Reviews
Murder for Pleasure
wickedChannelreview.com Review:
Murder for Pleasure is something dementedly special. The film focuses on a guy named Victor. Victor at a very early age witnessed his parents being murdered. This act has changed Victor’s life for the worst. The little boy died the day the bodies were buried and in his place is a cold-blooded, sadistic, sick serial killer. This film gives us a fascinating and very disturbing look into the life of someone who society would perceive as a sociopath, but in his mind it is all justified. This film will get people talking very fast, the violent acts in this film are all over-the-top and the gore is out of control. The acting in this film believe or not, was top notch, everyone sold us their role and manipulated us into caring for them and not wanting any harm to come to them. When you can make a diseased filled prostitute who knows she is diseased but not telling people she sleeps with, thus killing them sympathetic, you are doing something right. This is another one of those films that people will point at and say, “Indie films go way too far and should have the same system as big budget films.
There is no low this film is not afraid to sink to, to get people noticing and they do not use obviousness to it, they just throw it right at us. How they were able to pull off some of these kills in this film blew my mind. This film was the indie answer to the remake of Maniac. The film also gives us Victor’s doctor and a girl named Maxi who try to understand Victor and show him he is not alone, and want Victor to feel loved. I loved that this film never lost its direction and created a story where not everything plays out in Victor’s favor, like a scene when he tries to get this girl to come with him and he fails. This film gives us a killer who is actually a broken human being. At first, we feel for him as the people he is targeting have done bad things, but eventually we see that even when he targeted the evil he was on this mental decline that we should never have had any emotion for him. In terms of style, I would put this film right beside The Turnpike Killer as a serial killer movie that has zero fear and is daring enough to throw anything at its audience and has the faith that it works. If you are in the mood for something sick and disgustingly fun, this film is going to win you over. This film gives you a great reason to be afraid of who is outside your door.
8.5 out of 10
The only time I care about cereal killing is on those mornings when I wake to find that my box of generic Frosted Flakes is empty. Writer-director Derek Braasch’s early hours, however, find him more interested in the mind of a surprisingly vicious serial killer named Victor in his latest feature film, Murder for Pleasure.
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What is, perhaps, most gratifying about this bloody dive into the mind of a sadist is how Braasch, and his co writers Anthony Pellizzeri and Mike Miller, capture, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the mindset of an unbending patriarchic male with their lead character. Victor, quietly and thoroughly played by Nick Bender, attacks his victims for their supposed sins – promiscuity, homosexuality, lack of romantic interest in him, abortion – with the fervor of the religious right. It is a portrait of unchecked masculinity that is surprisingly representative of our current and often violent, misogynistic culture.
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Beneath the copious amounts of gore and symbolic torture porn, Braasch also supplies some truly striking visual moments – a scene of watery child abuse is potent and a dream sequence that spells the end of Victor’s latest, unrealistic coupling is full of languid purpose, as well. In fact, Braasch works with a nightmarish quality throughout the film’s running time, creating an almost unreal universe where Victor’s crimes are never punished.
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A bit too meandering at times, with major characters and motivations sometimes revealed far too late in the proceedings, Murder for Pleasure is still an ambitious project that lovers of cinema about unrepentant murderers will probably find very enjoyable.
Big Gay Horror Fan Review:
MURDER FOR PLEASURE introduces Victor, a young man who witnesses the violent death of his parents as a child and deals with the trauma in a very unorthodox way..you see for Victor therapy isn’t working, violent dreams and urges are consuming him, and what scares him is he’s not sure if they’re even dreams..and he likes them..a lot. The only connection to a normal life that Victor has is his girlfriend Max but more and more he’s worried that his darker side will get the best of him and that Max isn’t nearly as safe to be around him as he’d like to believe.
I have to be honest. When i first sat down to this film I wasn’t at all sure how I would respond to it, in fact I thought it was going to suck. The first scene of violence was…underwhelming and actually pretty Goddamn funny (I have to say it’s the most hysterical attempted rape of an obese mother leading to a double homicide in front of a child scene ever committed to film. [Put that on the next run of posters Derek..trust me!])…but as things progressed a funny thing happened..I found myself absorbed. Not only that but the gore effects and acting got steadily better and better…Was it Oscar worthy? Of course not! This is a fucking Splatter/Exploitation picture, you want style and class go jerk off to Gone with the wind. We’re here for the Gory Guts and Goofiness damn it! And on those fronts, this thing delivers more than the city buses deliver underage crackwhores to Planned Parenthood on Free Abortion Day! The fella who plays the role of Victor plays up the role of split personality suffering psychopath to the Nth degree, hamming and mugging like Patrick Bateman having a colonoscopy while simultaneously enjoying a multiple orgasm whenever he’s doing his thing..and what is his thing you ask? Well..Let’s see, beyond a severe plastic bag fetish, our boy Victor also enjoys such delightful activities as castration, forced abortion, amateur dentistry, necrophiliac rape, and of course, murder while committing rape..followed by more necrophiliac rape..But then there’s Victor’s tender side, the caring, almost fatherly shy recluse who just wants someone to love..or maybe just rape..it’s honestly hard to tell..he’s pretty rapey all the time. All of the acting here was pretty cheesy..but to be honest in the case of this film I think that was done intentionally. True purveyors of Splatter cinema will tell you that the over the top cartoonish portrayal of characters in films like this one are one of the hallmarks of the sub-genre and one of the reasons we the fans dig it so much. Without the cheese, films like this would just be too damn mean spirited. The”unintentional” comedy makes us a little more comfortable with the disgusting shit we’re seeing on screen..and Derek..if this was an accident..well it was a beautiful accident so just nod your head and go with it brother, no one has to know either way!
The gore here was Outlandish, over the top and copious. Some effects worked better than others, but overall considering the abysmally low budget Cheevies films had to work with they did an awesome job and even the stuff, like the de-fetusing sequence where the pregnant girl’s belly looked suspiciously like a wrinkly blanket under her shirt work because they’re so hysterically obvious that audience members will enjoy a good laugh…if you want to feel like a complete sicko go lube up a My Buddy Doll and watch A Serbian Film, you can watch Murder For Pleasure without feeling bad, it deals with some truly fucked up shit but does so in a way that will inspire more laughs and bro elbow jabs than psychiatric examinations.
Overall I give MURDER FOR PLEASURE 2 middle fingers chopped off and sanded to the bone. Derek really found his calling with this film, it joins the ranks with films like US SINNERS, DAY JOB and DEAD BODY MAN as a truly fun, truly fucked up Splatter film that’s sure to please Splatter junkies more than Ellen Degeneres pleases her swollen clitoris to Revlon ads
The Icing
It takes a special kind of Alchemy to create a film that hits bad and then flies past it without pause right to the annals of so bad it’s good cult film. Films like this tend to live much longer than their “good” brethren..Maybe it’s our meanness as people that make us so attracted to cinematic train wrecks…or maybe it’s just the sheer earnest effort that goes into these types of films that makes us drool for them..For be it’s a simple matter of enjoying being entertained and the delight I feel when a film succeeds in doing so for me despite it’s shortcomings..correction, because of them. As rare as films that truly fit into this sub-catagory are, all the more rare are directors who can take this type of label with grace and good humor, this makes Director Derek Braasch and his film The Icing both great finds here at B-is For Best. Let’s take a look at the self described “erotic Thriller” The Icing
THE ICING Introduces Fin Scott, a former cop turned man for hire who finds himself in a deadly game with the widow of a murdered State Senator, The Widow,Marilyn is one crazy bitch and will stop at nothing to win the love and affection of Fin..Even if it means destroying everything he cares about to get his attention.
Part Fatal Attraction, part late night Cinemax softcore and all grade-B Cheese gold, The Icing is a film that may fail at being the hard hitting dramatic Thriller/action film it seems to want to be but succedes in being something that can only be described as The Room of Thriller movies (Or the Hercules In New York of Erotic films..whichever you prefer.) The urge to please an audience and sheer energy of this thing makes it impossible not to like even as your laughing your ass off at lines like “It’s possible to fuck a woman without having feelings for her and it’s possible to make love to a woman with feelings for her but you can’t make love to a woman without feelings for her..that’s impossible” and “Good thing I didn’t fall asleep…I snore like a bear” (followed by uproarious laughter and back clapping) The cinematography here was very reminiscent of what you would see from old TNT original shows, dark and video-ish, but I have to admit quite a few of the shots (Especially during the chase scene) were actually quite impressive and creative, all of the night shots were very well lit and well executed and while this wasn’t high art (and shouldn’t have been) cinematographer James Adkins obviously took his job very seriously and gave it his all, giving us a very 80’s cop movie feel that worked quite well with the material.
The acting here was….fun..This is where the ultra cheese factor really comes into play. The complete miscasting of a chunky Calvin Klein model look-alike as a rough housing, hardcore ex-cop was hysterical, as was his blase’ manner through the majority of the film regardless of what dialog or action he was performing. The actress who played Marilyn actually put forth the best performance in the film, which made the hysterically bad dialog she was delivering all the more funny..In fact A lot of the film came across like everyone else was in on the joke that this was a silly off kilter B-movie and had convinced her that they were working on the next Basic Instinct!
The music here was actually really good, sparse as it was. This was another area that brought to mind 80’s cop and action movies. It was simple, Casio like stuff..but effective at getting me into the proper mood for the cheese on the screen.
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The story was another area that was quite a bit of fun, taking a plausible idea and then taking it to laughably over the top the extremes and creating a plot twist straight out of a dime store crime novel. I also have to point out that the scenes where the two former cops are interacting and the ones with the inept criminals who fin ran out of town are actually really funny..and those are actually supposed to be.
Overall I loved this movie. With the proper exposure this one could easily become a cult classic to be proudly presented with the likes of The Room, Glen Or Glenda, Blood Freak and the like, something to show your drunk or stoned party members. it’s one I plan to revisit (which with the volume of films I recieve says quite a lot) and I have to say I am very happy that I seem to be the first reviewer to touch on it, as I think the larger sites would likely have unjustifiably torn it apart. There’s a lot to enjoy here. I give it No Middle Fingers up. It may not have succeeded in the ways it wanted to..but damned if it isn’t more fun then it would have been if it did!
The B Movie Avenger Review:
The B Movie Avenger Review: