Northern Premiere
After a pawn shop robbery goes askew, two criminals take refuge at a remote farmhouse to try to let the heat die down, but find something much more menacing.
Grimmfest Says: Japanese maestro of mayhem Ryûhei Kitamura (AZUMI, VERSUS, MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, NIGHTMARE CINEMA) makes a welcome return to Grimmfest, with this ferociously full-on fusion of hardboiled heist movie and grand guignol gorefest. A jaw-droppingly bloody and brutal genre-splicing spin on the “very bad people run into even worse people” scenario so beloved of both horror and crime writers, the film sees a ruthless gang of criminals and their hapless hostage cross paths with a psychopathic rural doctor and his improbably-named 7 foot golem henchwoman, Jodi, who hunt and recycle “worthless” people into useful contributors to society – by harvesting and trafficking their organs. Boasting a fine cast, including veteran Ozploitation character actor Vernon Wells as the deranged doctor, Stephen Dorff, reunited with his MOTEL LIFE co-star Emile Hirsch as, respectively, the grizzled ex-military field surgeon turned crim (a past which of course proves narratively useful), and his loose-cannon psycho sidekick henchman, Gigi Zumbado as the resourceful heroine, and the imposing Erika Ervin as the fearsomely implacable Jodi, it’s a twisted tale of two very different halves, with the deft character interplay of the opening scenes gradually giving way to something altogether more… visceral. Kitamura orchestrates the carnage and cruelty with his customary gleeful panache, but not at the expense of the performances, there are sly nods to films as diverse as TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and FRONTIERE(S), and, as a gory grand finale, one of the most inventively staged, spectacularly splattery, and downright and dirty mean-spirited onscreen deaths we’ve seen in a very long time. It’s one you won’t want to miss.
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