No horror movie collection would be complete without a haunted castle and medieval curse. Luckily, Meridian has decided to provide us with both in one 86 minute show. One member of the cast of which goes simply by the name “Charlie”, so that's promising.
Circus performers emerging from a stone mouth lit from the inside by an unknown source with smoke coming out of it. No context for that and the next scene is set inside a church so good to see coherency is going to be a theme here. This is another one made in the late 80s/early 90s but they've gone all out with this one 'cause they have people actually speaking Italian for the first five minutes so you know where it's set. High class.
The two main chicks look almost interchangeable except for their hairstyles. This might become difficult to tell them apart later on after the alcohol has taken over and started writing the review. Anyway, one of them has inherited the family castle and invited her friend over for the weekend but she can't stay too long because she's restoring the painting that was donated to the church from the second scene. The big stone face is back too, by the way. This time with a bunch of other stone statues around it on the grounds of the castle. The legend being an evil wizard turned his enemies to stone and placed them around his castle that he built out of a mountain... in the 14th century. Why not? Oh, and the circus performers are now doing their show in public on the castle grounds as well. I guess it all ties together quite nicely already, silly me for doubting this masterpiece. Some creepy music and the girl restoring the painting (“Girl 1” from now on since we saw her first) gets volunteered to have knives thrown at her in the sideshow. She doesn't get hurt of course, this is still too early in the movie for that. The sideshow goes on with some magic tricks that you'd expect from a free sideshow, and the leader of the bunch stares creepily at Girl 2 (the owner of the castle). Girl 1 seems pretty smitten with the sideshow's leader and she invites him and the rest of the troupe over to the castle for dinner. That works out fine since Girl 2 seems pretty smitten too so she goes along with it. For being Italian, though, he sure doesn't have the right accent. He does already seem to be scheming a way to bone the two of them either together or separately. He's more than a little bit of a douche, but hey, why not swing for the fences, right?
Magic Man made a cup disappear in mid-air at dinner, that'd be mildly impressive to see. Then he seems to have roofied Girl 2 (sorry, it was Girl 1 that got the major dose of roofies; I'm not even drunk yet and I'm making that mistake already). I'm not such a big fan of his style anymore. Anyway, Magic Man rips open Girl 1's shirt and leaves her rolling around on the table, then carries off Girl 2, who is starting to feel the roofies herself now, through a smoke filled door into a bedroom and strips her down too.
After stripping Girl 2 down and then walking out of the room when she started to wake up and respond to him (guess he only goes for the comatose girls), he passes one of the other performers (who has always been wearing a mask) and says she's “all his, ready and willing”... assuming you forget she's only like that because he drugged her. Turns out the masked guy looks exactly like him so when he goes in to see Girl 2 she's still okay with it since it's like it was her first rapist and not some totally different guy date raping her. The first guy then goes and gets with Girl 1 who managed to get her shirt back on (for a few seconds at least) and move over to a fire place with a conveniently located couch right by it. At this point between the music, poor lighting, and the general feel of the scenes I think they're trying to make this like the cover of a romance novel or something cheesy like that. Doesn't change the fact that it was just an excuse to have two pretty hot girls completely naked for a few minutes on screen and that they've both been raped in a what's supposed to be a romantic way. Also, the two guys turned into wolf-like creatures while they were fucking the girls. So that kinda kills the whole “romance novel” motif they were going for... at least, it would've if Twilight hadn't made bestiality like that hot to the half of the female population that's not into necrophilia.
The girls wake up thinking “something terrible may have happened” and that they “might have been drugged” and Girl 1 apologizes to Girl 2 for inviting the performers over so at least the movie is kinda admitting the rape thing. But they then decide that they can't go to the police about it and go about trying to move on so it's not really setting too good an example. Girl 2 does this “moving on” thing by sculpting, but then she wanders into an old closed off area of the castle and sees a girl with blood all over her dress lying in a bed. Running to get her housekeeper, they return to find the girl isn't there and that it's “just an old ghost story, every castle has one”.
Now one of the rapists is back and meets Girl 2 as she's out on a walk. He tries to convince her to see him again, but she doesn't want to for some reason. Doesn't do anything about it, though, just tells him to leave her alone and then walks away. I guess we're sticking with the “rape can be casually swept under the rug” motif of this movie.
The rapists then have a conversation where it's implied that they're supernaturally old and have done this whole thing before and that one of them is “good” (a relative term, all things considered) and the other is “bad” and that there's a chance that whatever curse/spell their under can be broken by the girls.
Back in the castle, Girl 2 sees the Girl In The White Dress again, and follows her into an empty room. That then has a wall open up and shows her one of the wolf rapists carrying the White Dress Girl into the bedroom just like he did to Girl 2. Girl 2 promptly faints. She wakes up with the housekeeper and another servant looking over her and she starts crying because she knows what happened to her. Also, it turns out the White Dress Girl was Girl 2's father's sister and the housekeeper knew this even though she'd been telling Girl 2 that it was just a legend since Girl 2 was a kid. Way to go, housekeeper, knowing stuff like this might've helped out a few days before so that she could've avoided traveling sideshows in the first place.
You know, for a movie that involves medieval curses, ghosts, two girls getting naked, and werewolf rape, this is progressing rather slowly. And not in the “it's moving slowly because they're building up psychological tension that's going to erupt later on” or in the “silent, slow burning, dramatic” kind of way either. Just really, really slow going like it's trying to be some sort of classical period piece but just failing miserably. It already feels like it's been longer than 86 minutes and I'm betting (my DVD player doesn't have a counter on it) we're not even halfway through yet.
One of the rapists suddenly appears in Girl 2's room out of nowhere. He slaps her, ties her up, and then starts trying to rape her again. His twin shows up in wolf form, though, and stops him before he can actually rape her. He does rip her shirt open and slap her unconscious again, though. Funny how the one does seem to only go for the girls when they're completely knocked out.
Through this whole time Girl 1 has been working away to restore the painting. So far she's found that underneath there's another painting and it's of the castle and now she's found what looks to be Girl 2 and the rapist sitting out in the field below it. That'll likely mean something later. Same with the backstory that the rapists get into with another conversation they have. Something about how only someone who loves them can kill them. It's important to the story but I can't be bothered to listen, there's drinking to be done and this movie is terrible for entirely different reasons than the other movies on here.
The “good” rapist brother shows up to Girl 2's room and tries to convince her to kill him. She doesn't want to for some reason, but she refuses to be leave when he tells her to run away and never come back. He then changes into beast-mode and runs off back through the secret magic wall. Girl 2 then cries about it and then goes to confession at church. Seems like the thing to do when confronted by a 400+ year old rapist who transforms into a creature so why not? Oh, and the priest tells her thank you for the painting that the lady of the castle donated... and then drops the bombshell that the housekeeper's been dead for six months. This is apparently enough to throw Girl 2 over the edge because she starts packing up to leave. Housekeeper ghost then gives Girl 2 a speech about truth and making decisions that ends with Girl 2 saying she loves her rapist. So yeah, I'll let that one sink in for you a bit.
Girl 2 then gets dressed up in the fancy medieval looking dress she was admiring before and walks through the magic wall into a secret passageway. There she sees the “bad” rapist killing her aunt in a vision and the “good” rapist explains the whole story behind the curse to her. She then tells him that she loves him and they kiss. Although it turns out that he's the “bad” rapist after all so that's pretty predictable aside from the whole rape victim falling in love with her attacker side plot.
They end up in a standoff with the “bad” rapist pointing a knife at Girl 2's throat, the “good” rapist pointing a cross bow at him but unable to shoot because he's not a killer (funny how that's the line he doesn't want to cross even after centuries of raping girls and wanting them to kill him to break this curse), and then Girl 1 showing up and standing there looking on at all this while the midget from the circus act (yes, their act had other people who have all disappeared until just now and even now only one's shown up) gets in a whip fight with the “good” rapist. There is a midget whip fighting a werewolf and this movie still sucks.
Girl 1's sole purpose here seems to be handing the crossbow back to the werewolf after he's tossed the midget aside so he can shoot his brother a couple times with it. That is literally all she did in this scene. Aside from being another pair of tits to show onscreen and just there to prove that there were two of them (the rapists, not the tits... although that too, I suppose), she really doesn't serve much purpose in this movie at all. Anyway, turns out that just killing the “bad” brother is enough to break the curse so the “good” one is free and there's some garbage romance novel dialogue about how much they love each other and blah blah blah blah blah. The rest of the circus go back into the stone mouth and the “good” rapist and Girl 2 follow them. The end. Seriously, that's the end. Rape is rewarded with freedom from a curse and “true love”, the circus troupe goes back wherever they came from having suddenly made-up with the guy one of them was whipping not two minutes before, and Girl 1's whole part of the movie can be summed up as “get naked, hand werewolf crossbow”. She spends the rest of the time restoring a painting that, despite being a “major” plot point, contributes absolutely nothing to the actual story. That's kind of fitting, I suppose.
But to get back to the main point this movie seems to want to make: rape is a legitimate way to solve your problems. Whether it's a centuries old curse you need to get out from under or just trying to find that true love you've always wanted, nothing like some good old fashioned rape to do the job. At least the other terrible movies on here don't try to teach you lessons like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment