The short is a fun watch. Adult children go home to split inheritance and the middle-child goes bonkers starts killing everyone.
The film is not listed on imdb, but I will provide a link.
The middle child daughter is arguing with her older brother who wants his new wife to get a share of the inheritance. However, this really doesn’t happen because you have to follow the will and unless the brother’s wife were listed to inherit, she’s not getting anything. However, the movie has to happen; so, let’s ignore that.
There is a beginning, middle, and an end. The film has a strong pacific northwest vibe. It is over the top and fun because of it. If you can get past the legal fiction related to the inheritance and I am assuming that you likely don’t care, this short will thoroughly entertain.
“Violence is a language written in blood; it tells the story of those who refuse to be silenced.”
Coralie Fargeat’s 2017 film Revenge is an intense and striking blend of horror and thriller that refreshes the rape-revenge genre with a strong emphasis on female empowerment and resistance. At its core, the film follows Jen, a young woman who is brutally assaulted and left for dead in a desert. Against all odds, she survives and seeks brutal revenge on her attackers. What makes Revenge stand out is its blend of graphic, realistic violence and a striking, highly stylized visual approach, resulting in a film that is both visceral and symbolic.
Revenge sits within a long tradition of rape-revenge films that includes both grindhouse exploitation and serious art films. One of the earliest and most influential films in this tradition is Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960), a somber and moral exploration of a father’s response to his daughter’s rape and murder in medieval Sweden. Bergman’s film inspired many later works, including Wes Craven’s famously brutal The Last House on the Left (1972), which reinterprets the same story through the lens of exploitation horror. Other notorious examples include I Spit on Your Grave (1978), known for its graphic depiction of sexual violence and violent retaliation. More recent films like Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale (2018) revisit these narrative themes with psychological and political depth. Fargeat’s Revenge draws on this history, combining symbolic storytelling and thematic depth with the raw brutality and energy of grindhouse exploitation.
The narrative structure of Revenge is familiar: Jen, introduced as the mistress of a wealthy man, is assaulted by his friends. Her lover Richard tries to silence her by pushing her off a cliff, but Jen survives, severely injured and impaled on a tree. Her journey is one of intense physical suffering, but also resurrection and fierce empowerment. The film’s use of bright, vivid colors such as hot pinks and blues shifts the story into a surreal, symbolic space where gender roles are exaggerated and the desert becomes a mythic battleground where Jen fights to reclaim control.
Fargeat depicts Jen’s trauma and physical recovery through graphic and detailed body horror—not simply for shock, but as a visual metaphor for reclaiming agency. For example, Jen’s self-treatment of her impalement wound with a hot beer can brands her skin and symbolizes her rebirth and determination. These elements mark a clear departure from earlier rape-revenge films that sensationalized female suffering, shifting the focus to the survivor’s power and autonomy.
Cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert’s work enhances this dynamic, contrasting the bright, harsh desert landscape with the cold, sterile luxury of Richard’s home. This contrast symbolizes the clash between raw survival and social control. The violence throughout the film is explicit and often hard to watch, but it is deeply rooted in the reality of trauma rather than fantasy.
Matilda Lutz’s performance as Jen is a key strength of the film. She transforms from a vulnerable, objectified figure into a fierce, focused avenger. The male antagonists are less developed, serving as archetypes of toxic male dominance—entitlement, violence, and cowardice—and their downfall reflects the collapse of that social order.
While Revenge maintains the fast pace and suspense of a thriller, its focus on graphic body horror and trauma places it firmly within the horror genre, aligning with the French Extremity movement known for its intense depictions of suffering and transgression. The source of horror here is not supernatural but very much rooted in the physical and psychological impact of violence.
The film has been praised for its technical skill and its focus on female resistance and empowerment. Instead of exploiting female suffering, it forces audiences to confront violence and trauma in a way that centers strength and rage. This is a clear reimagining of the revenge narrative through a modern lens that highlights resilience.
Revenge stands as both a tribute and a reinvention within its genre. It nods respectfully to the moral complexity of Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, the shock tactics of grindhouse staples like The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, and the psychological depth of The Nightingale. Yet it simultaneously reinterprets these influences, making a statement that is both timely and provocative.
Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge is a powerful and contemporary entry into the rape-revenge genre, blending horror and thriller conventions with a focus on survival and agency. The film explores the physical and emotional effects of trauma and the possibility of reclaiming power through violence. Its vivid visuals, symbolism, and intense violence challenge audiences to rethink assumptions about gender, justice, and survival. It is a film that provokes strong reactions while delivering a deeply felt story of empowerment and resilience.
I love the 1959 film, Attack of the Giant Leeches.
The set up is a classic one. In the humid bayous, a sweaty and unappealing store owner (Bruno VeSota) discovers that his much younger wife (the great Yvette Vickers) has been cheating on him. In one scene, he forces his wife and her lover to enter the swamp. It’s terrifying because the swamp is full of …. GIANT LEECHES! I’m a Southern girl. I’ve spent some time in the bayous. Let me tell you, swamps are creepy enough without the addition of giant leeches.
Full of sultry melodrama and bayou atmosphere, Attack of the Giant Leeches is one of the best of the giant monster films of the 50s. It’s amazing was radiation can do!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties. On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday. On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Planes, Trains, and Automobiles on Prime, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there happily tweeting. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
2006’s The Moment After 2 picks up where The Moment After ended.
In the days after the Rapture, the Global Alliance has taken over the world. The government seeks to control everything. Paper money is becoming a thing of the past and instead, everyone is expected to pay via a chip that’s been implanted in their hand. Not having a chip means going to prison and probably being executed for being a subversive. The Global forces, led by the sadistic Commander Fredericks (Monte Rex Perlin), are hunting down dissidents. People are being reeducated. It’s the type of world that, in reality, a lot of people want, even if they hide it behind a bunch of class struggle rhetoric.
Former FBI agent Adam Riley (David A.R. White) is on Death Row but he gets a chance for freedom when the prison transport is attacked by a rebel group. When the other prisoners ask Adam to come with them, Adam takes one look at all the bodies of the people killed during the attack and refuses. He’s not a follower of Global but he doesn’t want any part of the rebel militia’s demand of “an eye for an eye.” Instead, Adam wanders through the desert until he finds a community of Christians. He’s reunited with the Rev. Jacob Krause (Brad Heller), from the first film. He also meets Carissa (Andrea Logan White), a woman with whom he is in love. However, she’s married to Richard (Mark Atteberry) and we all know what the Bible says about adultery. Of course, the world is now a dangerous place and, with Fredericks executing every Christian he finds, maybe Adam will still get his chance. Adultery may be a sin but moving in on a new widow is not.
Meanwhile, Adam’s former partner and friend, Charles Baker (Kevin Downes), is recruited to track Adam down. If Charles captures Adam, maybe Charles’s wife Rebecca (Deanne Morre) will be releases from prison. Or maybe not. You really can’t trust the Global Alliance.
One thing that I appreciated about this film is that Adam, despite plenty of opportunities to give into temptation, stayed true to the commandment that “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” A lot of faith-based, apocalypse films tend to use the end times setting as an excuse to turn its characters into quip-ready action heroes, gunning down the forces of the world government and blowing up buildings without a second thought. This film, though, is smart enough to say, “Hold on, the whole anti-killing thing still applies, regardless of how bad things get.”
As for the rest of the film, it’s well-made and the cast is decent. That may sound like faint praise but, after you’ve watched enough low-budget faith-based productions, you come to appreciate the ones that at least feature a steady camera, a clean soundtrack, and actors who can at least show a modicum of emotion. As tempting as it may be to laugh at the heavy-handedness of the Global Alliance, those of us who remember the COVID lockdowns will never forget some of the suggestions that were made for dealing with people who were judged to be noncompliant because they didn’t want to observe curfew or close their businesses. Much like the first film, The Moment After 2 is a decent thriller, one that works nicely for our paranoid times.
That Richard Burton is today best-remembered for his tumultuous marriages to Elizabeth Taylor and for his performances in several less-than-worthy films is unfortunate as Burton was also one of the most highly regarded staged actors of his generation. In fact, late in his life, Burton often expressed regret that he had ever left the stage for films to begin with.
In 1964, Burton played Hamlet on Broadway, in a production that was directed by John Gielgud. (Gielgud also provided the voice of the Ghost.) This is a video-recording of both that production and Burton’s acclaimed performance. Burton brings an intense and almost divine madness to the role. Watching, one can see why Burton would have preferred to have been remembered for this instead of for playing Mark Antony.
Six construction workers (played by Clint Walker, Carl Betz, Neville Brand, James Wainwright, James A. Watson, and Robert Urich) are boated to an isolated island off the coast of Africa. An oil company has assigned them to build an airstrip on the island. On the first day of work, they come across a meteorite buried in the ground. When one of the men tries to pick up the meteorite with the bulldozer, a blue light envelops the bulldozer and, at the same time, fatally injures Robert Urich. Possessed by the meteorite, the bulldozer starts to track the remaining workers down, killing them one-at-a-time. It’s a killdozer!
Based on a short story by Theodore Surgeon and made-for-television, Killdozer asks the question, “Have you ever seen a big, bulky bulldozer attempt to sneak up on someone?” Given that Killdozer is not fast and it’s not very agile, it should be easy to escape it but the construction keep doing dumb things, like getting drunk or trying to hide inside a copper tube instead of just running away. The surviving men wonder how they are going to make it until help eventually arrives. Maybe if you hear Killdozer coming, you should could just step to the side or maybe you could even run behind Killdozer. Instead, the construction workers keep trying to fight it head-on. Every time Killdozer pauses from noisily rolling across the island and sits still because it senses one of the workers might be nearby, I’m reminded that Killdozer is an absolutely ludicrous film but that it’s also wonderfully strange and that it’s also impossible to enjoy it on some level.
The cast is good and, for the most part, so is the straight-forward, waste-no-time direction. The Killdozer deserved an Emmy and maybe its own series but instead, it just had to settle for cult stardom.
Sinbad (Sergei Stolyarov) returns to his land after going on a great quest. He sees that half of the citizens are rich and happy and always dancing. He sees that the other half are poor and never happy. Those of us watching see that the film’s version of Persia looks a lot like Russia. Sinbad announces that he is going to capture the Bird of Happiness and bring it back to his people. He sets sail and is given help by the daughter of Neptune. Sinbad visits many lands and spend some time underwater, where Neptune offers him the hand of his daughters and there’s also an octopus hanging around and watching in the background. Sinbad never finds the Bird of Happiness but it doesn’t matter because he realizes that his people have all the happiness that they need in Persia.
The Magic Voyage 0f Sinbad may seem like a strange Sinbad film and that’s because it was never a Sinbad film in the first place. It was actually a Russian film called Sadko, about a young Russian man who tries to prove himself by finding the Bird of Happiness. In America, Sadko was even released under its original name and plot in 1953. No one paid much attention to it.
Then, in 1962, Roger Corman got his hands on the American distribution rights for the film and he decided to rerelease it. He changed the title to The Magic Voyage of Sinbad and he hired a young film student to write narration for the film and to also “translate” the film’s dialogue so that it could be dubbed into English. The very Russian Sadko instead became a film about Sinbad, the legendary Persian sailor.
The Corman version went on to become the better-known version, largely because it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Personally, I prefer the Corman version because the badness of the dialogue and the overly solemn narration go a long way toward making up for the fact that this is a 79-minute movie about someone searching for something and failing to find it. After making so many grand promises, Sinbad returns to his home and tells everyone that he actually lied and they don’t need the Bird of Happiness to be happy. The film ends abruptly, probably because the people rose up and tossed Sinbad in the ocean at that point.
As for that film student who wrote the script, Francis Ford Coppola later did alright for himself.
First released in 1983, Hostage is an Australian film about Christine (Kerry Mack) and Walter Maresch (Ralph Schicha).
Christine is a young woman who escapes from her abusive father by going on the road with a traveling carnival. She runs the dart-throwing booth. It’s a simple life but she’s happy with it. She has friends and she has freedom. When Walter, an enigmatic German drifter, joins the carnival, there’s an immediate attraction between him and Christine. Christine sleeps with him a few times but she makes it clear that she’s not looking for anything serious or permanent. Walter announces that, if Christine doesn’t marry him, he’s going to shoot himself. Christine rolls her eyes and leaves his trailer, just to hear a gunshot as she walks away. At the hospital, Walter refuses to get treated until Christine promises to marry him.
Christine does marry Walter, both to keep him from dying and also because she’s pregnant. Walter survives his gunshot wound and turns out to be the type of husband who alternates between being wildly romantic and being coldly abusive. Walter wants to have lot of a children. He’s upset when Christine gives birth to a girl. “The next one will be a son!” he announces. Walter also spends a lot of time complaining about how weak the Australians are compared to the Germans. And, of course, there’s another huge issue with Walter.
HE’S A NAZI!
Walter is a neo-Nazi. For whatever reason, it takes Christine forever to figure this out. Walter drags to Christine to Germany and then gets mad when Christine doesn’t stand along with all of his friends while watching The Triumph of the Will. Christine opens up Walter’s keepsake box and finds a picture of his father wearing a Nazi uniform and also an iron cross. Walter’s friends are all blonde Aryan types who are constantly talking about how Germany has lost its way. And yet Christine doesn’t really seem to get that Walter is a Nazi until Walter starts talking about blowing up buildings and robbing banks.
Eventually, back in Australia, Walter and Christine rob a string of banks and the tabloids are soon describing them as being a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. Walter is happy but Christine just wants to grab her daughter and escape from him. That proves to be easier said than done. Walter’s not just a Neo-Nazi. He’s also totally insane….
Amazingly enough, this is based on a true story. Christine wrote about her ordeal and her book was adapted into Hostage, a film that may look like a typical exploitation film but which is actually a rather engrossing drama about a naive girl who finds herself trapped with a monster. The film is full of moments that stick with you, like when a policeman comes by Christine’s trailer and manages to totally miss her signals that she’s currently being held, at gunpoint, by Walter. Kerry Mack and Ralph Schicha both give strong performances as Christine and Walter. Schicha especially deserves a lot of credit for turning Walter into a believable villain as opposed to just a caricature. One reason why Walter is so dangerous is because he’s such an idiot and Schicha does a great job of showing what happens when stupidity mixes with confidence. In one of the film’s more over-the-top moments, Walter and his friend Wolfgang drag Christine to Turkey. At first, Walter and Wolfgang are cocky but the trip becomes a violent and (literally) bloody disaster.
Hostage brings a real nightmare to life. Sadly, even after she freed herself of Walter, Christine continued to live a difficult life. She died of hypothermia in 2019.
Through the Shattered Lens 