Donkey Punch

Ollie Blackburn | 99 min | 2008 | UK

Donkey Punch starts by introducing its characters underneath a blaring, try-too-hard mix of hip indie pop music like The Knife and Broadcast. The characters are three pretty cardboard cutouts with tits who're on vacation in Spain, and four pretty cardboard cutouts with dicks and access to a yacht.

Things obviously wind up on the yacht, which is well stocked in booze and drugs. During a swim in the sea, the guys and girls get talking about the most "hardcore" sex acts they've heard of. One of the guys schools them all on what a donkey punch is, they do more drugs, and a bunch of them go below deck to get really hardcore. After some skin is bared, a donkey punch is delivered (look it up if you don't know what it is) and one of the girls' neck is broken.

In the middle of the sea, and now outnumbering the girls by two, the guys decide to throw the body overboard and tell the authorities that she fell over the rail drunk. Obviously the girls don't like the idea of covering up the killing of their friend, and tensions flare.

Because the girls are outnumbered and overpowered, the film actually achieves some great tension when it's focused on their vulnerability in the situation. If Blackburn had spent more time with the girls, rather than spending a near equal amount with the guys, who don't even really seem that worried ever, it could have been a solid thriller. There's very little time spent on the morality of the spot they've found themselves in either. The guys seems to be on auto-pilot, only interested in saving their own asses; the value of human life be damned.

The girls eventually fight back and bodies start to pile up in supposedly creative ways that fail to shock or entertain, which leaves the film with very little going for it. Director, Ollie Blackburn was at the screening to introduce the film and do Q&A. He was very keen on letting the audience know that the film has received an NC-17 rating in the US, that penises are going to have to be blurred out when released in Japan, and that we were seeing the uncensored version. Speaking as though they were badges of honor somehow; like he'd really shaken things up and shown the Man something he'd never seen before. Unfortunately by the end of the movie, I felt a bit like I'd been on the receiving end of a really weak donkey punch where the sex wasn't very good, and then whose final blow was more of a flick to the back of the head than the full forced whack that it should have been.