that is mainstreamy. I think he has a bright future in the indie horror scene.

Some of the performances were wicked, others not so much. However, Udler goes all Americana with the visuals of a small Wisconsin countryside. Because like I've said many times before, the USA is the best at making movies about the horrors of backwoods, USA.

Incest Death Squad is a film bent on making you uncomfortable, showering you with clean, goofy comedy than spewing you with disgusting visuals that make you want to stab your eyes out with a rusty scissor.

So should you watch it?

Probably so, but remember do not pass Go. You're going straight to hell and if even if you don't you're probably going to end up in jail.

Gore-ipedia

Snapped neck
Unseen weapon to the face
Bloody nose

Nude-ipedia

Amber boobage
Man parts

WTF moment

Jeb gets holy on one of the victims (wink wink)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Incest Death Squad will be at the Crypticon in Minneapolis from November 6th to 8th. It's also now available on DVD. Check out the official site, the MySpace page for more information.

I'd like to thank Cory Udler for the DVD and the quotable quote on the DVD cover. I've always dreamed one day a quote of mine would be on a DVD and now it has. Yay.

Will we see a IDS2? Most definitely from what I can tell. Here's hoping that the movie pushes the boundaries of all good taste. I'll be on the frontlines when that happens.

Rating:

jaded viewer related linkage:
Incest Death Squad (Trailer)
Incest Death Squad (DVD Release Date)

Tags:
incest death squad, incest death squad review , incest death squad trailer , horror movie 2009, exploitation movies, horror blog, gratuitous nudity

Labels: 2009 exploitation movies, 2009 grindhouse movies, 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror movies, exploitation film, grindhouse, incest death squad, incest death squad trailer, indie horror

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Can you believe it? I was speechless when Cory Udler, director of Incest Death Squad told me that my quote of a review of the trailer was on the cover of the DVD. I downloaded the cover art (see above) and there you see it right on the damn cover.


That was just freakin mega awesome. After watching the trailer, it's exactly how I felt. I mean incestploitation has gotta probably gotta be the last frontier of the exploitation genre (Sick Girl is a pseudo member too). But Incest Death Squad, filled with its blatant, in your face title and mindless annihilation of sinners by a brother and sister in love has gotta be breaking the fuckedupness boundaries.

I still haven't seen the flick, but I'm sure I'm going to get a copy soon so a real review is to come. My running gag here is if any of my quotes ever appeared on a DVD box, I would shut down the site. Rest assured that the site is still going to be up and running as this was a quote from a trailer review and NOT a quote from my reviews (yay for technicalities)

In the meantime, check out very quotable trailers by clicking here.

Below is from the official PR release of the DVD:

Cory J. Udler's Wisconsin shot tale of an incestuous brother and sister who kill tourists in the name of God has announced a release date for the DVD. Incest Death Squad (Shalenn Productions) will be available on DVD October 6th, 2009 from the film's official website www.incestdeathsquad.com. The film will also be available on pay per download sites and various locations across the country.

The film was shot from March 2009 through June 2009 and stars Tom Lodewyck (The Legend Trip, Pickman's Muse, Carniverous), Carmela Wiese, Greg Johnson and Melissa (Horrid) Murphy. It also boasts many horror celebrities including Troma president Lloyd Kaufman, Elske (Jessica Rabid) McCain, Scarlet Salem, George (Night of the Living Dead) Kosana and Sean Cain. 80's Hair Metal giants Britny Fox also make a cameo appearance in the film and lend their hit "Girlschool" to the film's soundtrack.

The DVD will include the feature, deleted scenes, interviews, behind the scenes footage, trailers and the online "rants" of Johnson's "Jeb Wayne" character.

Incest Death Squad will be making its world premiere October 2nd as the kickoff to the Madison Horror Film Festival at Market Square Theatres, 6604 Odana Road in Madison, at 9pm. Tickets to the premiere at $6.00 and are available at www.madisonhorror.com. Tickets for the screening are over half sold out.

"I thought long and hard about waiting on distribution", Udler says, "but at the end of the day, after we were turned down by the one company I thought was the perfect fit, I decided to just take it on myself. I don't want to sit on this film for another year waiting for someone to hand me a distribution deal. The film has a great following already and people want to see it."

Udler is distributing the film himself through the website and various local and nationwide outlets, none of which are huge chain stores.

"We are getting into smaller head shops and indy record stores, weird places where people who love good grindhouse film action can find the film. You're not going to find this at Best Buy and Blockbuster."

Udler is taking pre-orders for the DVD now at www.incestdeathsquad.com. The DVD sells for $10.00 with $2.00 for shipping and handling. The pre-orders being taken now will not be shipped out until October 6th, but as Udler says, "The DVD will be available at the screening in Madison on the 2nd and throughout that weekend. It'll be a good thing for fans, considering all of the film's stars will be there along with Elske (McCain) and Scarlet (Salem), a great opportunity to get everyone's autograph and then sell it for triple the price on Ebay."

Udler can be contacted at CoryJUdler@yahoo.com or at (920) 350 0014. He is available for interviews and appearances upon request.

Labels: 2009 exploitation movies, 2009 grindhouse movies, 70s grindhouse movies, exploitation, exploitation film, fangoria, grindhouse, incest death squad, incest death squad trailer, troma films

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I'm not doing my job correctly if I don't post stuff that's going to offend you. But then again, the hardcore horrorverse is un PC as can be so I'm basically preaching to the choir. So it's good to know that I can post some trailers of Cory Udler's film Incest Death Squad.

Yup you read that right, Incest Death Squad.

The exploitation craze keeps chugging along. I'm going to have to keep adding more movies to my Most Anticipated Exploitation/Grindhouse Movies of 2009. Starring Troma king Lloyd Kaufman and Elske McCain (who starred in another modern day exploit, Jessika Rabid) it seems we're not just rebooting rape and revenge, nunsploitation, and other grindhouse subgenres. Nope we gotta go with incestsploitation.

Well that's fuckin new.

So whose doing the incesting? Check out the plot below. Thanks to Fangoria for the heads up.

Incest Death Squad is the story of Jeb and Amber Wayne, an incestuous brother and sister who kill tourists in the name of God.

Check out the trailers below. The new July trailer looks better than the official trailer oddly enough. Are you going to hell if you see this movie? Hmm. Probably so.





The official trailer

Labels: 2009 exploitation movies, 2009 grindhouse movies, 70s grindhouse movies, exploitation, exploitation film, fangoria, grindhouse, incest death squad, incest death squad trailer, troma films

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post