FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Dau was the nerdy girl that all the kids at school picked on. So, she mostly kept to herself and helped her grandmother at home. In turn, grandma taught her all she’s learned out of life, including black magic. But when granny gets sick, Dau of course must pack up and move to the city to become an exotic dancer. It is there that she comes out of her shell in more ways than one. Can she control her emotions and more importantly the black magic in order to save her precious grandmother?

To be honest, I don’t know myself. Because after she leaves her extremely short backstory world, it’s never even mentioned again. Did gran-gran die? <shrug> Didn’t see her the rest of the picture. Although you do hear her as she recites the broken “Gremlins”-esque rules for using black magic: Don’t pass under clotheslines, no raw meat, and don’t accept payment for teaching magic. But yeah, all of the set-up scenes showing how Dau (which is her stripper name. Her real name is Aaw.) was teased and bullied ends up being completely unnecessary save for showcasing the horrendous child actors. What’s worse is that once you’re out of that boring farming town, it takes forever to get to where you know it’s ending up. But don’t worry. Even if you miss the first ten minutes or so, you’ll still be able to catch plenty of horrible acting! These people may be able to pull off their clothes, but they can’t pull off any type of realistic emotional struggle.

The whole movie screams straight-to-video, B-movie shlock. This is the kind of film that if made in the United States would be shown late nights on Cinemax (and probably a Starz reject channel). But since it was made in Thailand, it hit the festival circuit. I mean, c’mon. There’s a shot of a young Dau throwing “blood” on the camera lens to turn the whole scene red (which didn’t look natural) – while looking at the camera (which wasn’t intentional). There’s also a scene where a snake bites a guy’s penis off for crying out loud. That’s Troma territory. And the score is way over the top as well. The composer gets extremely melodramatic and treats each scene’s emotional punch as if it were the climax of the entire picture.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the composer is also the director. And the writer. And the editor…producer…sound editor…and the only white guy with a speaking role. Yes, Paul Spurrier (“Underground”) breaks Dau in to the seedy world of prostitution. That scene doesn’t work, because he’s just not creepy enough. He’s not menacing or a jerk. He’s just a bad actor, or in this case, par for the course. But he did keep this film that goes absolutely all over the map incredibly fluid and it held my attention.

Unfortunately, the movie isn’t scary. They resort to a lot of cop out deaths. That means that instead of showing the blood and gore and all the cool stuff, they cut away to the same CG sequence of Dau’s infectious demonic disease coursing through their veins. Evil Dau’s glowing eyes, however, are an effectively creepy touch and brought to mind early monster movie techniques.

You know, I haven’t seen “Showgirls” as of yet. But I’m still willing to compare the two movies. Add a splash of “Carrie” and I think we got ourselves a solid sales pitch. Despite all the griping about the horrible technical and artistic aspects this movie has going against it, it’s still actually a whole lot of fun. And surprisingly, it could be cheesier yet. You certainly shouldn’t expect high art, but any film where you go from town girl to stripper to lesbian vampire in under two hours is guaranteed to be a good time.

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