No.319 : White Girl (2016)

White Girl (2016) at the IMDb

A down and dirty slice of New York life now as we see what happens when you run about with drug dealers and party a bit too hard.

Morgan Saylor stars as Leah, a young student moving into an apartment in the seedy end of town with her slightly more prim roommate. Leah likes to party and is soon hanging around with the youths from her street corner in the hope of scoring some drugs off them. She makes a connection with Blue and soon answers her own question ’What sort of girl do you think I am’ by banging him on the apartment roof.

We know she’s a bit of a girl as she’s already been blowing her boss, Doug off ‘The Hanover’ films, for some lines of coke. She brings Blue to her office party and he realises that Leah’s middle class colleagues will pay $60 for the coke he is used to selling for $20. This suggests to him that this is a great market to exploit and he gets a load of cocaine on credit to service his new customers. Huge mistake. He is immediately busted, although Leah takes possession of the drugs.

She tries to get her man out of the clink but doesn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer. No worries, she can just become a drug dealer herself and get involved in a lot of seedy activities under the pretence of helping her banged up beau. The lawyer she engages does good work but is also a creepy rapist. Eventually he gets Blue out and the happy couple are reunited. Will they have a happy ending or are they destined to be forever apart?

This was a grim and nasty film that actually raised a few laughs with its levels of depravity. Leah was an absolutely toxic character and it was hard to care as she sniffed and blew her way through the film. There was a fun sequence where she gets the money to pay the lawyer and the dealer through dealing and a happy ending is offered - no chance - some tawdry action and a few spews later and she’s wondering what happened to her money and what’s that in my knickers?

The obvious theme here was a clash of cultures with the free spirited and middle class Leah getting down with the boys from the ghetto. She was obviously naive and despite the filmmaker trying to add in a love story and a few virtuous acts it was just horrible as Leah and her quickly corrupted room mate, went straight to the bottom.

I did like how all the men were despicable and only after one thing - to be fair Leah was offering it on a plate to most of them, apart from the lawyer who took what he wanted and had the cheek to present a big bill too.

The closing scenes in which Blue was released were through the fingers stuff, with the couple enjoying about two minutes of happiness before the inevitable miserable ending played out.

Morgan Saylor was excellent in the lead and must have saved the costume department a fortune as she rarely had a stitch on. The sleazy boss and lawyer were basically 'boo hiss' sleazebags and the street kids were leftover Fring employees from ‘Breaking Bad’.

The film will probably be heralded as a brave slice of life, but if it’s an accurate portrayal of college kids’ lives we’re all doomed. To be fair Leah’s summer of excitement was offset by her bland existence at the end and, you have to hope that she realises that she got off lightly in her flirtations with the dark side of life.

Best Bit : I’ve got a pound of coke and need $20,000 - Party!  ‘W’ Rating 18/23

No.265 : Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil (1993)

Witchcraft 5 : Dance With the Devil at the IMDb

I haven’t seen any of the proceeding four entries in this franchise, so please forgive me if I miss any character references or throwbacks to earlier instalments. Having seen the film I don’t think I have missed much, and any character development employed looks to have been accidental at best.

I watched the film and then did my research - HUGE mistake! It has what appears to me to be a generous 2.7 rating on the IMDB and none of the cast have done any other work since. It was also straight to video and is slated in some places as being soft porn, which would have caused me to pass it by had I known. To be fair I did manage to work most of these things out for myself during my viewing.

After some cheap 90’s credits we open with a hooker taking her customer back to her room. Obviously it’s a movie hooker so young, beautiful and not covered in cold sores. “We agreed fifty bucks” says the mark - or was he the film’s accountant talking about the budget? - before he gets knocked on the head by the hooker’s boyfriend. This small scene captures the film in microcosm - the mark gets the hooker’s bra off for a gratuitous topless scene before it is magically back on when the boyfriend appears. I had to pause that several times to pick up on that continuity gaff!

Unfortunately the mark dies and our hapless couple drag his body up the street in a blanket. It looks like the fat John has lost weight in the interim, given how easily he’s pulled along, but you don’t really notice as you are wondering why they don’t bring the car to the body? Meanwhile an evangelist is in his limo impressing his secretary with his biblical knowledge. His car nearly hits that of the murder/hooker combo and a homeless man gets wiped out in the aftermath. The Minister goes to help, but the homeless man dies, but not before a yellow squiggle leaves the dead man’s body and enters his. This ‘special effect’ looks like someone with a magic marker drew straight onto the film. We guess that this is some sort of transference going on as our Reverend immediately starts taking an interest in his busty secretary.

Our body disposal pair are now in the countryside and their car has broken down. They chance across a nitwit who calls himself ‘The Collector’ and who chucks stuff in the fire to make it flame up just a bit. Our geniuses think he’s a bill collector and resolve to knock him over his head and take his cash. Well that plan has never failed before. Soon the pimp is dead and the hooker is under the control of The Collector who immediately changes his name to ‘Cain’.

Elsewhere a couple are planning a night out at the dance club. William (who was in the previous films, apparently) doesn’t want to go but is dragged along anyway. Cain has hexed the nightclub owner and changed the dance night to one of magic. William is dragged on stage for a trick and Cain realises he is a Warlock and takes him under his power.

Will Cain’s plan to harvest souls to allow Satan to return to earth come to fruition? Who has taken over the preacher? And whose top is coming off next?

I enjoyed this film in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Its cheap rubbish but it knows it, and plays to its strengths of titillation and risible acting.

Star of the show is David Huffman as Cain who is hammier than a bacon sandwich. At one point the nightclub owner says ‘You don’t look like a rock star’ and he stands there, the spitting image of Ronnie James Dio. Every line is wonderfully delivered with accompanying hand gestures clear and present. At least they will have saved on the catering budget as he chewed the scenery in every shot. Amazingly he hasn’t worked since!

The three main ladies clearly weren’t cast for their acting abilities as each stumbled through their admittedly terrible dialogue before getting into their ‘love’ scene. These were all shot like 90’s power ballad pop videos with mood lighting, billowing curtains and a rock soundtrack. The scenes went beyond what would be normal and it looked like the producers decided to cut their losses and go for the soft core porn market. Or at least the market of people too ashamed to buy porn but want to get it through the back door with ‘horror’ films such as this.

The big denouement was shot in the dark so I’m not 100% sure what went down but there was a head chopped off somewhere. Further sequels followed so this effort must have made its money back, or at least the director found enough spare change to get a few more ladies disrobed.

I did like the special effects, especially the soul delivery which was a fried egg drawn onto the screen flying into Cain’s cloak. You don’t get that in the big blockbusters.

Overall one for a quiet night in when you are concerned someone may be looking for porn in your Amazon Prime viewing history. Right, where’s Part 6.

Best Bit : Disembowelled night club boss keeps cigar in mouth throughout + 4 others.
W Rating 14/23