Dead Hooker In A Trunk

Title: Dead Hooker In A Trunk

Director: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska

Released: 2009

Starring: Rikki Gagne, Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska, C.J. Wallis, Loyd Bateman, Farley M. Gagne, Tasha Moth, Carlos Gallardo, John Tench

Plot: Four friends The badass (Sylvia Soska), her sister the geek (Jen Soska) and their friends the junkie (Gagne) and the goody two shoes (Walis) find their world thrown into chaos when they discover the body of a dead hooker (Moth) in their trunk. Soon their plans to dispose of the body suffer further complications when they soon find themselves targeted by chainsaw welding triads, a cowboy pimp and a brutal serial killer as it seems that the troubles for the group are only just beginning.

Review: While the Soska sisters might now be best known for “American Mary” and their most recent film “See No Evil 2” but this rough and ready debut still makes for an intriguing watch, let alone another reminder of what a pair of hungry film makers can produce even with the most limited of resources. Infact had it not been for their less than stellar film school withdrawing their funding for their final short film then the twins might not have set out to make their own project, which it would seem is as much a fuck you to their former film school as it is their embodiment of the love for genre cinema.

Shot on a budget of $2500, with half the budget being used for effects the girls really faced an uphill struggle from the beginning for anyone whose attempted to venture into the world of film making will tell you that it can easily turn into an expensive venture. Still with a copy of Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel without a Film Crew” to guide them they managed against all odds to get the film made. True the results might be grimy in quality let alone in content but it’s hard to deny that the film has that spark of raw talent that was only further highlighted once the Twins were given a proper budget for the films which followed, while they pay tribute to Rodriguez’s influence by casting the star of his debut “El Mariachi” Carlos Gallardo who here makes a fun cameo as God.

An eclectic mixture of characters make up the group followed here with each living up to their name, while the fun is seeing how this grisly misadventure changes them over the course of the film, which thanks to the sisters and their love of gruesome effects ensures that it’s both a physical as well as mental change. Each of these characters tend to live by their namesake which frustratingly is largely as far things mainly go in terms of characterisation with Sylvia handling most of the heavy lifting in terms of acting, especially when it comes to the action scenes were her character truly lives up to her name and something made only the more impressive when you consider that the girls here do all their own stunt work….alongside writing, directing producing and acting in the film. This multi-tasking due to budget limitation would equally stretch to Walis who was handling a large amount of the technical aspects of the film only to be brought in for the role of the goody two shoes after the original actor dropped out after the first two days of filming, leading to hasty re-writes and a sex change for Walis’s character who’d originally been female aswell and which I can’t help would have added to what I assume started as a throwback to the girl gang films of the 70’s.

The plotting feels much like the characterisation largely minimalistic as set pieces are strung together with the minimal amount of plot development, which does leave the film at time feeling like it is floundering over what way to take the plot next. However the strength of the set pieces such as a brutal triad attack and badass’s brawl with a cowboy pimp (complete with lasso and horse) do go a large away to covering for such flaws as when the film works it’s a lot of fun and only makes you wish that the sisters had a larger shooting budget. Still what it might lack in plot direction it certainly makes up for in inventiveness as geek loses an eye leading her to create a makeshift gaffa tape patch to cover the now empty socket while junkie loses an arm both injuries which would be serious to any regular character but here seems to be more of an inconvenience to these girls. There is also an attempt at working in a romance angle between goody two shoes and geek but for the most part it came of kind of flat, due to no real chemistry between Jen and Walis combined with it being pushed to the background in favour of another gory sequence.

While the budget might have been limited, the gore effects are still pretty effective not to mention ambitious as seen with the chainsaw attack sequence let alone the disembowelled drug dealer whose insides are being gleefully teased by a triad. Needless to say when it comes to gore the twins don’t like to hold back as surfaces and characters faces are frequently covered in huge gushes of blood and gore, while such sequences are shot with such high energy and gleeful voyeurism that perhaps at times it does feel perhaps alittle OTT.

True this might be a zero budget film, but unlike so many debuts from aspiring those aspiring film makers who shun film school and pumps their fees into their debut film, this film has an element of polish to it, while managing to sidestep the usual pitfalls which tend to befall these films and while it might not be perfect it’s nice to see how they used the film as a learning experience for their superior “American Mary. At the same time its neo-grindhouse charm makes this a fun movie to watch with like-minded friends and an open non-judgemental mind set.