THE DEATH FACTORY: BLOODLETTING

[indianasmith]

DEATH FACTORY was one of the early releases by Brain Damage Films, back when they still occasionally released decent independent horror flicks.    Since then they have trundled out a slew of cinematic sewage, so much so that I have almost given up on renting anything under their label.    Then I saw this sequel at Hasting's this week and decided to give it a whirl.  It's a collaborative work between BDF and something called Ominous Pictures.  I must say it was a pleasant surprise.

The movie begins with a young Hispanic girl named Ana sitting down and making a videotape explaining the circumstances and reasons for what she is about to do . . . "because, if you are already watching this, I am almost certainly dead."  She explains that her daughter had been murdered by a pedophile two years before, and that she has finally tracked down the man known as "Rubber Love" who posted the video of her murder on a website for deviants simply known as Goretown.

Then we see a large van pull up to an abandoned factory with some transients hiding in it.  Initially, he seems to be a street preacher, listening to sermons on the radio as he drives to the factory, and offering the vagrants free sandwiches.  But then when he sees that they are all shooting up with heroin, he pulls out a pistol and wastes all four of them while ranting about the "sins of drug abuse."  One of the junkies has a little baby with her, and he picks up the child and sits it in the back of his van.  Then he says "She's yours, Alexa.  FEED!!"  We see a young woman wearing a leather bikini and metal claws, with sharp, filed teeth, grab the baby, and blood splashes up on the roof of the van.  Roll opening credits.

From here, the premise develops that Psycho Preacher Guy ("Denny") is the owner of the Goretown website.  Four of its most popular patrons have been invited to the factory for a "Bloodletting" - they will see an innocent person wasted for their own amusement.  Except, of course, Preacher Denny actually wants to see his little sister - metal-mouthed monster Alexa, the victim of an unfortunate industrial accident that rendered her virtually unkillable, cannibalistic , and totally psychopathic - kill all of THEM.  But Ana, the young Hispanic girl, is there posing as a criminal deviant in order to kill the man who murdered her daughter and posted it on the Goretown website.

What transpires is a lot of blood, a great deal of screaming and swearing, and some nudity thrown in for good measure.  As usual, the criminal genius is an absolute, distorted parody of what Christians really are.  Sometimes I wonder if there is a single person in Hollywood who has a clue what Christianity actually teaches.  The most pulpit pounding, Bible thumping, radical fundamentalist I have ever met would NEVER spout the kind of drivel that Denny pumps down to his "little sister's" cage.  I mean, I know, artistic license and all that, but I really wish Hollywood would make up crap about somebody ELSE's religion for a change instead of constantly trashing mine.  OK, OK, rant over.

What makes this movie stand out head and shoulders over every other BDF production in the last 5 years is the tragic, tormented figure of Alexa, the bikini-clad, metal mouthed mutant monster.  She is remarkably attractive for a young lady with three inch metal claws and a mouthful of  razor sharp fangs.  Without speaking a single line of intelligible English, she conveys an ocean of hurt, rage, and desire through her dilated cat's pupils.  

Other than the religious bias issue, my biggest problem with this movie was the sound quality.  I kept having to turn the volume UP to hear what charaters were saying, then DOWN when one of the incessant heavy metal riffs or screamed bouts of obscenities kicked in.  It's like they couldn't get a consistent setting on their mikes throughout the production.  But that is a minor quibble, other than that, this is a solid, entertaining little horror film with a pretty decent twist ending.  Definitely worth a rental.