Minor spoilers visible some major ones in invisi-text (highlight to read)
“3 Convicts; an American, A Mexican and a Chinaman, take a black family hostage in their home in the middle of nowhere” it sounds like the setup to an outdated joke, but it is in-fact the plot of this week’s Video Nasty.
The poster claims “There is no greater violence than a Father’s revenge for the rape of his daughter”, but this rape does not occur until the last 10 minutes of the movie, so this if far from your typical “rape revenge” movie, it is, in fact, a fairly typical “Home Invasion” flick, moreover, the fathers “revenge” isn’t particularly nasty [after taunting Kane for a bit, he shoots him dead with a single shot]
When our 3 ethnically diverse convicts escape following a crash involving the prison transport vehicle carrying them, it isn’t long before they steal a car from a typical 70’s pimp (think Huggy Bear in purple velvet) and head north to Canada, although given the panic that ensues when they have to pass a simple toll booth, I have no idea how they would have coped with the border check!
The acting varies from fairly poor, to atrocious, and the dialogue is offensive beyond measure; I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word “coon” so many times in my life, and this is how it found itself on the DPPs radar.
To be fair to the movie, the racial slurs are (mostly) within a context and, although the black family come off worse (mostly if not exclusively at the hands, or rather mouth, of lead villain, Kane), only the Chinaman escapes hate-crimes. The Mexican is referred to (once) as a “spick” and Kane is constantly referred to as “honky” or “poor white trash” by the family’s kick ass wheelchair-bound grandma. Worse, before the bad guys even show up, the mother of the family (these are the good guys remember) says, of her dead son’s fiancé, “why did you have to invite that white girl to my house anyway?” this is a woman who we are soon going to be asked to sympathise with!
Speaking of the dead son and his galpal, we get a flashback to a very tender love scen between them, which seems to be entirely pointless, its too “soft” to be there for titillation (We don’t even see a boob), and they aren’t really mentioned as a couple again! [in fact, she dies in her very next scene]
The final 10 minuets of the movie, as the family turn on their captors has an interesting angle to is, and it’s a same it wasn’t explored for longer as it could easily have made up the bulk of the movie [the family get the upper hand just as the police arrive, and force the criminals to keep the police at bay with threats of killing the hostages, so that they can have their “fun”]
And that’s kind of typical of this movie; it’s clearly a grimy exploitation piece but, racial epithets aside, it seems reluctant to get too nasty; even the daughter’s rape[s – all three of them] happen off-screen.
The other thing that kind of surprising are the character arcs, The father of the Family is a preacher of the “Turn the other cheek” school of thought, who gets a change of outlook, and there’s a cop in charge of Kane’s recapture who has a similar arc [going from (supposedly) the most by-the-book cop on earth, to giving the reverend the gun that he uses to kill Kane] This cop by the way, is portrayed as been a jobs worth for arresting his friends sun when he catches him with an entire car boot full of weed, telling a cop off for breaking a red light, and stopping another from stealing from a murder scene, all of which sound to me like perfectly reasonable things for a detective to do, especially the latter…
All in all a fun, grimy little film, that would make a decent addition to any Grindhouse card.
FUN WITH CONTINUITY: look out for the dead son’s girlfriend’s phone, and its magic teleporting receiver!
Body Count: 8
Boob Count: 2 pairs
Animal Body Count: 0
Dodgy Boxer-shorts count: 1 pair
Most Memorable Death: Even Ginger kids aren’t safe!
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