Bitch Slap Review


Movie: Bitch Slap
By: Kries Tyfus
Date: August 5, 2011

A wet hot Grind House Feature?

Three hot chicks up in the desert, looking for a hidden treasure. Sweating, fighting and playing with guns. Can’t get any better, don’t you think? Well, think again.

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Bitch Slap isn’t really a horror flick. It’s more of an exploitation movie that makes you think of the old Grind House features that were shown in theaters from the 1950’s to 1970’s. Love them or hate them. I’m a big fan for sure. It was Tarantino in 2007 that brought this so called 'genre' back to life with Death Proof and with major success. Later followed by the likes of Machette and Hobo with a Shotgun. And.. oh well.. let’s just throw Planet Terror in as well, just for the heck of it.

Bitch Slap director Rick Jacobson soon followed the smell of sweet success and came up with his own product two years after Death Proof/Planet Terror, hoping to succeed as much as Tarantino did. Or at least, that’s the impression I got. His intentions of making his own Grind House type of movie were good, but is it really any good?

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The main characters are Trixie, Hel and Camero, played by Julia Voth, Erin Cummings and America Olivo. Who? Beats me. I never even heard of Rick Jacobson before. There are some minor rolls for Michael Hurst, Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless as well. Wait a minute.. they’re all from the Hercules/Xena TV series many years ago. Yeah, that’s right! Oh, what a lovely tea party it is.

The story follows Trixie, Hel and Camero heading out to the desert. They got company in the trunk of their car, named Gage. A man being kidnapped, tied up and held hostage. Gage is the man that knows the exact spot of where the treasure of diamonds, worth 200 million, is hidden. As the man refuses, he gets shot. Without a clue whatsoever, they just start digging around random places. The girls are noticed by Deputy Roy Fuchs, who finds it all a bit odd and decides to take a closer look. Hel tells Deputy Fuchs their car broke down and that they’re waiting for a tow truck to pick them up. With this being said, Fuchs leaves and the girls start digging further. When they finally think they found something, it’s nothing but a dead body buried in the sands. This upsets Trixie and walks out on the other two. After Trixie is being calmed down, they get the company of two of their rivals named Hot Wire and Kinki. From this moment on, it’s just a matter of time of who gets the treasure first.

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It’s nice to see another desperate soul is trying to get the old Grind House feeling back to life, but I have to say.. Bitch Slap is Bad. Really Bad. Yes, with a capital B indeed. It’s actually so bad that I feel the urge of writing the word ‘bad’ with nothing but caps, just to say that Bitch Slap is BAD! It’s meant to be an exploitation movie, or should I say ‘sexploitation’..? You see, Bitch Slap is filled with sleazy close-ups of their breathtaking boobies and ‘hinies’, along with corny sex jokes. Of course there’s nothing wrong with a closer look on beautiful female parts, because it was done many times in old Grind House features as well. But I personally think they’ve pushed it a little too far. It happens quite too often, it eventually gets really lame and boring.

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After Trixie gets upset over the dead body that they dug up, Hel goes after her to calm her down. How? By making sweet love to her. It just doesn’t make any sense! Just like when Trixie is getting a little hot and pours water from a bucket all over herself, which ends up with the three girls having an erotic water battle. I mean, come on. Trixie, Hel and Camero all get suspicious on each other constantly. They’re a team but keep fighting the whole time. It really gets irritating after a while. While Erin Cummings’ (Hel) acting skills are quite good, the acting of the other two girls is, let’s just say.. horrible. I found Julia Voth (Trixie) really annoying and America Olivo’s character (Camero) is way over the top. I’m not really sure weather it’s done on purpose or not.

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You’ll also get to see some flashbacks to help you throughout the movies storyline. It goes from “3 hours earlier” to “3 months earlier” or something like that. It’s a nice attempt of making it all a bit more interesting to watch, but the longer the movie is running, the more plot twists you’ll get to see. It’s confusing at some points and some of these flashback scenes just don’t add something useful to the story. Also, these scenes are done really bad. It’s obvious that the backgrounds of all flashback scenes are done with a blue screen. On the other hand, another nice attempt of making this movie stand out among other Grind House type of features, but I don’t know. Watching these scenes is like watching a really bad porno movie.

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There are actually two decent things about the movie and I don’t mean Erin Cummings’ major gunns. The first thing is the movies intro. The intro is done entirely in style of the old 50’s – 70's Grind House features. The other thing is the movies soundtrack. I think for a trashy movie like Bitch Slap, the music that is used is pretty decent.

I think writer and director Rick Jacobson’s intentions were meant to be good while trying too hard. Probably not taking his product quite serious, but it just doesn’t work for me. Bitch Slap is sloppy, slow and far away from being a good Grind House movie following a cult status. Just stick with the 1950s – 1970s originals, Death Proof and so on. 102 minutes of my life went straight down the drain.


1/5




Movie

Bitch Slap

Title

Bitch Slap

Director

Rick Jacobson

Country

USA

Year

2009

Cast

Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, Kevin Sorbo, America Olivo, Michael Hurst,