Sep 23, 2012

REVIEW: VILE


vile - (adj)
  1. wretchedly bad; highly offensive, unpleasant, or objectionable.
  2. repulsive or disgusting, as to the senses or feelings.
  3. morally debased, depraved, or despicable.
derivative - (adj)
  1. derived.
  2. not original; secondary.
  3. making a film about a group of strangers abducted by a madman who are then locked away and forced to perform torturous acts against each other and themselves in an effort to find salvation.
incompetent - (adj)
  1. lacking qualification or ability; incapable.
  2. characterized by or showing incompetence.
  3. the feature film Vile.
Someone send director Taylor Sheridan a memo. After eight Saws, three Hostels, and a host of bottom-dwelling imitators, the torture porn subgenre is dead. No, wait - it's not just dead. It's had its fingernails ripped out, its eyes sliced in half, and, I dunno...maybe its ears thrown in a really hot stew. It is dead. Dead, gone, finished, good riddance. God damn.

Bu yet here we are with Vile, which exists for some reason. Why that is I couldn't say. It's certainly not for our entertainment. It sure as shit wasn't for mine.

We’ve been here before, folks. And I was hoping we would never be here again. But let’s just get this out of the way and save us all the misery that Vile did not save me.

A group of young twenty-somethings are out in nature laying around on blankets, contemplating life, and not holding down jobs, apparently. We get to know very little about them other than, boy, they’re all in love with life!

On their evening-descending drive back to civilization, a cougar-esque woman asks for a ride from a gas station back to her stalled car. The kids oblige, and the woman then hilariously (though it’s not supposed to be) straps on a gas mask and sprays the car with knock out gas. The kids awake in some kind of inescapable old house, meet a bunch of other strangers, and then an unfortunately-faced woman on a TV screen explains that the kidnapped folks all have some kind of hose thinger plugged into the back of their neck that will collect the special brain juices secreted by the body when it undergoes severe physical torture. You know, OW GOO. And so the kids must now agree to torture each other for as long as it takes until enough of this OW GOO is supplied.

That is literally it. The entire movie is these characters torturing each other.

Oh, and the guy who looks too much like Shaun White is in on it.

Did I just ruin that twist for you? Fucking thank me. I watched this nonsense for free and I still felt like a crime had been committed against me.

The film is directed by Taylor Sheridan, probably most famous for having played Deputy Hale in the first three seasons of "Sons of Anarchy." I like to think that, upon the announcement of his departure from that very high-rated FX show, a member of the press asked Sheridan, “What will you do next?”

And Sheridan smiled his very toothy grin and said, “I want to make a HUGE piece of shit.”

He should be commended for his uncompromising desire to fill his entire cast of characters with actors who did not deliver a single line convincingly. I’m almost in awe that he was able to locate a completely talentless group of people to bark and growl at each other, and with such wildly stereotype-busting character traits!

Oh, you mean the hot girl is the bitchy one? The dumb blonde surfer is the dumb one? The main guy super duper loves his girlfriend and is a good man?

Fuck you.

Vile is not worth dissecting because it does not present any themes that dozens of other movies like it have not already presented. And on top of that, they are presented so poorly and are lost in such a collection of bullshit gory set pieces that any such themes eventually become irrelevant.

If Saw did not exist, Vile would not exist. And Saw is not even a good movie. But I would promise my first-born daughter to Saw’s first-born son in an arranged marriage if my only other option was sitting through Vile again.

Vile is vile. It sucks. It blows. I really, really hate it. It’s not even worthy of my Shitty Flicks banner, because I got nothing from the film. Not a single thing. Except my time stolen.

If you liked Vile, you are a dumb human being.

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