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The titular sex move — which, I must confess, I didn’t know about until the film’s creep on duty Bluey (Tom Burke) explained it twenty minutes in — marks this disappointing genre exercise’s shift from spring break narcissism into a lukewarm confinement slasher. Thereafter, what little pleasure the movie offers comes from brief tensions, tightly shot claustrophobic interiors and the comfortable fulfillment of generic routines.
The opening chapters, during which three young British women escaping dreary mid-winter Leeds in Mallorca are brought onboard by four young yacht staffers left in charge during a weekend ashore, are truly excruciating. One practically expects torture porn from contemporary horror films, but in Donkey Punch’s case we’re the ones being tortured by the porn onscreen. Once the plot turns from total misogynistic indulgence into a predictable series of more or less creative kills, there are a few precious scenes where momentum and chaos overwhelm moral outrage and boredom.
The double-edged attraction between lead Tammi (Nichola Burley) and Sean (Robert Boulter) is the most consistent point of interest. She’s the tight-lipped thinking girl, brought to Europe’s Cancun equivalent by her party-harder girlfriends to get a cheating ex-boyfriend off her mind; he’s the responsible member of the wild pack of young chauvinists, which includes his younger brother Josh (Julian Morris).
As Tammi and Sean’s loyalties are torn between family, best friends and their recognition of one another as the only sane passengers on deck, guessing who they’ll keep around and who’ll get tossed overboard occasionally distracts our attention from this doomed voyage’s failing engines. Of course, twenty minutes of tension can’t erase the foregoing unpleasantness and predictable conclusion to follow. Indeed, genre projects like this can only succeed when moments of indulgence and entertainment are matched with criticism and subversion. With no smart rebuttal to its onscreen atrocities, Donkey Punch ends up much like the act it’s named for: an offensive idea made all the more offensive by clumsy execution.
Opens January 23
The opening chapters, during which three young British women escaping dreary mid-winter Leeds in Mallorca are brought onboard by four young yacht staffers left in charge during a weekend ashore, are truly excruciating. One practically expects torture porn from contemporary horror films, but in Donkey Punch’s case we’re the ones being tortured by the porn onscreen. Once the plot turns from total misogynistic indulgence into a predictable series of more or less creative kills, there are a few precious scenes where momentum and chaos overwhelm moral outrage and boredom.
The double-edged attraction between lead Tammi (Nichola Burley) and Sean (Robert Boulter) is the most consistent point of interest. She’s the tight-lipped thinking girl, brought to Europe’s Cancun equivalent by her party-harder girlfriends to get a cheating ex-boyfriend off her mind; he’s the responsible member of the wild pack of young chauvinists, which includes his younger brother Josh (Julian Morris).
As Tammi and Sean’s loyalties are torn between family, best friends and their recognition of one another as the only sane passengers on deck, guessing who they’ll keep around and who’ll get tossed overboard occasionally distracts our attention from this doomed voyage’s failing engines. Of course, twenty minutes of tension can’t erase the foregoing unpleasantness and predictable conclusion to follow. Indeed, genre projects like this can only succeed when moments of indulgence and entertainment are matched with criticism and subversion. With no smart rebuttal to its onscreen atrocities, Donkey Punch ends up much like the act it’s named for: an offensive idea made all the more offensive by clumsy execution.
Opens January 23
