sábado, 31 de octubre de 2009

Daughter Of Darkness

CAT III films are always the hardest films in the world to stomach, with their mix of extreme violence and sexuality, but this is definitely one of the most disturbing in the bunch. It’s not as disgusting as, say, Centipede Horror (no real centipedes in people’s mouths in this film), but it’s still a hard watch. One of the things that make this film a weird experience is the fact that, for the first half hour, it deals with two bumbling cops in what looks like a sex-laced slapstick comedy. The two cops are called in to the brutal murder of an entire family, in which one daughter is the suspect. When the police later catch the daughter having sex with a man, they find it oddly peculiar, since she doesn’t seem to be mourning anything. They arrest the two, but to save her husband, the young lady decides to come clean and confess, telling them how exactly she was driven to commit the crime.
And boy, if there was ever any reason to kill your family, this movie sure as hell lays it down for us. Imagine one of those Lifetime movies, where the young woman is brutalized and abused throughout but in the end she prevails thanks to the law? Now imagine the same plot but with an extreme case. The poor girl’s family is truly hell: they all abuse her verbally and call her names, particularly the father, who not only screams at her, but also rapes her in one of the most disturbing moments in the entire film. After receiving one of the most disturbing and fucked up rapes I’ve ever seen in a movie (including food rubdowns and being tied up), she goes insane on a killing spree and butchers her whole family. She shoots her father in the balls, then goes after the rest of her family, who never helped her. All these intercut with interrogation sequences that have a bit of comedic element. I guess the filmmakers decided to add these scenes to lessen the disturbing impact of the main storyline, but instead they make it a lot weirder.
But even with these comedic elements, the main storyline is very powerful and disturbing, and even moving at times, and it’s all thanks to the performance of Lily Chung, the beautiful dramatic actress who specialized in these kinds of films, like Midnight Angel, Brother Of Darkness and, her best performance, in Red To Kill as the retarded girl who is viciously raped. She brings a very moving, very tender and realistic performance to the film, and you can feel her plight repeatedly. Every scene she is tortured you feel like you want to save her. Special props also have to go to Ka-Kui Ho, who specialized in these kinds of films. He is probably the most hated psycho dad in the history of cinema, right up there with The original Stepfather. This is a sleazy but excellent dramatic horror film that, while containing some awkward slapstick comedy, is powerful and moving, and comes highly recommended. Just be warned of it’s explicit sex and violence.

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