Well that wasn’t what I was told a donkey punch was. The same organ is involved, but completely different than what I thought it was. But hey, I don’t claim to be up on all the sexual lingo anyway.
There are two pretty good ways to describe this movie; I’m not sure which one is better though. “Never under estimated the power of stupid people in large groups,” or “A person is smart, people dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.” I think the second is more fitting for the story, but the first one has its merits too.
The movie starts out by pissing me off; you should not have a handrail running through the middle of the shot when you’re trying to show the beauty of the scenery in the background. It’s not that hard to raise or lower the tripod to get that out of the way. Hopefully that gives you some sort of an idea as to what we’re getting into with this movie.
In the beginning three girls from south Leads (That’s in England) are getting ready to go out on the town after they’ve just landed in Spain. That leads to our opening credits montage. After the credits they meet 3 guys in one of the bars and start to hang out with them. They go to the beach and do magic tricks, and play soccer, all the stuff you do after bar hopping for a few hours. The guys then invite the girls back to their yacht where a fourth guy is waiting.
On the yacht they sail out into the ocean and indulge in a few different drugs while continuing to drink. Always a good idea to mix drugs and alcohol. Then there was the second thing that made me shake my head. One of the girls, Tami (the heroine), is reluctant to get into the water, then as she’s climbing into the water for the first time, her hair is already wet. The director actually points this out in the commentary and says “You try and shoot a movie in 24 days with no flaws.” Touché good sir.
The director then goes on to talk about how cold the water was wherever they were swimming, but I’d swear they were in a pool for this scene. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can see the side of the pool in one shot. After the swimming escapade two of the girls go downstairs with 3 of the guys. Cue pretty explicit love scene. It’s pretty much as close to porn as you’ll see in a feature movie. As the 5 are going at it, one of the younger inexperienced guys tries the donkey punch maneuver, which is when you punch the girl in the back of the neck right at the climax. This, as you can imagine, kills the girl.
Now, here is the “stupid people, large group” thing. This is an accidental death, they have it on film, it’s easily explained as an accident. Sure the guy is probably going to get nailed in a wrongful death suit, but we’re not worrying about that. There is no way he’ll get convicted of murder. At least in my eyes, and I’ve served on 2 juries. Instead of just calling it in and telling the authorities what happened and everyone getting some drug charges and little things like that, the guys decide to throw the dead girl overboard so they all get off scot free. Of course the girls don’t like this idea and the rest of the movie is a fight for survival between the girls and the guys.
There are some sweet deaths in the final hour, but also some brain injuring logic displayed. The two girls get off the boat onto a life raft and the guys have no idea where they are, Tami then thinks to herself, “Hey, I’m gonna light off a flare so the rescuers can come find us.” Dear Tami, there is only one set of people looking for you right now, and you don’t want them to find you, why on earth would you light a flare? Obviously, this ends poorly for the girls as the guys quickly track them down and try to bring them back on board. It however works wonderfully for the viewer as it leads to an awesome death sequence.
However, as sweet as some of the deaths are, you just can’t overcome some of the logic brain cramps. For example, you can’t kill a man with a trolling motor. Outboard motor yes, trolling motor, no. When a girl jumps off the side of a boat, she cannot land in the wake of the boat. And don’t try to tell me she was jumping off the back, because if she was, from where she was falling, she would have hit the deck below where they threw the other girl off. Lastly, when a girl shoots a flare off pointing behind her, it cannot light up in front of her.
With all those errors, and some average acting, you do however have a fantastic B-grade horror/laugher movie. I was laughing to tears the first time I watched this movie. It can be that funny.
I also mentioned the acting quickly right back there so I’ll hit that again quickly. Most of the acting is just fine, the guy who plays Bluey is a little stiff in a couple scenes and doesn’t seem like he’s feeling very natural. However, if I saw him tomorrow walking down the street I would have to punch him because he’s such a dick in the movie. So he’s apparently doing something right. The worst part of the acting is the fight scenes, especially the one that was thankfully cut from the movie but is available in the deleted scenes. The “choke” after Tami stabs Bluey is pretty much horrible, but thats what makes this movie so much fun.
Donkey Punch is presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and 5.1 Surround Sound.
Director and Producer Commentary. Interesting if not great.
13 minutes of deleted scenes. Can’t argue with any of them being deleted.
Making of Donkey Punch. Standard.
Cast interviews. Standard “everyone was great it was a lot of fun” stuff.
Director Interview, if he doesn’t answer everything in the commentary, give him another chance.
As a horror film, Donkey Punch isn’t the greatest, however, that works for the movie because it makes it hilarious. Cool deaths, horrible logic, plenty of laughs, at least for me. You should definitely see it, you don’t need to own it, but you should see it.
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UK Film Council Presents Donkey Punch. Directed by Olly Blackburn. Starring Robert Boulter, Tom Burke, Nochola Burley, and Jamie Winstone. Written by Olly Blackburn and David Bloom. Running time: 99 minutes. Unrated. Released on DVD: April 7th, 2009. Available at Amazon.com.
