[Bad Reputation]
Plot:A high school girl wrongly branded as the school slut embraces her 'bad reputation' and takes revenge on the kids who have made her life a living hell.

Cast:Angelique Hennessy, Jerad Anderson, Danielle Noble, Mark Kunzman, Kristina Conzen, Dakota Ferreiro, Chris Basler, T.W. Porrill, Elizabeth Kirven, Sean A. Mulvihill, Jennifer Holloway, Jeff Kueppers.

My Thoughts:It's like "Carrie".....only without the telekenesis.

Review:"Bad Reputation" is another horror film in the long line of female driven revenge/horror pictures. With that being said, it's also very cliche and really follows in the footsteps of what came before it, such as "Carrie" and "Tamara". The movie follows a young girl named Michelle who is the typical anti-popular crowd type. She reads books, and stays to herself. So of course, the popular kids feel it necessary to find some way to screw with her and make her life a living hell.

They do so in a way which mimics what set Rachel off in "The Rage:Carrie 2", a trojan horse branch of friendship being extended, and then an act of extreme embarassment being commited against Michelle once she takes the bait. Of course this film unfolds differently, as Michelle is a normal high school girl, and doesn't have any telekenetic or special abilities. Once the act of defilement, the frat boy recreation of date rape basically, is commited against Michelle, she then gets a bad rep around town and around the school, as a quote unquote slut.

Despite the fact that she was drugged, and forced into performing a sexual act, and her militant alcoholic mother is not sympathetic to Michelle's plight, blaming her for the ugly situation instead. This pretty much sends Michelle's psyche into a tailspin, and that's when the fun begins in the picture...bloody good fun, might I add. "Bad Reputation" is a film that unfolds slowly, and at times that can hurt it being that it's an indie picture. The low production values, the subpar acting by most of the supporting cast, and the horrible personalities of Michelle's tormentors...make this film quite difficult to tolerate before the lead character seeks her gruesome revenge.

Like I said earlier, if you've seen films like "Carrie", and "Tamara"...you pretty much already know how a movie like this will unfold as it goes on, and while "Bad Reputation" is nothing new in the girl-seeks-revenge-on-her-asshole-schoolmates subgenre, it does still manage to be strongly acted by it's lead female, and manages to go out with a bang during act three. The moovie also raises those same social issues, such as people can only take so much, and bullying and cruel pranks should be diverted before the victim becomes the predator and everything spirals out of control.

But a film like this will for the most part be overlooked because it'll be viewed as feminist tripe, or the A-typical horror story of a loner who was played and then got violently even. Yeah, films like this are a dime a dozen, but some of the small things that set "Bad Reputation" apart is that there does come a time where the victim turned murderer feels remorse, guilt, and angst over what she's done, while in films like "Carrie", and "Tamara"...their femme fatales were too far gone to really feel any guilt over the body count they were quickly amassing.

In fact the films final 15 minutes is where it really shines, and where actress Angelique Hennessy who plays Michelle, caps off a great performance with a very angsty and emotional encounter with her final victim. "Bad Reputation' is a film that not everyone or even most people will love. It's really a movie that as a viewer, you have to approach from a certain standpoint, or you really have to be a fan of female-driven revenge films to truly love it. Despite the many varying opinions a film like this will draw however, it oes indeed give a great effort at a sordid, blood-soaked revenge tale, and that I can appreciate.

Positives:Angelique Hennessy as Michelle is good, the final 15 minutes is well-acted and very intense.

Negatives:The supporting cast is weak, alot of the deaths are poorly shot so you can hear alot of squishing and cutting but hardly see any blood or gore.

Overall:A decent indie horror-revenge tale.





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