TYTD Reviews

A perfect example of ‘Roughie’ cinema, ‘A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine’ is…definitely an experience to sit through I think it’s fair to say! The main plot revolves around a young woman who gets tremendous pleasure out of leading guys on, getting them right up to the point of having sex, before (for the most part) purposfully freaking out and accusing them of raping her. In fact the film opens with just that event happening and the guy involved gets sentenced to 2 years in prison for rape and assault.

A clear influence on some of John Waters early works. This movies a little slow and hard going in places, but when it’s campy meaness shines through, it’s an absolute riot to behold. for every 4-6 minute sequence of Stacey Walker getting undressed, rolling around in the bath or in bed completely nude, or getting hot and heavy with some unsuspecting man (or woman) theres at least 10 seconds of dialogue that easily puts this thing DAMN close to 10/10 terratory for me. An absolute highlight being when Staceys character Sharon Boldly (and while biting her lip) exclaims “I MAY BE A BITCH! BUT I’LL NEVER BE A BUTCH!”

GOD I loved some of the parts of this film…

The scripts a little slow and repetative, for what is effectively a nudie film with heavy roughie elements it’s absolutely one of the better offerings out there and I had a real ball with it, but it’s still inescapable that a large amount of this movie is just actresses getting nude and then getting dressed again (set to a funk jazz beat)

it has a passble 3 act structure in place as we slowly see Sharon descend from picking up ‘Squares’ for cheap thrills to getting in WAY over her head with dangerous men who really WONT take ‘No’ for an answer.

Honestly; the plots not all that. But what IS an utter delight is the character’s, the character development and the dialogue of this thing. With some one liners that absolutely blew me away for just HOW over the top, melodramatic and razor sharp they were and just how entertaining the characters in this production were, especially when the film actually starts to build on there established base lines.

Its just an utter delight, and clocking in at a succinct 68 minutes. This film gets in, gives you pretty much everything you could want in a movie like this, and gets out without causing to much muss or fuss.

I personally found the broad direction a little flat and dry, nothing out of the unusual for films of this era. Which is a bit of a shame, but the cast direction MORE than makes up for a bit of a pedestrian presentation.

The cine is clearly inspired by the french new wave craze of the day, with smash cuts, jump cuts and cross fades galore combined with INCREDIBLY moody lighting that only emphises the grimey grainy film stock creating a wonderfully bleak looking atmosphere and tone visually that really helps sell the ‘rough and ready’ nature of the script and its subject.

Of course, the film would be a shadow of itself had it not been for the superb casting of Stacey Walker as Sharon, who doesnt so much chew the scenery in this thing, more swallows it whole ravenously. Shes PERFECT for this character and VERY often looks completely out of control, which is EXACTLY the tone that was needed for a movie like this.

Sharon Carr as her Lesbian friend Paula Also plays a wonderful contrast with her for the time she’s on screen, leading the audience to believe the films going to go one way before COMPLETELY wrongfooting them. She handles herself very well in her scenes and it was a shame that her time in the film was ultimately as short as it was.

The rest of the supporting cast (basically all the guys Sharon hooks up with) are all purposfully generic here ranging from your bog standard nerdy ‘square’ through to your overly macho and abuse wife beater. NON of the guys come away from this thing looking even remotely decent as human beings and it’s SO refreshing to sit and watch a movie that has ABSOLUTE contempt for the majority of it’s intended audience.

throw in a hot and fast Jazz soundtrack that does get a little blusey in places and, while a little patchy if your not completley in on ‘nudie’ films (basically expect long waits in between the action) I had a ball with this thing, and i’d happily watch it again!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-smell-of-honey-a-swallow-of-brine/

I honestly find it kind of amusing that Full Moon give ‘Killjoy’ and its sequels an almost ‘flagship’ status in their catalogue of movies. Alongside ‘Puppet Master’, ‘The Gingerdead Man’ and ‘Evil Bong’, whenever Full Moon advertise their ‘Classics’ this movie is usually one of the ones that gets wheeled out and held up.

And yet, even on their own streaming service they not only can’t be arsed to have the original film available in HD (it’s literally just their 2000’s era DVD release ripped and uploaded) but they couldn’t even be bothered to quality check the film, because I’ve seen this thing multiple times now and the frame rate is stuck somewhere between 16 and 19 fps and it looks absolutely atrocious for it. That’s not even mentioning the lack of accessibility featured like Closed captioning.

Not that ANY of the above really matters because ‘Killjoy’ isn’t really very good (in my opinion I might add) What we have here is a kind of supernatural slasher (Think ‘Wishmaster’, ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, ‘Candyman’ to a lesser extent) with an all black cast in which the central plot seems to be that some ‘Gangsters’ catch a nerdy guy sheepishly asking one of the gang members girlfriends out on a date.

They promptly beat him up and on getting back to his apartment he summons the powers of a demon known as ‘Killjoy’ unfortunately the summoning doesn’t work quick enough as the Gangsters return and kill him, but it doesn’t take long for Killjoy to finally materialise and seek revenge on the living.

And quite honestly, this thing wasn’t really for me. The scripts incredibly clunky and struggles on settle on a late in terms of whether it wants to be serious and gritty or over the top and silly. It aggressively flip flops between these two styles across the entire runtime. But, in my opinion at least, it just doesn’t gel well and felt more like tonal whiplash than anything else.

The pacing is very stop/start, the act structuring is super basic and the transitions are clunky. And not helping matters, almost all of the cast are either forgettable beige as characters or BEYOND annoying.

Our lead villain in this (I’m not even sure if his name IS Killjoy here. I don’t think he’s called by name in this movie) is arguably one of the most irritating supernatural villains I’ve ever seen. Take the most grandstanding aspects of Freddy Kruger, remove all the wit and charisma and throw in a crap ton of totally ‘filler’ grade swearing and you have a main villain whos utterly unwatchable in almost every sense.

The fact the script doesn’t even really give him much to do (seriously there’s like 3 kills across a 90 minute window, and they even bungle those) and yet they make him a presence throughout the film. Is just insufferable.

The death knell for the script on this thing is the dialogue, which is just…SUPER basic and feels in places like a first draft. It’s over long, convoluted, they don’t bother showing at almost any point…3/4 of the way into this film they do a flashback review of the last 3/4 of the movie! HOW BAD DOES YOUR MOVIE HAVE TO BE THAT YOU NEED TO FULLY RECAP IT 60ISH MINUTES IN!?!

The cine is passable fine for early 2000s low budget horror, at least they bothered to work some colour into proceedings and there’s a stab at some creative lighting that is of note. But they go way overboard with cheap CG effects that have aged horribly, and the end result is a passable film that’s dragged down by overeliance on poor effects.

The directions bland too, this thing could be ANY full moon film between 1998 and 2005, its lifeless, by the numbers ‘Gun for hire’ fodder and the lack of individuality on this thing just really made it a passive viewing experience for me.

The soundtrack is a mix of discount rap tracks and Richard Bandesq generic full moon scoring. I dislike it, I have nothing more to say. There’s 300 odd movies Full Moon have put out that sound EXACTLY like this.

In fact, the only positive thing I can say is, broadly the performances arnt awful. The actor playing Killjoy himself REALLY throws himself into the role, giving a hideously animated and irritating performance that’d VERY suiting of the character, and our ‘heros’ for the picture are a slight cut above the usual total beigeness that these full moon films offer. I know that’s a backhanded compliment. But they are better than the average for these types of movies, they animate, believable deliver their lines and didn’t make me want to turn the movie off. So I see that as a plus.

All in all though. I came away more irritated than anything else with this movie. In some regards its doing the best with what it’s got to work with. But in others, it’s an indecisive, bland mess of a movie that absolutely isn’t worth the 90 minutes it takes to sit through it.

And, please, if anyone who has a connection to Full Moon sees this. Get a line in to your streaming division and get them to reupload this thing in 24fps PLEASE.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/killjoy/