So we're coming up on that time of year again – vacation time, and Magnet has a couple of movies to make you think twice about how we spend that time.
First up is a thriller called Donkey Punch, named after a sexual urban myth. Lisa (Sian Breckin), Tammi (Nichola Burley) and Kim (Jamie Winstone) are about to finish their vacation when they meet Sean (Robert Bouter), Bluey (Tom Burke), Josh (Julain Morris), and Marcus (Jay Taylor) in a nightclub and arrange to spend their last day together. Things really start happening when the guys talk the gals into going out on the yacht one of the boys works on. And as usual the outing takes a bad turn when one of the guys experiments with the Donkey Punch Maneuver.
The second movie Shuttle takes place after our vacationers return from Mexico. Mel (Peyton List) and Julie (Cameron Goodman) board an airport shuttle bus with businessman Andy (Cullen Douglas) and two acquaintances from the vacation, Matt (Dave Power), and Seth (James Snyder). Their descent into darkness begins as soon as they board the shuttle and the driver (Tony Curran) steps on the gas. The returning tourists are driven all over the seedier parts of town, robbed, tortured and worse.
*** Spoiler Alert – Spoiler Alert ***
The acting was great, the scripts well written, and the photography is good. But I did not like either one of these movies. There is no redeeming value, no sense of right and wrong, irony or even friendship. There isn’t even the feeling of karmic revenge being dealt on the dope smoking, sexually active evil doers. No, these movies are of people doing bad things to other people. In Donkey Punch one of the girls dies from the Donkey Punch, and everyone is suddenly trying to kill each other. The guys are trying to get rid of the body and not get in trouble for the death, and the girls are trying to survive the boys. The girls turn on each other when one confides that she slept with the other's fiancé.
Shuttle's theme is even worse. In the previous flick violence was senseless and stupid, but in this one the violence, torture, and killing is cold and calculating. The driver is collecting girls for the white slavery market. This movie also boils down to finale betrayal when Mel admits to Jules that she slept with her fiancé, and is then executed because she isn't medically sound. Jules ends up in a crate with a tray of kitty litter, some bread and water, magazines and flashlight, and a photograph of other blondes that have been sent off the orient. The final scene is her shipping container being loaded on a cargo ship and sailing off .
Technically I would give Donkey Punch and Shuttle 4 out of 5 stars, but for the subject material I would give these movies 0 stars out of 5.
ComicsOnline gives both Donkey Punch and Shuttle 2 out of 5 betrayals.
