 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Killer Bitch
Quick Links [video] [audio] [extras] [overall] 
The owner of a modeling agency (you know, "that" kind, played by co-producer Yvette Rowland) is thrust into a high-level killing game after her boyfriend has his throat slashed by a Ninja-fied assassin. Informed in no uncertain terms that literally EVERYONE she knows will be messily dispatched (starting with work associates, then friends, then family, and finally herself) if she doesn't make the five kills that are to be named at unspecified times and locations, she botches an attempt (like the man said "don't talk, shoot!") before finally receiving assistance from a boxer and former game participant (Olympic middleweight bronze medal winner Robin Reid) out to avenge the horrific rape/murder of his barmaid wife and hopefully put and end to this long-running madness. Hot on her tail (nice one that it is) is current #1 psycho game enforcer Jason (real-life former Chelsea Headhunter football hooligan Jason "The General" Marriner) who cheerfully does away with Yvette's stable of talent as well as her compatriots until she completes her five-name "kill list", while the lady is distracted by the animalistic grunting attentions of a killer "playing a different game" (cage match fighter and CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER winner Alex Reid), before finally reaching her apparent destination. But can she ever go back to a normal life? Set against the gritty rough and tumble world of English extreme fighting/unlicensed boxing and densely populated by about a gazillion of the meanest/scariest-looking real life characters you could ever pray not to cross, KILLER BITCH is in all actuality a bad taste ultraviolent black comedy, loaded with cursing, screaming, yelling and a higher body-count than even most films it could be compared to: a seemingly endless array of gunshot, stabbing, slicing and bludgeoning deaths are paraded across the screen in between shoe-horned bits of gratuitous nudity and forced sex both threatened and accomplished, all in an effort to bait the sensibilities of the uptight and win the affection of "the lads". The first non-documentary feature from writer/director/co-producer Liam Galvin and wife/co-producer/star Rowland's Gangster Videos Ltd. (specialists in Brit true crime, boxing, cage match, and nude modeling DVD's, unsurprisingly. What is surprising is how professional this production looks, despite some clumsy staging here and there), KILLER BITCH already courted controversy as filming began when Reid was photographed in a rough sex scene shot outdoors, the photo appearing in all of the Sunday rags, causing his glamour model squeeze Katie Price to have a shit-fit and Reid to leave the production midway! This accounts for some of the confusion that abounds in the film (his and the unrelated Robin Reid's characters seem to take turns dis and re-appearing throughout the narrative, such as it is), but it's kind of a shame since he is one of the two people that make KB entertaining, not because he can act, but he does have a sort of laconic easy-going screen presence (almost like Chris Mitchum if he looked like Jean Paul Belmondo and were a bit more imposing) that is entertaining to watch. That being said, the film is all but stolen by Marriner, who makes his reprehensible character the most amusing presence on the screen, purely by being such a larger-than-life personality himself. In fact, most of the peripheral characters in KB are the real-life "hard men" (like "Dodgy" Dave Courtney) profiled in Gangster's previous releases playing themselves and adding a definite sense of menace while also making sly referential asides regarding their personal legends. As if that weren't enough underground cred for you, KB also starts with a tightly-edited (as with the entire feature) segment featuring U.K. porn stud/musician Ben Dover actually banging away at sillicone-d blonde cutie Cindy Behr (no insertion is shown) before she plunges a knife into him repeatedly (and tries not to laugh), clearly stating just what kind of entertainment the viewer is in for, completely disarming criticism of it's seedy nature by making no bones about its intended purpose as an exploitation picture, as disturbing as that may be to some (who probably wouldn't go out of their way to see something called KILLER BITCH anyway). Sure you can say it glamorizes violence (violence is a way of life for most of the cast!), and one can pretty easily imagine that if it were beamed to another galaxy for anthropological perusal that our existence as a planet would be on a short fuse, but there is certainly an audience for this stuff, and if sunny nihilism and anti-social behavior (not to mention blood, biceps, big boobs, and a topless midget!) with a Cockney twist floats your boat, hunt down KILLER BITCH.
KILLER BITCH is presented in a 16x9 Anamorphic widescreen ratio of 1.78:1 and is one of the slicker-looking DTV feature releases these eyes have ever seen: the colors are bold and bright/deep and nuanced by turns while still maintaining the realistic drabness that many viewers think of in relation to "Old Blighty". While the disc sent for review is of the test variety, artifacting and compression are virtually non-existent, and the disc appears to be flagged for progressive scan, even! Not too shabby!
Audio comes in two flavors: the default option of 5.1 Surround, or plain ol' 2.0 DD stereo. With a soundtrack that is bustling with 31 indie rock tracks (including several by Japanese rawk gods Electric Eel Shock, who even appear onscreen, both playing and as hapless victims, weirdly enough) and no incidental music, default is the way to go, with true stereo placement of instruments in the right and left channels, a beefy dialogue track up the center, and sound f/x all the way around. The only complaint is: with all of the gunshots in the runtime, couldn't more effective (louder, impactful, movie-like) ones have been placed in? Aside from that, it's pro-sounding.
Extras consist of a trailer ("Killer Trailer") and six segments of varying length that show different behind-the-scenes aspects of the production: "Killer Babes" focus on the phony phone sex ads Yvette's firm supplies girls for (featuring Paris, Angel Harte, Hannah Claydon, Camilla Quance, and the eye-popping natural 28-G Donna Duke); "Killer Controversy" starts with a selection of the Fleet Street headlines that brought much publicity to the production before settling into roughly 20m of raw footage from the scene between Rowland and Alex Reid that caused said controversy; "Killer Sex" shows the blocking and sex/no sex discussion for Dover and Behr's scene (apparently the former won out); "Killer Chopper" presents BTS footage of a climactic death scene; "Killer Cut" shows why a certain scene was simply not going to work, especially in light of how things turned out; and finally "Killer Cockups", a fun selection of tough, tough guys bloopering it up. Though a commentary track would be an illuminating listen, that may be the very reason for it's lack of inclusion (wink wink), and the available features do a decent job on their own.
Kaleidoscope Home Ent. brings you the first non-documentary feature from Liam Galvin and Yvette Rowland's Gangster Videos Ltd., the already-controversial KILLER BITCH. Imagine THE 10TH VICTIM set in Guy Ritchie's East End crime milieu and directed by a Lloyd Kaufman acolyte and you have some idea of what to expect. Currently only available as a Region 2 PAL disc, though that may change.
Want to read more about "THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL BRITISH MOVIE OF THE 21ST CENTURY"?? Is HP Sauce brown? Visit the official KB site at Gangster Videos by clicking here!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
HOME | NEWS | REVIEWS | FORUM | FEATURES | UPCOMING RELEASES | LINKS | CONTACT | SEARCH SITE | TV | MYSPACE AV MANIACS FORMERLY DVD MANIACS © COPYRIGHT 2001-2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | DESIGNED & PROGRAMMED WEBSKINZ |