Pulpmovies Reviews

Sam Harris has famously argued that by being accommodating towards moderate religious beliefs, we open the way for more extreme values to insist on the same acceptance. The target of Women’s Studies is a political rather than a religious ideology but fanaticism is fanaticism (and religious fundamentalism has much more to do with political power than with finding faith) and the film tries to explore the way in which the process of radicalisation works.

Mary (Cindy Marie Martin) is a feminist and graduate student in Women’s Studies with a bright political future ahead of her – until she realises that she’s pregnant. This leaves her torn between her political idealism, Catholic guilt and career aspirations and uncertain of what to do next when she, her boyfriend, Zack (James A. Radack) and two friends Beth (Melisa Breiner-Sanders) and Iris (Laura Bloechl) share a car back to college for the start of a new term.

Mary’s car is stolen while the four are en-route and a group of students offer to put them up in their nearby academy temporarily. And then things start to get strange.

The Ross-Prentiss Women’s Academy is a women only institution, and one that emphasises subjects such as women’s studies, business and politics – all of which are studied from an exclusively feminist perspective.

Mary finds herself drawn to the ideals of Judith (Tara Garwood), a senior student at the academy and the prime mover of much that happens here, who quickly ensures that the four friends are separated from each other. Iris, uncertain and more than a little naïve, finds herself under increasing pressure to not only buy into the student ethos, but also to become a student herself. With Zack isolated and, frankly, a bit useless it falls to Beth to see that something is wrong here. Unfortunately, the others aren’t listening…

Women’s Studies is an original take on the Isolated teenagers genre of slasher films and one that does make a serious stab at exploring the sort of exclusionary behaviour, peer pressure, groupthink and bonding rituals that typifies a cult and that can draw someone along the line from idealism to terrorism. It helps that the characters are consistently well rounded and given real depth by a consistently strong cast. These characters – both the protagonists and the academy students – manage to remain both consistent and believable and it is this that gives the film a lot of its strength and makes it such a shocking experience.

In fact, I would have liked to have seen more of the characters – and they were certainly strong enough to have supported some deeper development – and less of the ending, which was longer than it needed to be and tended to over-labour some of the points.

That said, the film does have an excellent coda.

Oscar (Oscar Castro) and Brett (Brett Poquette) are a pair of producers – their production being a public access cable TV show. They are also behind on their mortgage – three months behind, and facing foreclosure. Our heroes need to find funds, and quickly.

So begins an absurdist mockumentary about a group of film school graduates, a small time gangster and a Muppet as they try to find a way to keep themselves – and their programme – afloat. Their schemes range from the silly to the surreal until they finally hit upon the idea of making a film about making a cable TV show.

Making a film about making a film is something that has been done before, but what separates this film from similar efforts is that the programme at the centre of events – The Adam Bomb Show – really does exist. The people involved in the film are the same people that are behind the TV show (I’m not so sure about the Muppet, though) and this really does add to the sense of camaraderie amongst the characters.

This approach also makes for a unique combination of faux documentary, character comedy and absurdist sketches all of which slot together rather effectively. But what really carries this film forward is the sheer likeability of the two main characters.

The characters of Oscar and Brett are very well drawn and rounded enough to feel like real people and to generate some genuine empathy. The writing is thoroughly brought to life by the two actors who both put in strong enough performances that, even when things start to get silly, they remain both believable and sympathetic.

I found the film is a little hit and miss in places, although at least some of this is probably down to a lack of familiarity on my part with public access TV. However, the jokes do come thick and fast, and there are many more that work than don’t.

Overall, this is a fun film peopled with a collection of amiable characters whose circumstances do keep you genuinely interested in how things will pan out. The structure of the film also allows it to take a subtle dig at the accuracy – or otherwise – of more mainstream documentaries and, as a gentle satirist, I think that writer/director T. Anthony Moore could have a great future.

Lust for Vengeance opens with a gloved hand holding a small board with a list of women’s names on it. One of the names is already crossed out and, once we are into the film proper, it’s no surprise that a murder has already happened.

We’re then introduced to the characters – four women, all linked through friendship, each of whom has a dark secret and all of whom are being stalked (one by one) by our mystery killer. And I really couldn’t bring myself to care.

The cast aren’t bad and, apart from a couple of exceptions, put in reasonably solid performances but they are badly let down by a script that really doesn’t hang together.

The film plays out as a series of unrelated vignettes. In each case we are introduced to the next victim, who has a problem (usually drugs), has sex – explicitly - and is then murdered – remarkably bloodlessly.

Writer/director, Sean Weathers is clearly much more interested in the sex than the violence in this film but – given that this is supposed to be a slasher film - the fact that the slasher part of the film is such an afterthought really does let the film down.

This, combined with the jumpy narrative flow, left the film with no tension, no shocks and a painfully obvious final reveal.