A few weeks ago, Media Blasters announced that they were going to start streaming some of their anime catalog online. The first titles to be a part of this service were Ah! My Goddess, Queen's Blade, Ikkitousen Dragon Destiny, and Kanokon. While the concept of free legal anime streams is nice, what caught my attention was at the end of the press release, "SMASH CUT -- watch the exclusive, intimate video diaries from adult superstar Sasha Grey on the set of this blood-splattered feature!" I like porn and I like slasher movies, so it follows that I should like a slasher movie starring a porn star, right? I needed to know the answer. After watching the trailer I did what any curious pervert would do and bumped Smash Cut to the top of my Netflix queue.
It's important to note that this is not the first time I've seen a movie starring Sasha Grey. It's not even the first time I've seen a non-pornographic movie starring Sasha Grey. She starred in Steven Soderbergh's (Ocean's Eleven) The Girlfriend Experience, a film about a high class prostitute who is unhappy with her life. Not surprisingly, it was a terrible movie. Grey's performance was alright, but I expected as much from the winner of the 2010 AVN Award for Best Anal Sex Scene and Best Oral Sex Scene. No, in fact, the problem was that the film was excruciatingly boring.
Just like the real Grey's Anatomy, but with less sex.
I wanted to like Smash Cut, I really did. Watching bad horror movies is one of my favorite pastimes. I've seen Neil Labute's so-bad-it's-good Wicker Man more than once! However, Smash Cut fell short on the unintentional humor that I've come to expect from crappy horror films. What I got instead was something that was so-bad-it-was-bad. It only further broke my heart when I found out that it was directed by Lee Demarbre, the same man responsible for Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. One of Demarbre's biggest problems is that he's making B-movies on purpose (or I sure hope he is); whereas, Labute actually thought he was making a good movie. It happened to work when he made Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, but that movie had a lot going for it just on the title alone. And when you consider the opening song and dance sequence, it's easy to look past the rest of the films flaws.
So what's Smash Cut about anyway? That's simple: porn stars reciting Hamlet while kissing the severed head of their sister.
[pro-player width='530' height='353' type='video']http://www.fightbait.com/videos/SmashCut001.flv[/pro-player]
The movie opens up with a disclaimer from the Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis. He says, "We are about to show you a new movie [...] called Smash Cut. Watch if you must. But remember, you were warned." At first, I thought the filmmakers were just being cute, like when Wes Craven used the phrase "To avoid fainting, keep repeating-it's only a movie..." on the posters for Last House on the Left (which also sucked). Now that I've seen the full movie, its clear that they were warning me that I was about to waste 90 minutes of my life that I can never get back.
Smash Cut follows the antics of horror director Able Whitman played by David Hess (who also starred in the above mentioned Last House on the Left). His latest flick is canned by the critics, so he goes to a local strip club to drink away his misery. After enough alcohol to put Tony Stark to shame, he pays a stripper named GiGi to come home with him. Whitman hits a tree on the way home, which kills GiGi instantly. Instead of calling the police, he decides to stuff her in his trunk so he can use her body parts as props in his next project.
This is where Grey's character, April Carson, comes in. Carson is GiGi's sister, and she is not too happy about her disappearance. So unhappy, in fact, that she employees the eccentric dectective Isaac Beaumonde (Jesse Buck) to help track her down. Through a series of unorthodox interrogations their trail leads them to Whitman. Beaumonde knows that Whitman is up to something, so he sends Carson in to infiltrate his studio under the guise of an audition for the lead role.
Does she get the part? Well, of course. Otherwise we wouldn't get to see Sasha Grey showered in a bodily fluid other than semen. Though I have to wonder if this is really a step up from porn.
[pro-player width='530' height='353' type='video']http://www.fightbait.com/videos/SmashCut003.flv[/pro-player]
As the film progresses, Whitman begins killing everyone around him. He starts with the woman who wrote the scathing review of he previous film and slowly works through his crew. He kills the special effects team, the writer, the cameraman, his assistant--everyone. In this movie no one is spared from Whitman's murderous tendencies, and incidentally no one notices them either. One of my favorite scenes is when he kills his producer for demanding the addition of a scene that shows off a young boys karate skills (a very obvious reference to the pancake scene in Eli Roth's Cabin Fever).
[pro-player width='530' height='353' type='video']http://www.fightbait.com/videos/SmashCut002.flv[/pro-player]
The part where he kills the writer is worth checking out as well despite the lack of the Captain Ahab costume.
[pro-player width='530' height='353' type='video']http://www.fightbait.com/videos/SmashCut004.flv[/pro-player]
With the exception of these choice scenes, this movie is awful and should be watched by no one. The story is bad, the writing is bad, and the acting is bad. Part of me wants to believe that it was done in jest, but that attitude did not help me enjoy the film. If you absolutely must watch this, I advise that you do so with a large group of friends while under the influence of alcohol. However, even under those circumstances I can't promise success.
[pro-player width='530' height='353' type='video']http://www.fightbait.com/videos/SmashCut005.flv[/pro-player]
If you're a bad enough dude and actually want to buy this piece of crap, you can find it for $12.49 here
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