PARTS UNKNOWN ** USA 2018 Dir: Richard Chandler 117 mins
A washed up family of professional wrestlers trying to claw their way back into the limelight find new and inventive ways to satisfy their blood lust. Brothers Hermann and Harvey Von Strasser (William DeCoff and Alexander Hauck) find a demon in the swamps whilst trying to dispose of a body. The demon calls on them to provide him with human sacrifices to enable him to take over the world.
Whilst their sister Kitty (Sarah Michelle) goes on violent rampage ( “she’s hardcore”) to exact revenge on her best friend/worst enemy Lacey Tormada (Lizzie Havoc) and youngest brother Karl (Stephen Cwiok) becomes suicidal. Meanwhile a cop, Mary Price (Alexandra Cipolla) hot on the trail of the recent Von Strasser murders discovers that she is the immortal embodiment of the swamp demons previous victims……. or at least I think that is what is going on. This is a very entertaining movie in terms of its neon grindhouse 80’s look with truly bizarre goings on and inventive gore sequences. Verging on exploitation territory this has some very detailed, if rather drawn out, sqeulchy scenes involving nipples being hacked off and consumed, shotgun dismemberment, razor blade dildo rape and fetus munching. Unfortunately the buck stops there though as the subsequent dialogue is bland, monotone and downright dull in places. Most, if not all the characters seem to say “what” as every other word which is all the more annoying when they try to involve in depth conversation. DeCoff is probably the most pedestrian badass I have ever seen and gets incredibly boring quickly. The less said about his favourite weapon the better. It doesn’t get much better with the other characters either. Harvey (Hauck) spends the whole time crying and whining, whilst the cop (Cipolla) plays her entire part like a plank of wood. Sarah Michelle as Kitty is the most entertaining but then takes it too far and becomes an indecipherable screaming crazy lady. The swamp demon is odd but has a certain 80’s appeal and is voiced by Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Plus there is a brief cameo appearance of wrestling tag team The Devils Doormen Frankie Vain and Brandon Webb. With a ridiculous running time of nearly 2 hours this could do with a lot of cutting down, it may have been a fairly decent splatter movie but they’ve tried to be too ambitious which just makes it confusing. The addition of the awful abrasive Techno soundtrack does nothing to enhance it but the great practical effects and masses of gore are a hell of a lot of fun. If you don’t mind losing a few hours of your life then give it a go!!!
Review by Sarah Budd