Flesh of the Unforgiven stars Debbie Rochon and Joe Hollow (who also wrote and directed) as Sienna and Jack, an estranged couple trying to make it work after Sienna's indiscretions. Jack's also a writer dealing with writer's block, while Sienna is dealing with scary nightmares. When Jack gets a VHS in the mail with a piece of paper with the word "inspiration" written on it, he thinks it's from his publisher, who's on him for a new treatment. Luckily he's got a VHS player, and once he gets it all hooked up, he finds the video is about all kinds of creepy, gory stuff, including a guy with a disco ball mask keeping his own estranged girlfriend chained to her bed, where he's abusing her. At the same time, we have a woman named Vivienne (August Kyss) who's dealing with her own stuff and decides to end her own life. When she meets Jack for a fling at a local bar, Jack has a dream about her and his wife and the disco ball guy. What could it all mean?
This is probably not my kind of movie, but I think if it were, where it would lose me is that I wasn't sure whose story this was supposed to be focused on, Sienna's or Jack's, and then if it is one of theirs, what do I do with Vivienne's? Was it a situation maybe where this was always supposed to be Jack's story, but then Hollow was able to get Rochon attached and made her role bigger? In that case, I think that's a good move, because she's a stronger screen presence, and anytime a filmmaker is working with a budget, to have someone like Rochon onboard always helps, this film included. There were some other interesting elements that worked in some respects, like Adriana Uchishiba's Livinia character, who brought a twisted Harley Quinn vibe on the one hand that really worked, but her wicked laugh sounded like the laugh that opens The Surfaris' "Wipe Out," so every time I heard it, I was waiting for that iconic surf guitar to come in after it. The other big area I had trouble with was Debbie's nightmares, because she seemed like she didn't know where they were coming from, but she should've known the whole time, unless I missed something on that. But, again, with those nightmares, they were tense and powerful. In one of them her character is getting strangled, and the way she wakes up struggling to breathe was so realistic I found myself having trouble breathing too. And I think that's where I ultimately fall, between Rochon's performance, plus some of the other performances, combined with the other tense, scary moments in the film, if this is your kind of movie, you should definitely check it out, especially now while it's on Tubi.
I figured we'd had to have run across one or two Debbie Rochon films at some point on the site, and I was right, she was in Tromeo and Juliet, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, and Battledogs. Going through her CV, she shouldn't just have more films on the site, she should be a Hall of Famer, but she's another name who lost out when my site shifted to covering more low-budget action as those posts got more engagement than the horror ones. I do have the power to change that, especially considering she has over 40 movies on Tubi, and a good chunk of those look ripe for reviews. The thing I loved about her here, was she sold this premise completely, and not as much in a physical sense as a dramatic sense. It's like when you watch Loki and Jonathan Majors is sitting across from Tom Hiddleston saying "I'm a scientist from the 31st Century," you need to sell that, because the line by itself is ridiculous, right? And I don't know that this movie has anything quite so ridiculous as that, but especially at the end where Rochon is tying up loose ends and telling us who everyone we barely got to meet in the film was, normally you need to put on your eye goggles to protect yourself from those loose ends flying together like that, but Rochon is selling it, so it mitigates that need for eye protection. Hopefully we'll see her again on the site soon, but for fans of her work, this is one to watch her in.
In the scene where the Vivienne is about to kill herself, in the background the song "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" from the film Dancing Sweeties is playing, and as you can imagine, 80s music fan that I am, I had to listen to the Ultravox song of the same name--which isn't related to the 30s song from this film. For this scene in the film, the 30s song created the haunting quality the scene required to make it work, and I think of all the music in this film, and there were a lot of original pieces, that one worked the best. The interesting thing is none of those songs are listed in the IMDb credits. That soundtrack section is a Godsend to reviewers like us, it means we don't need to go back to the end credits to find out what that hip hop song that was playing during the flashback montage was. Anyway, it's that time of year when "Do They Know It's Christmas?" gets played, which Ure co-wrote and produced, so it was fitting that the film got me to queue up Ultravox's "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," which is one of my favorite 80s songs.
I usually don't do screens with captions, but I had to get that interchange below. "You look like a wet fart"? What does that mean? And I guess I know what "I feel like a wet fart" means, but how does that feeling equate to the feeling of having a hangover? When I was in college, a large group of us were going out, and we broke off into two groups, then as we reformed into one, we noticed one of our number was missing. Someone in that second group informed us that that missing individual told them "oh no, guys, I gambled and lost," and had to run home to change, and even though I don't think the "wet fart" interchange in this was that deep, it could be a metaphor for someone who gambled and lost themselves, which technically the Jack character did. During the final credits, Joe Hollow was singing a song called something like "Diary of Pain," and it sounded like "Diarrhea of Pain," which may be another "wet fart" reference. You may or may not be asking "now that we're going lowest common denominator, Matt, you've done the 'fart' half of 'dick and fart' jokes, when do we get the 'dick' half?" No worries, I'm getting there. We have ourselves another prosthetic penis mutilation, in this case it's a double prosthetic penis amputation--could we say "disarticulation" if an erect penis is technically referred to as a "boner?" And what is the deal with indie horror doing prosthetic penis mutilations, after we had one in Brute 1976 too? I think the only other prosthetic penis mutilation we've ever had on the site was when we covered Street Trash in 2007, so one in 18 years, and now we have two in a matter of months. I may have to put up a "no prosthetic penis mutilation" policy for screeners.
Finally, the word "inspiration" comes up a lot in this, and it reminded me of when Adam Richman got into hot water on social media when he used the term "thinspiration," and people got on him because that term can be triggering for people dealing with eating disorders. Instead of saying "I'm sorry, I was trying to be the quirky, husky, Gen Xer that people love, but I can do that in other ways," he chose violence, in one instance telling a commenter to get a razor blade and draw a bath. Richman apologized after, and I think as a result wasn't cancelled for it, because he's still doing shows now, but I think there was a sense that by the mid-2010s that that trend from five-to-ten years before of these husky, coastal Gen Xers in their open coats layered with quirky T-shirts underneath them, complete with charming puns-a-plenty, had run its course, but man, was that a thing in the mid-to-late 2000s. For some reason Richman's show, Man v. Food, doesn't have his episodes on HBOMax, but they are on Tubi, so I watched one where he went to the Research Triangle in North Carolina to eat a bunch of chili dogs. I realized that for me, it was more about the traveling and seeing parts of the US I haven't seen before, the same way I liked Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for the travel more than for Guy Fieri, who was bringing a different kind of West Coast energy compared to Richman's East Coast vibe (instead of open coats over quirky T-shirts, it was quirky bowler shirts and sunglasses on the back of the head). And while I do think that's why I connected better with Richman, because he made more sense to me as an East Coaster myself, I also kind of see how the market was saturated with those guys--I think Top Chef had one in every season, and when Bourdain was a guest judge that guy was always his favorite. Anyway, because they're on Tubi, it's fun to go back and watch some of those Man v. Food episodes. Maybe I don't need a market saturated with husky, quirky, coastal Gen Xers, but sometimes in smaller doses they're a nice slice of all right.
And with that, let's wrap this up. Speaking of Tubi, you can now get this on their too, or you can rent it for $1.99, which isn't a bad deal either. Between Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, supporting indie creatives is always a great move, and this is some indie horror you can get behind. Thanks again to Joe Williamson for sending this one our way!
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32421430
And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
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