The Marine 2 (2009)

The Marine films are united by their love of muscular
men leaping away from explosions in slow motion

Just when I thought I was done with WWE Films, they pull me back in, and with a DTV sequel to 2006's The Marine no less. It's a sequel in name only, linked only by the protagonist's occupation (Marine), the kidnapped-wife plot, the copious amount of fiery explosions and an acting-deficient wrestler in the lead role. Apparently John Cena is too big of a star for DTV now, so he's been swapped out for some wrestler I've never heard of, Ted DiBiase Jr. Apparently a different wrestler-I've-never-heard-of, Randy Orton, was supposed to play the lead role but stepped out at the last minute due to an injury. Like Cena, DiBiase has a similar combination of boyish looks, beefy physique and no-nonsense haircut. What happened to all the wrestlers with greasy mullets and a face like a sack of ham hocks?

After a disastrous reonnaissance mission in Bangkok, Marine sniper Joe Linwood (DiBiase Jr) travels to an island resort with his wife Robin (Lara Cox). Robin works for the owner of the resort, an asshole millionnaire named Darren Conner (Robert Coleby). Conner has also written a highly successful get-rich-quick book titled Why Shouldn't You Have It All? and it must be pretty good because even in the middle of a swinging cocktail party there's a lady curled up on a couch reading it. People are always namedropping it, even hard-bitten mercenaries are leafing through a copy. It's more popular than the The Davinci Code. Joe and Robin also meet a former-Army-Ranger-turned-scuba-operator named Church (Michael Rooker), who takes them to a secluded beach with a hidden cave that leads directly back to the resort. Gee, I wonder if that's going to come in handy later?

Sure enough, a gang of masked terrorists storm the resort during the middle of a fireworks display, taking everybody hostage (including Robin) and demanding "tribute" (ie ransom) as repayment for years of Western exploitation. Apparently this is inspired by a real-life hostage situation that occurred at a resort in the Phillipines, but I'm not sure if they were single-handedly taken down by a WWE wrestler, which is what happens here. Die Hard may be over twenty years old, but The Marine 2 proves to us that Die Hard rip-offs are the true John McClane's of action cinema.

This is one of those movies that takes place in a fictional country, despite the opening scene in Bangkok, the Thai actors, the Muay Thai fighters etc. This is not Thailand, got it? I can see why they do it but it's really kind of insulting, suggesting that these tiny countries in South America/Eastern Europe/South East Asia are all so interchangable that you could slip in a fake one without anyone noticing. Anyway, this fake country has a pretty interesting ethnic makeup, because the terrorist leader, Damo, is played by a Maori (Temeura Morrison) and his brother Shoal is played by a Thai (Sahajak Boonthanakit). Although a great actor, Morrison is not at all convincing as an Asian, so I don't really buy that he and Shoal are supposed to be brothers, unless it's meant in the sense that all men are brothers, which is doubtful.

The rest of the movie follows the Die Hard playbook to the letter. They send in a gang of mercenaries who get completely wiped out. Joe goes in solo and starts taking out the terrorists one by one. Shoal does the bit where he gets frustrated and starts tearing shit up, letting Joe's wife know that her husband is the one running loose and fucking up their operation. There's also the slimy government bureaucrat who betrays them and the guy on the outside who has retired from being a hero but steps up at the end to save the day. Unlike Die Hard, however, the act of terrorism is not the cover for a heist. It's just plain old terrorism.

So like the first film it's fairly predictable, but the tone is completely different. Although I loved the utterly tasteless opening scene, I wasn't a big fan of the goofy, tongue-in-cheek approach of The Marine. I prefer my action movie stupidity straight up, not watered down with self-conscious winks to the audience. Unfortunately the sequel goes a little too far in the opposite direction. It's way too dour and serious, without any hilarious stupidity or even any decent one-liners. At least the wussy PG-13 rating of the first film has been ditched in favour of a squib-friendly R, allowing a couple of grisly moments such as where Joe dislocates his wrist to escape a set of handcuffs or tortures a terrorist with a steam press.

This one is directed by Roel Reiné, the Dutch DTV veteran who brought us Seagal's better-than-average Pistol Whipped. The cinematography is very impressive for DTV, lots of wide shots, saturated colours and beautiful helicopter shots of Phuket. The action has it's moments too, the centrepiece being a great fight where Joe takes on a couple of Muay Thai fighters. It's done in several long takes as a steadicam rotates around them. Impressive stuff. There's also an amusingly ridiculous part where Joe knocks out the supports from a seaside shack without even breaking stride, ramming them with his meaty forearm so it collapses onto the pursuing bad guy. That made me laugh. Mostly though, it's just a lot of gunfire and explosions.

This is better-than-average DTV, although I'm still trying to decide whether this is one of those rare DTV sequels that surpasses it's theatrical predecessor. I think it really comes down to what you thought of the goofy humour of the first film. If you didn't like it I think you'll like this one better. If you did like it you might as well skip it and spend the 90 minutes picking bugs out of your hair or doing whatever else it is that tasteless simpletons enjoy doing.

12 Rounds (2009)

Oh Renny Harlin, you magnificent bastard

It's important in life to have dreams. Some people want to climb the highest mountain, just because it's there. Other people dedicate their lives to charity work to try and make the world a better place. My dream was to watch all films produced by WWE Films and today... I achieved that dream. After watching See No Evil, The Marine, The Condemned and Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia, 12 Rounds completes my long and arduous journey through the cinematic wasteland of WWE Films. Finally my life is complete.

After The Marine failed to launch John Cena's career as an action movie star, they decided to wait a couple of years until everyone had forgotten and try again. Here he plays Danny Fisher, a New Orleans cop who along with his partner Hank (Brian White) tries to help the FBI take down a notorious international arms dealer named Miles Jackson. Every stupid action movie has to include a former HBO actor by law so Miles is played by Aiden Gillen from The Wire. Hank is black so of course he gets shot (in the ass, comedy etc) while Miles and his girlfriend try to escape on foot. Unfortunately she fails to look both ways and gets pancaked by an SUV. Several months later Miles uses this flimsy justification to escape from prison and kidnap Danny's wife, forcing him to participate in 12 rounds of a sadistic game in order to save her.

He starts the game by blowing up his car, his house and his plumber. This is a real tragedy, do you know how hard it is to find a trustworthy plumber? Clearly they've built up a good working relationship since the guy scolds Danny for not maintaining his fixtures and gives him unsolicited marriage advice. On the plus side, no more leaky plumbing. Also, his beloved pet pug Shorty survives. I don't know how because it was a huge explosion but I'd love to see a sequel/spin-off that shows how the pug escaped. I assume a slow motion leap through a doggy door was involved. He dumps Shorty on a neighbour and rushes off to save his wife but I like to imagine that the dog chased after Danny and helped him out behind the scenes, perhaps by herding people out of the way of traffic or creating diversions to let Danny get from A to B more quickly.

In case you hadn't noticed the plot is pretty much a direct copy of Die Hard With a Vengeance. Danny gets behind the wheel of many different vehicles and causes millions of dollars worth of property damage while trying to defuse bombs, save his wife etc. The puzzles are few and simple and the car chases are long and destructive. At one point he commandeers a fire truck and plows through dozens of cars and a whole row of motorcycles on his way to the next location. When he arrives one of the FBI Agents says "Tell me you didn't kill anyone in that thing" and I was thinking the same thing. I can't blame the guy for wanting to save his wife, but where do you draw the line? There's at least three people who die in the process, including his partner and his own brother. I think this is one of those games where the only way to win is to not play.

I'm trying to piece together the swath of destruction that Danny carves through the city and it's just mind-blowing. There's the highly destructive fire engine chase. There's a city bus (upon which Danny's wife is fitted with a suicide bomber vest that is set to fire a nail into her heart and then blow up the entire bus) that careens out of control and crashes spectacularly. Several buildings are bombed and there's a lengthy sequence involving a runaway tram where Danny blows up a power substation. Hasn't New Orleans been through enough? Obviously he saves his wife and it's a happy ending but just imagine how he's going to feel after the reality of the situation sinks in. I'm sure dozens of people would have been killed in the numerous explosions and car crashes, not to mention the incalculable property damage. This is a guy who felt guilty about being made Detective after Miles' girlfriend was killed, this shit is going to kill him. What a depressing movie.

Naturally there's a big plot twist and it's exactly the same as Die Hard with a Vengeance too. The elaborate revenge scheme is all part of a one-man plot to steal $100 million dollars from the mint. This is a really elaborate plan too. He's a smart guy (at one point he stops to give advice to some guys playing chess, movie shorthand for "this is a smart guy") but he'd have to be clairvoyant for this plan to work. He seems to know precisely which course of action Danny is going to take and he's got no way of knowing whether things worked out the way he expected. His plan also hinges on some pretty stupid holes in the mint's security procedures. He walks in wearing an armed guard uniform and claims that the regular guy is sick and they let him walk right into the vault. Makes you wonder why he bothered with all the other shit.

The movie is directed by the mad Finn Renny Harlin but it's not as sublimely stupid as I expected, more Cliffhanger than Deep Blue Sea. It's shot in a modern shaky-cam style and although I've seen a lot worse examples it ruins a could-have-been-great fight in a medical helicopter involving scalpels, defibrillators etc. This another one of those PG-13 action movies but it's more about car chases and property damage so the rating isn't as noticeable as in something like The Marine, although there are two instances where a good guy shouts "Bitch!" at a dramatic moment where "Motherfucker!" would have clearly been more appropriate. It's watchable but definitely not as fun/stupid as you would expect from a WWE Films production directed by Renny Harlin.

The Condemned (2007)

"Don't call me Stone Cold!"

Since Gamer isn't out here yet (and likely to skip theaters altogether) I thought I'd review another film in the inmates-forced-to-fight-for-the-public's-amusement genre. This one is another film produced under the prestigious WWE Films banner. It's a dodgy action film but unlike The Marine it has an R rating which means that people can fuck, say "fuck" and get fucked up in a fight. Also, the main star is a wrestler I've actually heard of. He used to be called "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, but now he's just known as plain old room temperature Steve Austin. He has got a good screen presence and is a big improvement over John Cena.

Austin plays Jack Conrad, a death row inmate languishing in a Central American prison. He and nine other prisoners from around are selected to be contestands on some sort of pay-per-view reality tv show where they are sent to a remote island and forced to fight to the death. It's a rip-off of Battle Royale, you say? Well here the explosive bracelets are on their ankles. Totally different. If they'd tried something as colourful and silly as The Running Man it might still be entertaining, but unfortunately it goes for a gloomy, realistic approach that is alternately boring and condescending. You see, this isn't just a stupid action movie, it's a stupid action movie with a message. It's about violence-as-entertainment and reality TV going too far, something that has never been explored in film in the history of cinema, ever.

The mastermind behind the show is Breckel played by Robert Mamonne. He looked really familiar although I couldn't remember from anything, so I checked his imdb page and it turns out he has been on a shitload of Australian TV. Over the course of the film two of his underlings have a change of heart so for a good chunk of the film instead of watching Austin wrestle with death-row convicts we watch these two assholes wrestle with their consciences. Breckel also tries to pump up the action by giving special treatment to a contestant played by Vinnie Jones, a murderous psychopath and the villain of the film. I'd make a reference to an asshole contestant on a reality show here but I don't watch them so I'm drawing a blank. Sorry.

Jones causes mayhem throughout most of the film, killing indiscriminately and trying to provoke Austin, but towards the end of the film he busts into the control room and starts terrorising everybody. The music tries to convince us that it's a shocking and poignant moment but it is massively unearned. There is a lot of this blunt morality shit too, including fights where the camera cuts away to people watching at home or in the control room looking ashamed, including all of Conrad's friends and family gathered around the TV at a local sports bar. Seems like a weird thing to do, I don't know if I'd want to watch a family member engage in bloody battles to the death on live TV. Maybe I'd TIVO it. There's also a reporter who gives long, boring speeches about violence like she's lecturing a bunch of five year olds, leading to the crowning moment of the film where she turns to the camera and says "Maybe it's us who are the condemned." Jesus Christ.

These kinds of movies really get on my tits. You can't make a fun, violent action film and then point at the camera and say "j'accuse". Don't punish us for enjoying your stupid film. Although, in their defence, the violence in this film isn't all that enjoyable. It's more of that herky-jerky, closeup action that robs you of any sense of choreography, geography or tension. It doesn't help that some of the fights are at night in the rain with a gloomy blue tint and several of the characters are bald musclemen. If anybody you'd think the WWE would be able to shoot a coherent fight scene. It doesn't even make sense in the context of the movie, I doubt the TV show has a cameraman standing three feet away from the fight with the caffeine jitters. Also nobody dies in any interesting ways, they are all shot, stabbed or blown up. If I were one of the suckers paying for this stupid reality show, I would be seriously pissed.

Austin turns out to be a Delta Force operative who was captured during a Black Ops mission, which brings up another thing that annoys me about these kind of films: The hero always has to be innocent of their convicted crime. These films are partly about the dehumanisation of criminals so by doing this you're just cheapening your own argument. Also they always have the producers rig the game in some way, which is pretty funny when you think about it. Forcing death row inmates into gladiatorial combat is one thing, but rigging a reality show? Now they've gone too far. Isn't the idea of criminals being forced to fight to the death for the public's amusement horrific enough, do we really have to stack the deck by making the system extra corrupt and the hero an innocent everyman?

The Condemned explores territory well-covered by other films (The Running Man, Death Race 2000) in a dour and overly-preachy way, punctuated by dull and confusingly shot violence. In a way I guess this film is like the anti-Funny Games. Funny Games failed at it's goal by being a riveting example of the kind of genre film it was trying to condemn. In effect it was too good. Luckily The Condemned doesn't make the same mistake.

Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia (2009)

This is my serious face.

I don't remember all that much about the first Behind Enemy Lines film. It was set in Bosnia for that ripped-from-the-headlines-of-a-few-years-ago feel and it featured a sniper in a jogging suit and a hilarious scene where Owen Wilson runs through a minefield in slow motion, the anti-personnel mines tearing his enemies to shreds but leaving him unscathed. Must have had them set to 'Balkan' instead of 'American'. Meanwhile Admiral Gene Hackman chewed the scenery and scowled lines like "I'm getting my man out and I don't give a damn what those pencil pushers in Washington think." It was a mildly entertaining piece of propaganda but nothing you haven't seen before.

Apparently someone thought this was a concept worthy of a franchise and a direct-to-video sequel followed in 2006, this time set in North Korea. I didn't see that one though, and the only reason the third entry caught my eye was because of the involvement of WWE Films, the company who brought us See No Evil, The Marine and The Condemned. This one stars Ken Anderson, a wrestler who goes by the unassuming name of Mr. Kennedy. The cover of the DVD consists pretty much entirely of Mr. Kennedy standing in front of an explosion and a billowing American flag. If you use a magnifying glass you might be able to spot the real star in the background somewhere, a Navy SEAL named Lt. Sean Macklin played by Joe Mangianello. Mangianello's imdb page has a lot of TV roles but few movie credits except for a small role in Spider-Man and a 2002 movie named The Ketchup King in which he played a character named Black Dildo.

This film also has some of that action movie bullshit that tries to paint life in the marines as basically being in the most bro-tastic frat ever. Ooh-rah! What appears to be a stealthy reconnaissance mission turns out to be a surprise birthday party for Lt. Macklin, during which all of his other SEAL buddies are introduced through the lazy direct-to-DVD tradition of subtitles. There's tough guy MCPO Carter Hold (Mr Kennedy), the gadget man CPO Kevin Derricks (Channon Roe), the bomb expert PO3 Steve Gaines (Chris Johnson). They also include a fun fact about each member of the team, for instance PO2 Greg Armstrong (Antony Matos) "Loves Jesus, and cleavage". There's also a terrible gag about a cake decoration going haywire, but it's still better than the golf scene in Navy SEALS.

Their celebrations don't last long and after a mission briefing they are sent into the jungles of Colombia on a reconnaissance mission. They are there to investigate a secret gathering of FARC guerrillas that turns out to be a peace negotiation between FARC and the Colombian military, but unfortunately nearly everybody there is slaughtered by some mysterious rogue soldiers. They are led by a Colombian officer who went rogue after his wife and child were killed in a FARC terrorist bombing. They manage to kill a couple of SEALs, take one hostage and the rest are framed for the shooting. Due to the Black Ops nature of their mission the American government is reluctant to intervene, so now the survivors have to rescue their buddy and gather the evidence that will clear their names.

Pretty standard stuff, if it were made twenty years ago it would probably be made by Cannon films and star Michael Dudikoff or something. Occasionally the film cuts back to their CO played by Keith David who wrestles with weaselly government bureaucrats. Tim Matheson appears a minor role too and he also directs. The action is filmed in a modern style, shakily filmed but reasonably coherent, although I was hoping a little less Blackhawk Down and a little more Commando. The DVD special features seem to be very proud of the authentic military hand signals and equipment and you can tell because it seems like half the film consists of the SEAL team loading and unloading gear and creeping around the jungle.

I was hoping for some of that shamelessly exploitative patriotism and xenophobia that you'd expect from the WWE and 80s style action films but there really isn't much of that. Oh sure, it presents a simplistic view of Colombian politics and U.S. interventionism (the fact that their mission is basically a hostile incursion into an allied nation isn't even acknowledged) but there's certainly nothing as ridiculous or tasteless as John Cena's one man war on terror in The Marine. I got a chuckle out of one part: The Colombian General states that "America isn't well liked in Latin America" and Lt. Macklin looks back with an expression like "Whuh? How could this be?" Well, films like this probably don't help.

The Marine (2006)

This is a great film for aficionados of large men
leaping away from explosions in slow motion

The Marine is the second film made by WWE Films, this time starring some guy named John Cena. He is an uncomfortably large fellow with a high-and-tight haircut and very little personality. This is more of the kind of thing I was expecting when I think of WWE Films, a dumb PG-13 action film. Normally I hate PG-13 action films, they're like porn films with all the nudity and sex cut out, but I thought I'd give this one a chance. If it was half as stupid as See No Evil I thought it would be a GTatM (Good Time at the Movies).

The film opens with him in his dress uniform, saluting in front of an American flag, so straight away, you can be assured of this film's patriotism. This is further emphasised in the following scene, where Triton infiltrates an Al Qaida terrorist base just outside of Tikrit. His superiors warn him not to go in and rescue his fellow Marines ("Wait for backup!"), but he goes in regardless because he is a True American Hero. That's lucky for the three hostages, because the terrorists were just about to decapitate them on camera to cries of "Allahu Akbar". Uh, yeah, I'm not kidding. Over the next few minutes, Triton shoots and punches his way through the terrorists and rescues the hostages. It ends with the four of them in a slow motion charge into enemy forces, and it's here that the director's (first-timer John Bonito) obsession with fiery explosions becomes a little embarrassing.

After an act of heroism like that they'd probably throwing parades in his honour and fighting over the movie rights, but in the world of The Marine it means being discharged for "disobeying a direct order". This leaves Triton pretty glum, after all it means leaving a dangerous war zone and returning home to his beautiful wife. Luckily his fat, comic-relief buddy gets him a job as a security guard to pass the time. He has a little bit of trouble adjusting to civilian life, though. The first day on the job he punches out a yuppie asshole (who has two beefy bodyguards for some reason) and tosses him through a window.

There's the beginnings of a serious story here, about a Marine who has lost his only purpose in life and starts to break down, but don't get excited because this subplot it is immediately dropped. Instead it becomes a heist/chase movie, where a team of thieves rob a jewelery store in what must be the most inefficient robbery ever. In fact, one of them blows up a cop car with a bazooka in what may be the largest car explosion ever committed to film. The leader of this group is played by Robert Patrick (why yes, they do make a Terminator joke).

Triton gets drawn into their criminal rampage when they kidnap his wife (and steal his car, a huge SUV natch) while they're at a petrol station. She's probably the most pain-in-the-ass hostage in human history. In almost every scene she's screaming, struggling or attempting to escape. No hostage is worth this much trouble, but we need a MacGuffin for Triton to chase so unfortunately we're all stuck with her.

Then there's a pretty great car chase where Triton chases after the thieves in some weird souped-up cop car. His car gets impossibly riddled with bullets and as he crashes into various obstacles the car loses it's bumper, hood, and whole top section of the chassis. As he finally catches up to the bad guys he stupidly drives his car right off a cliff. Then the bad guys shoot at the flipping car while it's still in the air until it bursts into flames (Triton having jumped out of the car by this point). The car does not explode though, which was bitterly disappointing. If the whole film was as gloriously stupid as this or the opening scene it would be great, but unfortunately the rest of the film is filled with bad guys bickering and alleged comic relief.

You see, instead of sticking with the straight-faced stupidity of the opening sequence they decided to make this one of those "self-aware" action movies, where comic relief music kicks in every time the bad guys are on-screen and they've all got these weird tics and eccentricities. One of the bad guys is afraid of rock candy, which is assumed to be automatically hilarious. This fear stems from an incident of child abuse at summer camp, which is played for laughs.

After the car chase the film becomes a slow trudge as Triton uses his expert desert combat skills to track down his wife in backwater swamplands. The bad guys continue to bicker amongst themselves and kill more of each other than Triton does. There are a number of fist fights that might have been interesting if they weren't shot in herky-jerky closeup. When will people realise that the Bourne movies are the only ones that have got this technique right?

By the time it got the final scene it kind of reminded me of Hard Target only not as stupid/good. There's the swamps, the black-clad villain, the fiery showdown etc. I really like the tasteless exploitation of the opening scene, but after that it seems content to wink at the audience and acknowledge it's own stupidity. If it had included a moment of straight-faced snake-punching or given Triton a mullet I might have given it a pass.

See No Evil (2006)

Here is the killer enacting Dave fantasy #173:
Cramming some noisy bimbo's cell phone down her throat.

I've never been a big fan of the wrasslin'. I mean, growing up the 80s I remember Hulkamania and Jake the Snake and all that, but I never paid it all that much attention. Well, somewhere along the line they changed their name from the WWF to the WWE, to avoid confusion with the World Wildlife Fund. Maybe Hogan got confused and performed an Atomic Leg Drop on an endangered panda or something, I don't know. Anyway, since then Vince McMahon has turned sweaty men grappling and pretending into punch each other into a merchandising juggernaut. They have produced landfills' worth of books, action-figures, t-shirts and all the other crap that clutters up the shelves of those novelty goods stores where morons buy presents for other morons. One of these tentacles of merchandising is their film production group WWE Films. Of course I had to check out their films to see if they are as tasteless and stupid as their pedigree suggests.

See No Evil is a slasher film, and the killer is played by some guy name Kane who is, according to the box, a "wrestling superstar". I've never heard of this guy, but he's pretty much exactly what you'd expect when you think of a professional wrestler. A humongous bald dude with zero charisma or acting ability. One thing that his wrestling career has equipped him with, though, is a huge variety of ridiculous angry faces. He stomps around and frowns, puffs out his cheeks. It's hilarious. I don't think it's ever mentioned in the film, but his character has the awesome name of Jacob Goodnight. If it were up to me, I'd be putting that shit in the title of film.

Anyway a cop with an artificial hand, along with another woman, are heading up a correctional program where a group of a male and female at-risk youths clean up an old hotel. And this is a pretty filthy hotel: There are cockroaches fucking in the foyer. Regardless of how dirty the hotel is or how amorous the insects are, it doesn't take long for the kids to demonstrate exactly why such a co-educational program is such a bad idea. Most of them head off to have sex in the lounge, while a couple of guys head off to find some hidden treasure that one of the them found out about on the internet (he's in jail for computer fraud, you see).

Unfortunately, this hotel is also home to Jacob Goodnight. He has rigged the hotel with all sorts of tripwires and two-way mirrors, so that if anyone is fucking in one of his hotel rooms he's going to know about it. The two incompetent supervisors are among the first to die. This is pretty clever as the cop is set up to be the hero in an opening flashback (he loses his hand to Jacob and even manages to shoot Jacob the head before he escapes). In fact, for a while the film seems like it's pulling the trick where all the nice people die first and all the assholes survive, which would be clever if it hadn't already been done by about a thousand other horror films.

Like in Gymkata, this film has to work pretty hard to find use for Mr. Kane's wrestling talents. He doesn't do an elbow drop or a figure-4 leg lock, but does tend to throw his victims around more than the average killer. Sometimes he smacks them into the side of a door when he's carrying them around, like he's really clumsy or something. At one point he chokes two girls simultaneously, lifting both off the ground with each arm, a real showstopper. Other times he'll pull them around with a big hook on the end of a chain. His signature move is that he pulls the eyeballs out of his victims with his grody fingernails. I don't know why, but the big guy just loves them. He's got jars full of eyeballs in his lair, and when one of the teens smashes one of them to create a diversion you can tell he's pretty pissed.

Although they are pretty optimistic for thinking anyone's cares about Jacob's origin, it is explained in some herky-jerky flashbacks as the result of a crazy fundamentalist Christian upbringing, with his psychotic mother drowning him in the shower and locking him in cages for looking at porno magazines. The standard stunted sexuality stuff, which is why gets obsessed by ladies with religious tattoos and locks them in cages and masturbates.

Also, Jacob is usually surrounded by a swarm of flies. At first I thought it was just a hygiene things, I mean the guy plays with eyeballs all day and probably never showers (except when his mother punishes him), but late in the film it's revealed that the bullet hole in the back of his head is infected and filled with maggots. That's a nice touch, and one of the few over-the-top touches that found me liking this film in spite of it's faults. For instance, in one scene a vegetarian is savagely mauled to death by the stray dogs she saved from a bully earlier. You have to respect a film so singularly committed to misanthropic vulgarity.

Usually the killer in these kinds of films suffers a fairly ambiguous death, but here he has one of the most sadistic and overly elaborate death of all. Spoilers, yo. After the various battering and stabbings the killer usually suffers in the finale, he is finally dispatched by ramming a metal pole through his eyeball. Then he falls out of the window, smacking into the walls on the way down, and tumbles through the glass ceiling of an atrium where the pole is hooked onto a metal beam and ripped out of his eye socket. He plummets down and lands on a metal spike where an x-ray shot shows his heart being pierced and spewing blood into his chest cavity. Oh, and for the post-credits coup de grace, a stray dog pisses in his eye socket. Now that's how you do a death scene.

The film is directed by Gregory Dark. If his name sounds familiar to you, you probably shouldn't admit it in front of your girlfriend because his filmography consists mostly of softcore porn. Which is weird because this film contains very little nudity, although it does explain the very workman-like approach to camera placement and lighting. There are a lot of loud noises, vibrating cameras and all the other stuff that has infected horror films over the past few years, especially when the movie shifts to Jacob-vision and the camera gets all shaky and blurry. I guess a bullet in the back of the head will do that to you.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I thought this film was okay. You probably shouldn't risk it unless you are thoroughly inoculated against stupidity.