DVD Review: Make Out With Violence (2010)
Make-Out With Violence (2010)
Studio: Factory 25
Release Date: October 25, 2010
Directed By: The Deagol Brothers
Cast: Cody DeVos, Eric Lehning, Leah High, Shellie Marie Shartzer & Brett Miller .
Review By: Annie Riordan
Make-Out With Violence. It’s a strange title for a film which depicts very little making-outing and even less violence. It’s a title which suggests nonstop action, splatter and smoking guns, perhaps set amongst Tokyo’s yakuza crowd and featuring the latest in black leather and kung fu moves. Never in a gabillion years would I have guessed that a film with such a punchy, high octane title would take me into the cicada infused summer fields of a sleepy Midwest town which refuses to stick to a solid timeline and floats dreamily somewhere between 1972 and 2010.
Pre-teen Beetle provides the pastel, Wonder Years-esque narration for Make-Out, introducing us to his older brothers Patrick and Carol, fraternal twins who have just graduated from high school and are clinging to their last carefree summer before college. The celebratory atmosphere has been marred however by the recent disappearance and presumed death of classmate Wendy, a beautiful girl with whom the nerdy Patrick was very much in love. But as Wendy had a boyfriend up until her untimely (assumed) demise, it was a love which remained painfully unrequited. It’s a tragedy that Patrick cannot move beyond, and for whom a memorial ceremony provides no closure.
But as the sun sets on the eve of Wendy’s official farewell, Beetle and Carol make a gruesome discovery: Wendy, neither dead nor alive but rather somewhere in between, tied between two trees and hungering for living flesh. How she got there is a mystery. What may have happened to her remains unclear. Unsure of what to do, but knowing that something must be done, Carol and Beetle smuggle Wendy out of the woods and into the vacant home of a friend for whom Patrick is housesitting.
As the summer wears on, the twins drift apart. Carol moves on with life and sets out to win the love of Wendy’s best friend Addy, for whom he has long carried a torch. Addy struggles with her feelings of guilt concerning her attraction to Wendy’s boyfriend. And Patrick remains stuck in the past, stubbornly tending to the decomposing Wendy and resorting to ever more drastic measures to keep her “alive.” Will he be able to let her go at summer’s end, or be consumed – both literally and figuratively – by the past?
I’m not sure if the references to Peter Pan (the name Wendy and the twins surname of Darling) were accidental or intentional, but either way, it’s a nice, subtle underline to the moral of the story: growing up sucks. It also hurts. It doesn’t matter what happened to Wendy, who did it, or why. Frozen between life and death, Wendy will never grow up. She may never have existed to begin with. She’s a symbol for the youth and innocence of every cast member, something to be looked back on with fondness, regret or – in the case of Patrick – a cancerous bitterness which stunts his emotional growth.
Wow, that was all profoundly insightful and shit. Sorry.
Make-Out With Violence could be seen as the PG version of Deadgirl, another movie about teenage boys and their zombie love slave. Where Deadgirl was grimly industrial, Make-Out is relentlessly indie. Deadgirl is brutal, Make-Out is nostalgic. Deadgirl – stark. Make-Out – Kodachrome. You get the idea. If you want a straightforward, nasty, bloody, disgusting horror trip, go with Deadgirl. If you want Garden State with Natalie Portman replaced by a zombie, go with Make-Out.
Wait, that came out wrong. I liked Garden State, I liked Deadgirl too. I really liked Make-Out, despite the fact that it wasn’t the horror movie I thought it would be going in. It’s definitely a coming-of-age story first and a zombie flick second. The unfortunately named Shellie Marie Shartzer gives Sadako Yamamura a run for her money in the bodily contortion department. Her movements are fluid, organic and distressingly unnatural. I can’t tell if this is due to a practiced dexterity on her part or deliberate film manipulation, but I really didn’t care. Watching her rise to her feet, her limbs following her head, is – for lack of a more profound term – fucking creepy as shit, and makes the brief zombie parts of the film worth waiting for.
Don’t go into this expecting a gorefest, or you’ll be very disappointed. But if you’re looking for some blood and guts to go with your teenage angst, check it out.
