By Ben Bussey
Oh joy, time to play that oh-so painfully over-familiar tune once again. Seems like every damn time I dare to have a little faith and imagine that a newly released no-budget indie horror movie with a nicely trashy premise might actually deliver the goods, I give it a chance and – lo and behold – it turns out to be total, unmitigated shit. No, it doesn’t happen every time, but the occasions on which this doesn’t turn out to be the case are so few and far between that I, and I daresay most of my BAH colleagues, will fling my hands to the sky with gratitude to whatever benevolent forces might be at work in the universe when faced with a no-budget indie horror that’s actually engaging, daring, intelligent, witty, and well-made. But in no way, shape or form is this the case with Serial Kaller.
Worst part is, it’s obvious from the opening five minutes alone that nothing about Serial Kaller is going to work. We open on a TV phone sex model, who leaves work down one of those classically green neon lit corridors, and obviously doesn’t make it home. Crude, but to the point. Then all of a sudden we skip back to 30 years earlier, with a young rich kid being orphaned when his plastic surgery addicted mother dies after her latest procedure goes wrong. That ten-minute sojourn over with, we skip back to the present and meet the rest of the models and technicians at the phone sex channel, and spend an interminable amount of time getting to know them and their relationship dramas (including, for absolutely no discernible reason, regular cutaways to the father of one of the girls who’s a retired rock star). We also meet no-budget horror veteran Debbie Rochon as a local waitress who tries to get an audition for the channel but is turned down for being too old. After about 45 teeth-grindingly slow and uneventful minutes of this we finally settle in back at the station for a night of cavorting for the cameras – but, wouldn’t you know it, once they’re all securely locked in with the phones all very pointedly confiscated and locked away for the night, it turns out someone else is in there with them with an axe to grind. Well, a knife, but you get my meaning.
The station in question is called Babelicious. Now that’s a pretty plausible name for one of those late-night call-in channels. What’s rather less plausible is that these models literally sit around making no effort whatsoever to conceal the fact that they’re bored shitless, whilst – erm – never taking their bras off. Yes, it’s another of those curious 21st century movies in which professional strippers don’t actually strip, at any point. Literally two women appear topless in this movie, very briefly, in the dressing room rather than whilst working, and the actresses in question disappear immediately afterwards. Even during the film’s two sex scenes the participants remain clothed, one actress very clearly still wearing knickers whilst going cowgirl on a dude very clearly still wearing jeans. The mind boggles. I really just don’t know what is going on in the heads of either the people making these movies or the people acting in them. What is the fucking point of sexless sexploitation? If you’re selling a film on T&A, as is very clearly the case with Serial Kaller, then you’d better make damn sure you actually show the T&A, or why are you even bothering to make a film of this nature?
Okay, so maybe Serial Kaller can get around this complaint by presenting witty dialogue, interesting and relatable characters, strong central performances. But I should think at this point it will come as no surprise when I say Serial Kaller completely and utterly fails on those counts too. And as for the kills – yep, they’re also piss-weak, with joke shop gore FX and one or two instances of painfully bad CGI.
What makes it all particularly sad is that there are at least a couple of genuinely talented people involved here – most notably Debbie Rochon. Of course, she’s an old hand now at making the best of subpar material, and there a few brief moments in which she genuinely elevates Serial Kaller to a higher level. Alas, these all-too fleeting flashes of brilliance are nowhere near enough to keep this turd from the slipping down the u-bend where it belongs. And that is where you should leave it, believe me.
Serial Kaller comes to DVD and VOD in the US on January 28th, from Wild Eye Releasing.