DONKEY PUNCH (R) *1/2
Directed by Olly Blackburn. 99 minutes.
Starring Robert Boulter,
Olly Blackburn’s Donkey Punch is a nasty little number, just as grim and trashy as its title would suggest. I’m sure you’ll be able to find those out there who will defend it as a feminist horror film and they could likely lay out a reasonable argument, and certainly one less dunderheaded than the defenders of such grade zilch garbage like I Spit On Your Grave. But, my question is if this film is supposed to empower its female characters against the sleazy, abusive and exploitative males in the story, then how do the filmmakers justify the gratuitious sex scene that, I would argue, is supposed to be titillating and the portrayal of two of the three women in the film as slutty. Of course, there is the third girl, Tammi (Nichola Burley), who plays the stereotypical archetype of the horror film good girl. In fact, her character seems so hell bent on not having a good time that she is nearly as distracting as her trampy friends, who are played by Sian Breckin and Jaime Winstone.
The setup is simple. The three British gals, vacationing in
The impulse of the four men is to immediately cover up the situation, while the two girls sit and look forlorn. The boys decide to toss the girl’s body overboard and tensions begin to rise. Eventually, all hell breaks loose as the two factions – the remaining two girls who want to right the wrong against their dead friend and the guys, who just want to forget the whole thing ever happened – begin to clash. It gets ugly. A knife is planted in a shoulder blade and a flare gun is used to full effect. Later, a motor is applied in a most gruesome way, while a piece of glass is removed from a knee in the film’s most cringe-inducing moment. The film is a gruesome little item, and it appears that director Olly Blackburn believes he is taking the horror genre to another level simply by pitting boy versus girl, as Prince might tell it, in the world series of Grand Guignol.
But if the film is a so-called Thinking Person’s Horror Film, then it is in setup only. In fact, there is little to disassociate it from any of the other numerous (and, at this point, I really mean, numerous) grotesques on display at least five to ten times per year at the local multiplex. The film is there to provide two things: hot bodies in little attire and a body count. Social context, not so much. The further along the film goes, the more preposterous its situation and characters become. A character who is already a bona fide creep suggests another sexual tryst as well as posting the film’s central sequence on the Internet even after things have gone horribly wrong earlier in the film. The purpose of this, of course, is to make he and all his compatriots just as heinous as possible, therefore justifying his grim demise later in the picture. The film’s violence is realistic; its characters, well…
There are aspects of Donkey Punch to praise. It looks pretty good and is fairly tense. Its performances are passable, but the film’s opening ten minutes or so are extremely difficult to hear due to blaring British pop music. The film’s leads are good looking, despite the fact that many of them will be reduced to little more than chopped sirloin during the course of the picture. Shallow, perhaps, but these half-naked sacrificial lambs are onscreen apparently for this purpose alone. Each of them is definable by one trait – self serving, conscientious, wild, addicted, etc. They follow the rules of this genre – flee or pursue. The New Year has, so far, been littered (a good word, if I may say so myself) with horror films – The Unborn, My Bloody Valentine and this. So far, I’m not impressed and there are many more to go, from a Friday the 13th and Last House on the Left remake to next week’s The Uninvited. The bar, so far, is set low.