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[Penance]
Plot:A young mother decides to become a stripper to earn some fast cash only to find her worst nightmares are about to begin.
Cast:Marieh Delfino,
Graham McTavish,
Alice Amter,
Jason Connery,
Valorie Hubbard,
Lochlyn Munro,
Allison Lange,
Michael Rooker,
Tony Todd,
James Duval,
Eve Mauro,
Sita Young,
Katherine Randolph,
Garrett Jones,
Tracy Coogan.
My Thoughts:Torturous torture porn.
Review:While watching "Penance", I somehow felt this movie should've been released somewhere between 2005 and 2007, which was the height of the torture-porn craze. Not 2009 when torture-porn was slowly dying out. At any rate, the film stars Marieh Delfino (Jeepers Creepers 2), as Amelia, a woman who has a sick child, a boyfriend, and works with battered and abused women.
While she enjoys her work, it just isn't paying the bills. Especially considering that she now has found out her child will need expensice medical treatments to avoid a slow death. So, she talks to a friend, who decides to put her on as a stripper, so she can make some quick cash. It all works out at first, but when Amelia takes a gig in her friends place, at a far away estate, things get very, very horrifying.
For her next client is more interested in Amelia's threshhold for pain, instead of her stripping skills. "Penance" is definitely a torture-porn film, and even in the vein of the French horror pic "Martyrs". The movie doesn't concentrate on developing the bad guys as characters, but instead...makes them Gustapo types, with bad German accents and some hitler-esque cleansing methods for people who they deem to be "unclean."
Granted, as a viewer, you knew the gruesome stuff was gonna come sooner or later, but this movie makes sure it is not tastefully done. And that's the problem with it. The film on the surface, tries to be clever with how it lures it's female lead into this horrific trap, but once the trap is sprung, it just breaks down into another borderline sexist, hyper-violent, sycophantesque horror film.
Where women are victimized to the point of no return, and the guy behind it all is just some kook with a god-complex who thinks this method of purifying a persons soul is normal or in the end, the ends justifies the means. It's really hard to watch a movie like this, and take it seriously even one iota. It's just too obvious, and too predictable.
We know various women will be tortured and killed, we know some mistake by the head psycho in charge will allow one to escape, turn the tables on her captors, and escape. And we know just when we think the evil deeds guy is dead, he slips away and manages to avoid capture. It doesn't get anymore by-the-numbers than this. The only non-predictable part of this picture was when the boyfriend catches a bullet through the head.
And beyond that scene, the movie is like an asteroid entering earths orbit...as it moves forward, it falls apart little by little, unfil "poof"...it's just another misogynistic horror film that shows up at your local retailer, and manages to fool a few unsuspecting teenagers with it's intriguing and twisted cover art. The film isn't deep on any level, not even the most basic level. Sure, it boasts a seasoned actress as it's female lead, and some cool cameos by Tony Todd and Michael Rooker, but there's not much below the surface of such a shallow piece of moviemaking.
I was hoping this film would be twisted and messed up, but in a classy and smart sort of way, ala "Hostel" and "Saw". But instead, it just ends up being offensive, wasteful, and too below-the-belt to be viable as even a horror film. "Penance" lacks responsibility and respect for the genre. The film just capitalizes on a sub-genre of horror that is fading, fast.
Positives:Marieh Delfino is a trooper in the movie, despite the script being far beneath her. Tony Todd and Michael Rooker make some nice cameos. The ending is atleast a slight redeeming quality.
Negatives:The film takes exploitation beyond the norms, and comes off as sexist, mysoginistic, and too tasteless
Overall:One star out of four.
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