angelakenney-52982 Reviews

Shiva Baby (2020)

Funny and Anxiety Triggering

[8/10 · 27 July 2021]

Danielle is lost in the world without any job prospects or ideas about what she's going to do after college. Her only way of making money is through her relationship with her older lover and she spends tons of time fielding questions from her smothering parents and their friends when she attends a shiva for a family friend. What she doesn't expect to see is her lover and her ex-girlfriend in the same place at once which sends her down a spiral of anxiety for the rest of the evening.

Rachel Sennott plays Danielle with just the right amount of exhaustion, sass, and desperation. She's selfish and immature in the way most of us were at that age, but she never goes a bridge too far and takes us off her side.

While Shiva Baby is incredibly funny in parts, it's always an excellent cinematic depiction of anxiety, carefully ratcheting up the tension with every scene until we, too, feel we're in Danielle's shoes. It also doesn't overstay its welcome at under 80 minutes.

Braid (2018)

Unique Indie Horror Flick

[7/10 · 10 March 2021]

Petula and Tilda, two small time drug dealers, go on the run and decide to stop off at the isolated estate of their childhood friend, Daphne. Daphne's seclusion has turned her into a dangerous psychotic who insists on playing childish games all day long and, if Petula and Tilda don't want to get caught, they'll have to play along.

More of an exercise in style and shock over substance, Braid is a daring and often confounding indie horror/thriller. Madeline Brewer steals the entire film as Daphne, finding just the right balance between terror, camp, and pathos. It's an excellent performance and Braid is worth seeing for that alone.

The cinematography is gorgeous and the filmmakers use the crumbling mansion location to great effect. Pacing never drags much either which is surprising given that the majority of the film is a chamber piece between three characters and it's mostly confined to one location. In that sense, it feels much more like some long lost regional horror relic from the 70's, using whatever it has available to tell its story.

The script could stand to be tighter and it leaves us with maybe a few too many unanswered questions, but the experience of Braid as a whole is well worth your time.

Crawlspace (1986)

Kinski is Creepy

[7/10 · 6 January 2021]

A Nazi landlord of an apartment house rigs the space with all kinds of deadly booby traps to terrorize and kill his all-female tenants.

Crawlspace isn't much for nuance and, at 80 minutes, it doesn't have time for it either. We learn precious little about Klaus Kinski's creepy building manager or the victims he's terrorizing. One wants to be a Barbra Streisand-esque singer if the picture of the pop star over her piano is any indication. She also likes to play sex games with her boyfriend where he pretends to be a rapist and break in to her apartment. The others are only distinguished by the color of their hair or the fact that one of them as a possible drunk with a southern accent.

There's not a lot of suspense for most of the film, but the finale does summon up a few chills and thrills as Kinski terrorizes his final victim through the maze of tunnels in the titular crawlspace. It's not a bad way to waste 80 minutes.

The Craft: Legacy (2020)

Could Have Been Much Better

[5/10 · 5 November 2020]

Lily moves into the new home of her mother's boyfriend and his sons and has to switch schools. During her first day, she's embarrassed when she has her period during class and is comforted by three warm social outcasts who start to suspect that she might have a natural skill for witchcraft and they welcome her into their coven. Soon, they're casting spells to make school bullies nicer and more woke, but it's not long before they backfire and they have to try to deal with the consequences.

A soft reboot/sequel to a beloved cult film that's over 20 years old is a task I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, but The Craft: Legacy gets some things very right and some things horribly wrong. The main foursome of girls are a likable group and I hope they all go on to have wonderful careers, because even when there's not much to work with on the page, they manage to overcome it due to charisma alone.

Unfortunately, the script doesn't allow for much conflict and it hardly ever feels like a horror movie and more just a series of scenes strung along with very little supporting them. A late in the game twist involving one of the cast members from the original is far too cursory to make any kind of impact and feels like it was forced in just to give this film something in common with the original film.

A Bay of Blood (1971)

The Slasher That Started It All

[8/10 · 23 August 2020]

A wealthy countess is brutally murdered and her killer is murdered right after her and a handful of people show up to figure out what to do with her land and the lake that surrounds it. Tensions build and someone starts killing everyone who has gathered there.

Bay of Blood might not have a masked boogeyman popping out from behind the trees like every other slasher film in its wake, but it certainly laid the foundation for what was to come and it's a mix of what would become the slasher film and a more traditional whodunit involving greed.

The murders are a gory lot and many seem to have inspired similar murders in the Friday the 13th series. Machete's hit necks and faces, axes chop off heads, and spears are impaled through fornicating couples.

Ms .45 (1981)

Involving Revenge Piece

[8/10 · 9 August 2020]

Mute Thana (Zoe Lund) spends her days working in the garment district and avoiding her nosy elderly neighbor and most other people as well. It isn't until she's raped twice in one day that she finally snaps, killing her attacker and chopping him up into little pieces and scattering the parts all around the city. From then on, Thana has a mission - kill any lousy man she can find.

At about 80 minutes, Ms. 45 wastes no time in getting started and barely lets us spend more than 5 minutes with Thana before she's attacked and goes on her journey to rid the world of evil men. It's to Zoe Lund's credit that we're still on Thana's side throughout. Considering that the character is mute, Lund has to work overtime to convince us that this is a woman worth following for 80 minutes and she does this through facial expressions alone. It's quite the performance.

While I'm not usually a big fan of these rape-revenge films, Ms. 45 at least doesn't dwell on the attacks in any lingering way like I Spit on Your Grave and Thana's revenge is satisfying enough to power through the film.

The Sitter (2017)

Dull But Well Made

[3/10 · 3 August 2020]

Charlotte (Aisling Knight) takes a job as a cat sitter for a creepy wealthy couple and, immediately after they leave, she begins hearing strange noises coming from upstairs. Perhaps their dead son isn't so dead after all and still lives in the house?

Director Simon Richardson knows how to shoot a movie and build up a reasonable level of tension at times, but his screenwriting skills leave a lot of be desired. The story could be described as House of the Devil, but with a ton of unnecessary padding. Charlotte has a best friend character who could easily have been made for an extra slaying for the body count, but she ends up being pretty useless altogether except for one well done jump scare towards the middle of the film.

Thanks to this and other detours along the way, The Sitter feels endless at about 100 minutes and could benefit from a little editing. At least 10 or 15 minutes could be cut including a few visual interesting but pointless dream sequences that appear to exist only to remind you that you're watching a horror film.

If The Sitter wasn't so well produced, perhaps its story crimes would be forgivable, but it's so obvious that the production team put such great effort in making this as polished and visually pleasing as possible which makes you wonder why they didn't spend as much time on the script.

Color of Night (1994)

Can't Take Your Eyes Off Of It

[8/10 · 11 July 2020]

Total ridiculous camp, but it's entertaining to see just how insane it can get. It's hard to believe a movie this off the wall received a major studio release. I was also surprised by how violent and gory it gets at time with some pretty gnarly effects work. The group therapy scenes are reason enough to watch it as a group of seasoned character actors sit around and try to figure out which one can chew the most scenery.

The Dentist (1996)

Icky in the Best Way

[8/10 · 11 July 2020]

I hadn't seen this film since it first came out and I was surprised by how well it aged. It was always straight to video garbage, but it's well made and decently acted and it really does force you to perk up and pay attention. It's a lot like those popular "(blank) from Hell" movies of the early/mid-90's, but with a bit of an extra sinister layer and a good deal more blood than most of those bigger studio movies.

And did I spot baby Mark Ruffalo in there? Adorable!

Greta (2018)

Any Movie With Huppert Is Better Than One Without Her

[5/10 · 11 July 2020]

I always hate when movies shoehorn in random creepy dream sequences just to make sure the audience is still awake, because they can't find a way to create something scary in the real world scenes. It always feels like padding, too. Greta does that and I didn't like it, but I do like Isabelle Huppert. Why can't they give her better material?

Also, who'd have thought Maika Monroe would end up being the MVP of this movie? Everyone should have a friend like her.

The 6th Friend (2016)

More Interersting Than Expected

[6/10 · 11 July 2020]

6 friends drive down to a secluded cabin in the woods after being estranged since their involvement in a self-defense murder. As the night goes on, they all start to admit to seeing visions of this long-dead rapist/attacker and believe he's returned to kill them off. Is he a spirit? A demon? Or has one of them maybe lost their mind and turned to killing their friends?

The 6th Friend is a beautifully shot and reasonably well made slasher film with an all female cast (minus the attacker) that might suffer from a few bad lines of dialogue, a couple of uninspired performances, and an almost total lack of tension, but it's not without its positives.

It does try to bring in a psychological and/or supernatural aspect into the film which keeps the audience on their toes and it's nice to see a movie about a bunch of women who stick up for one another. Once the killer is revealed, The 6th Friend ends on an exciting and swelling high note.

The 6th Friend might not be the most inspired indie slasher film on the block, but there's enough to recommend about it to give it a try.

Sun Choke (2015)

Well-Made, but Confusing Horror Tale

[4/10 · 11 May 2020]

Jane (Sarah Hagan ) has been spending the last few weeks (maybe months or years?) of her life stuck in her spacious, but cold Hollywood hills home under the care of nurse Irma (Barbara Crampton). It seems that something happened in Janie's life to force her into seclusion, but Irma feels that, now, enough time has passed for Janie to at least try to go outside and mingle with the rest of the world.

On her first day out, Janie notices a young woman who she becomes enamored with and she begins stalking her and, soon, she's coming in late much to the chagrin of Irma who has to find a way to keep her in line. In typical horror film fashion, things don't go as expected and a few people have to die.

Despite the gorgeous visuals and excellent performances, Sun Choke is a confounding and confusing experience from start to finish. At first, one thinks that perhaps the filmmakers are withholding important information from us to build towards some major revelation or twist at the end, but once the end credits come up, we're just as confused as we were when we first started the film.

Why is Janie cooped up in the house? What happened to her mother? Where's her father? Because we don't know a thing about Janie or her circumstances, it makes it nearly impossible to root for her and she becomes a cardboard cutout. What could have been an interesting story about two very different women becomes an empty spectacle for extreme violence with no answers.

Sun Choke almost feels as if the filmmakers secured a great location and cast and just made it up as they went along.

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Better Than Usual Biopic

[8/10 · 24 April 2020]

Most biopics tend to feel a bit dry and like you're reading a Wikipedia page. They tend to focus on too much of the person's life and it becomes a little tough to concentrate and the film's focus is too wide. Thankfully, Gods and Monsters bypasses this by focusing on the last few weeks of James Whale's life.

James Whale (Ian McKellen), the director of Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein, has fallen out of favor with Hollywood after his final film was taken over by the studio and cut to ribbons. Whale has also been punished for being a gay man and, even worse, he's been suffering from small strokes that render him weak and feeble. Things begin to change when a handsome gardener (Brendan Fraser) shows up and takes an interest in Whale's stories of Hollywood, but what Whale really wants might take the gardener by surprise.

While Gods and Monsters could seem relentlessly dark and depressing, it's a great testament to writer/director Bill Condon and his flawless cast that things still move at a great pace and you stay invested in these very broken people's lives. Every performance is excellent and the final 15 minutes or so are genuinely moving and heartbreaking.

For fans of Universal monster movies, gay history, or Hollywood history, Gods and Monsters is a must see.

Texas Chainsaw (2013)

Decent Script Ruined By Major Plot Holes

[7/10 · 4 February 2020]

I was told to stay away from this movie. I mean, stay far away from this movie. At the time it was released, I was already experiencing 3D and Texas Chainsaw fatigue, so it was pretty easy for me to stay away from it and not give it a second thought. Curiosity got the better of me last night and I gave this one and shot and, folks, I have to say that I kind of enjoyed it.

Is it a great movie? No, but it's reasonably well acted and there are some decent scares and moments of suspense. It gets progressively sillier the further along it goes, but it's easy to take seriously for the first half and Leatherface's first appearance genuinely jolted me.

The main issue here is the wonky timeline. A baby is born in 1973, around the events of the original movie, and we flash forward to 2012 and this baby is now in her 20's, which makes absolutely no sense. How did no one think this through? Sure, it'd make more sense for a 20-something to go on a rollicking road trip with her party-loving friends than someone about to clear 40, but c'mon. It makes no sense. Also, two characters we meet in the prologue seem to haven't aged a day in almost 40 years?

Oddly enough, it's not the script or acting that disappoints in this movie, but the casting. How hard would it have been to get the ages right? Was the studio that insistent on casting a group of pretty, 20-somethings that they threw all logic out the window? Couldn't they have had the film take place in the 80's or 90's instead, then? It's such a weird choice.

I See You (II) (2019)

Twists and Turns Everywhere!

[8/10 · 19 January 2020]

Buckle in, because I See You is one of the wildest rides I've been on in years. For once, a film's trailer and marketing hasn't spoiled every exciting aspect of a film!

Helen Hunt stars as a counselor going through a rocky marriage after having an affair. Her husband (Jon Tenney) is too busy wrapped up in trying to solve a case involving several abducted boys in the area and her son resents her for causing a rift in their family. Even stranger, all three of them begin to experience seemingly supernatural events in their home. They hear noises, silverware disappears, and they have the sheets pulled away from them as they sleep. Could there be a ghost haunting their home?

Every time you think you know where I See You is going, it spins in another direction and it ends up being one of the most suspenseful and engaging thrillers in recent memory. The less you know about it going in, the better. Just watch it it!

Lipstick (1976)

Beware the Synth Loving Rapists

[5/10 · 5 January 2020]

Lipstick has a lot of big ideas and many of them are admirable, but at a scant 90 minutes, it feels like it's 3 hours too long. It all starts when a model named Chris (Margaux Hemingway) is raped by her younger sister's music teacher (Chris Sarandon) and takes the case to trial with Anne Bancroft as her lawyer. Eventually, the man is let free to continue terrorizing Chris and her little sister.

This is a movie that takes a long time to get going, but once ait does, watch out. The finale to this movie is absolutely insane and unforgettable. In many ways, it's your typical rape-revenge narrative, but the final revenge Hemingway dishes out is very memorable and over the top.

Unfortunately, Hemingway isn't very good in the film and rarely convinces as anything other than a pretty face, which makes her plight more difficult to relate to. Her younger sister, Mariel, out acts her in just about every scene. This makes it very tough to get very invested in the story and what happens to the character, because it feels like she's already reading her lines off of cue cards.

I was still surprised by how sleazy the film is yet also takes sexual assault very seriously. It's surprisingly feminist.

Sweet November (1968)

It Charms At Times

[7/10 · 2 December 2019]

Sweet November is a charming enough quirk fest than can sometimes grate, cause a chuckle, and move you in the span of 5 minutes. You're always sort of on guard when you watch this movie. It all starts with a stuffy box company worker named Charlie (singer Anthony Newley) gets pushed out of his driver's test when a quirky young woman named Sara (Sandy Dennis) asks him for some answers. Instead of being appalled and angry at this woman, Charlie hangs out with her for a little while and discovers her to be another in a long line of Manic Pixie Dream Girls who could only exist in Hollywood fiction. They agree to continue to spend time together only for Charlie to realize that Sara wants him to be her man of the month. She has a habit of dating men for a month, trying to improve them and then releasing them into the wild. But what will happen if they fall madly in love?

Sweet November sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Sandy Dennis' performance ranges from shrill to charming to bizarre to adorable to heartbreaking and back again. It's an odd performance, but I can't say I've ever seen anything like it. Anthony Newley does better than expected as Charlie, but there is something off puttingly smug about him at times that makes you want to slap him.

What starts out as an amusing rom com tries to go into melodramatic weepie territory towards the end and it doesn't really work. I'll give them this much - at least it doesn't end with an unearned death to tug at the viewer's heartstrings. In fact, the film ends on an impressively mature and thoughtful note that took me by surprise.

Jack's Back (1988)

You're Not Missing Much

[4/10 · 20 November 2019]

I'd put off watching Jack's Back for quite sometime. I couldn't tell if it was the bland artwork that turned me off or the idea of a modern Jack the Ripper. Something just told me not to bother. I finally bothered and I wish I hadn't.

Jack's Back is exactly what it sounds like. A copycat of Jack the Ripper has been killing hookers in modern day L.A. (well, modern day L.A. of the late 80's) and a young doctor is drawn into his web of terror. Twists and turns abound, but they usually show up because you can feel that the writer got bored with what they were writing and decided to make a sequence a dream or give a character a twin.

There aren't many thrills here, which is the kiss of death for a so-called thriller, but James Spader is good and there are some cool shots of downtown L.A. in the 80's.

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)

Stellar Southern-Fried Anthology

[9/10 · 23 October 2019]

For those who like their horror anthologies to drip with a little southern charm, look no further than From A Whisper To A Scream. Director Jeff Burr and writer Darin Scott have come up with a handful of incredibly effective terror tales wrapped around by an equally interesting framing device featuring Vincent Price, Susan Tyrrell, and Martine Beswick.

The town of Oldfield has a shady past (to put it lightly). Ever since the town was formed, it seems like bad things happen here. A reporter visits a town museum curator and he tells her all about what this town can do to people. He tells her stories about a ghoul spawned by a necrophilia, a man who takes a potion to have eternal life that backfires, a starcrossed couple trying to escape from a wicked carnival, and a Civil War-style Children of the Corn.

Unlike a lot of anthologies, each story in this does have something to offer even if it's just a lively performance or stomach churning gore effect here and there. Clu Gulager turns up in the first story looking absolutely unrecognizable as a repressed nerd who develops an obsession with a co-worker. Familiar faces such as Cameron Mitchell, Rosalind Cash, and Terry Kiser appear in other stories and add a lot of class and commitment to their roles and segments.

From A Whisper To A Scream also stands out from other anthologies due to its tone which is fairly somber and moody throughout. This isn't the fun, EC Comic-style anthology we've grown to love like Tales From the Crypt or Creepshow. There's not a lot of winking at the audience and that makes the whole film feel different and fresher than other similar anthologies.

Give this one a shot. It was a big hit at my Halloween party last weekend.

In Fabric (2018)

Half A Great Movie

[6/10 · 2 October 2019]

There's something admirable about taking a film about a killer dress deathly seriously. It's this sort of commitment we just don't see in movies anymore and In Fabric should be applauded for daring to take its subject matter seriously.

In Fabric does start off well with Marianne Jean-Baptiste turning in a fantastic performance as a recently divorced woman working a soul crushing job, trying to take care of her rebellious live-at-home son and his truly awful girlfriend, and making time to go on dates with a bevvy of losers. Instantly, we can relate to this woman's plight and when she finds this beautiful red dress at a mysterious department store, it seems like things are looking up...until the dress starts making bad things happen. First of all, it doesn't want to be washed, so it causes washing machines to explode and, second of all, it was last worn by a model who met a gruesome end. Will our hapless heroine be next?

In Fabric's biggest issue is that it feels like a short Tales From the Crypt episode extended to almost two full hours, which leaves the audience mostly bored after the first hour. There's a major detour the film takes mid-way through when it gets bored with its heroine and introduces a new set of characters which brings the film down, because we don't care about them nearly as much. Maybe if Jean-Baptiste hadn't been so phenomenal in the first half or they'd decided to make a film about multiple characters encountering this red dress, it wouldn't have been as jarring a switch.

It looks stunning, has atmosphere in spades, and the music score is haunting, but it goes on for far too long and ends in the most anti-climactic way imaginable. It's still worthy of your time, but it's a shame a few things get in the way of it being really excellent.

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

One of the Best of the 80's

[9/10 · 18 September 2019]

We've really been sleeping on this one, haven't we? I hadn't seen it since I was a child and didn't quite understand it at the time, but this might be one of the best movies Kathleen Turner has ever done and she's known for mostly solid choices. For someone who's made a career out of being a great, tough broad, she sure does vulnerable well in this movie.

Unfortunately, Nicholas Cage has never been worse than he is in here with his annoyingly affected nasal voice. Maybe he just stands out more, because the rest of the movie around him is so excellent and he drags down every scene he's in and believes he's in some sort of Looney Toons sketch.

Even Cage can't ruin the film no matter how hard he tries.

Faceless (1988)

Not the Vase!

[6/10 · 1 September 2019]

A plastic surgeon is hanging out in Paris with his sister and girlfriend when they are cornered in a parking garage by an disgruntled former patient who is angry that her face ended up deformed due to his incompetence. She throws acid in his direction, but he ducks and it ends up landing in his sister's face. He makes a vow to restore his sister's former beauty by capturing beautiful women and slicing off their faces to find the right fit for her.

For a Jess Franco film, Faceless feels a bit more mainstream and big budgeted than many of his previous films. There's still some jarring editing, odd camera placements, and scripting issues, but it's one of his more cohesive movies. For those who revel in Franco's typical trashy elements, there's still more than enough of that with elements of lesbianism, rape, maybe incest, and tons of insanely unconvincing gore.

International b-movie and trash film legends like Brigitte Lahaie (in a cold, creepy performance), Helmut Berger, Caroline Munro, and Telly Savalas star with Chris Mitchum as the lead who's on the hunt for Munro's drug addled model thanks to father, Telly Savalas. Savalas is in, maybe, 5 minutes of the movie and does all his acting from behind the same desk, so you can tell they shot all his scenes in one day.

There are many strange Euro horror film touches such as a patient of Berger's putting on 3 lbs of makeup before he enters and singing to him as he checks up on her and a deliriously weird sequence where one of Munro's gay fashion photographers is approached at his home by Mitchum who threatens to shatter an expensive vase unless he gives him tips on where Munro is. Just when you think it can't get any funnier, the gay photographer calls on his bodyguard/maybe lover named - I kid you not - DooDoo - and a buff, muscle bound guy appears out of nowhere and tries to fight Mitchum only to be turned into a sobbing mess when he's kicking in groin. You can't make this stuff up.

Faceless also has the guts to end on a really downbeat note that I was expecting, especially after all the silliness that came before it. It's a light, but entertaining entry in the Euro horror cannon and it's worth a watch.

Diane (2018)

Mary Kay Finally Gets A Lead

[8/10 · 10 August 2019]

There aren't exactly an excess of roles for women over 40 in Hollywood. There certainly aren't a lot of lead roles for an actress like Mary Kay Place who's made a career out of stealing the show in supporting roles over her enviable career, but with Diane, Place finally gets her chance to shine and, as expected, she's more than up for the challenge.

This is a different role for Place who tends to specialize in kooky or eccentric types and there's nothing terribly noteworthy about Diane. She's a widowed woman of a certain age who spends all her days and nights taking care of other people - her friends, her family, and the homeless. When she's given a moment of peace, all she can think about is how everyone she's loved has (or will soon be) died. What could have possibly led to her being so selfless?

Diane is a small film in scope and budget, but it's a small story about a small person - the kind of person we probably wouldn't give a passing glance to on the street. She looks just like any other woman in her area and age range. What could be so special about her? This film tells us - quite a lot.

Diane got me thinking about how little we really know about everyone we encounter on a day to day basis and how everyone is fighting their own battles that they don't always tell us about.

Matilda (1996)

Much Too Good For Children

[10/10 · 5 August 2019]

Matilda Wormwood is a special kind of child. Her brain capacity at age 1 is already well over what most full grown children's is, but her family is a tacky and crass band of underachievers who don't understand their child or see the importance of a quality education. As she grows older, she begins to develop special telekenetic powers where she can move things with her mind and she uses this to get back at her bullies (such as her evil school principal and thoughtless parents).

Through her new powers, Matilda discovers that family is what you make it and, sometimes, the families we're born into aren't going to understand or accept us and we have to make families of our own that aren't related by blood.

Danny DeVito directs and stars and demonstrates a love for quirky close ups and wide angle lenses to give the film and feeling of being in a child's shoes where everything is big and threatening. Rhea Pearlman and Pam Ferris are hilariously over the top as Matilda's vulgar mother and evil principal with Embeth Davitz radiating a rare kind of warmth as Matilda's kindly teacher, Ms. Honey. David Newman's score is playful and moving and wraps everything up in a lovely bow.

Matilda is a perfect family film that never talks down to children or shields them from the cruelty of the world. In that way, it's one of the few family films that actually resembles the original Grimm's fairy tales where even your own parents would abandon you in the woods because they didn't want to bother feeding you or because you usurped them in beauty or talent. It's a hard lesson to learn that the family you were born to might not always understand you or have your best interests at heart.

Triggered (I) (2019)

She Just Wanted To Be Special

[9/10 · 24 July 2019]

Triggered has what is, quite possibly, the most loathesome character I've ever seen on screen. Her name is Callee and all she does is complain about (mostly) made up bigotry and intolerance. She seems to think that being a crusader for social justice only entails following the most ridiculous of the far left on Twitter and shaming anyone who doesn't prescribe to her narrow vision of what's right and what's wrong. This gets her a decent amount of attention at her small town high school for a while until a serial killer from the past shows back up and she has to figure out another way to get attention even if it means murder.

You have to give actress Meredith Mohler and writer/director Chris Moore a hand for daring to create such a narcissistic and selfish character and placing her as the lead in a film. It's to their credit that she remains watchable and interesting even when she's doing the most wicked of things. If Mohler plays her cards right, I could see her having a big future.

The rest of the cast is good as well, but they're given less to work with and can come across more like cartoons, which does fit with the tone of the film, so that's not really a negative. The only ones who get fully fleshed out characters are Jesse Dalton and Amanda Wyss who play Callee's long-suffering gay BFF and her alcoholic school principal with a dark past of her own. They're the only two truly sympathetic characters in the film and they do a wonderful job of grounding the film when it starts getting crazy.

The film was obviously made for about 3 cents, but this is one of those times when a low budget helps a film and gives it an unpolished early John Waters feel which seems to be what the creators are going for and, more often than not, they succeed. There's also a surprising amount of male nudity instead of the typical female nudity found in films like this and it's also a positive portrait of a gay teen that's not the usual coming out story or bullying story.