HALLOWEEN PUSSY TRAP KILL KILL * USA 2017 Dir: Jared Cohn. 86 mins
The title of prolific writer-director Jared Cohn’s latest may echo vintage Russ Meyer – while also sounding like a bunch of random words thrown together – but the reality is a dated SAW rip-off in which odious characters shout at each other in between being mutilated in “shock” set pieces shot, cut and soundtracked like a music video. Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine contributes a dismal vocal-only performance as the voice of a crippled, embittered war veteran who, with a little help from psychotic mechanic Richard Grieco, has captured unsigned band “Kill Pussy Kill” to detain and torment as “prisoners of war”.
They are subjected to a series of sub-Jigsaw challenges playing on their individual demons, complete with awfully familiar 60 second countdowns and almost direct quotes from the obvious inspiration (“Let the work begin…”). Mustaine’s embarrassingly weak bid to channel Tobin Bell is, sadly, not nearly as grating as a genuinely offensive Islamabad-set prologue featuring ISIS-like executions and the reduction of a complex contemporary issue to a cheap plot device. There’s no one to root for, with personality-vacuum final girl Sara Malakul Lane doing her resilient heroine shtick with both boobs hanging out of her ripped top…. though even the person in charge of Wardrobe Malfunction Continuity manages to epically fail.
Review by Steven West