Main cast: Molly Ringwald (Vanessa Turnbill), Frank Roberts (Brad), Kylie Minogue (Hilary Jacobs), Geoff Revell (Lossman), Jessica Napier (Raffy Carruthers), Sarah Kants (Hester Ryan), Stephen Curry (Rick Stephens), Matt Russell (Paulie Morrelli), Erika Walters (Cassie Woolf), Cathy Adamek (Julie Bardot), Steve Greig (Jim Pilonski), and Sam Lewis (Damien Ogle)
Director: Kimble Randall
Cut is bad. It is a satire on teen slasher flicks that somehow mutated into a bad teen slasher flick soon after the first half-hour. But is that an unpardonable offense? No, of course not. Cut is a welcome return of the unrepentantly bad B-grade teen slasher genre, bad special effects, hokey make-up, atrocious dialogues, and all. Alas, no gratuitous T&A here. Remember, this is a satire gone wrong, but still a satire.
Melding Scream and The Blair Witch Project, Cut starts off with the filming of a schlocky B-grade horror flick called Hot-Blooded. Vanessa Turnbill plays Chloe, the sister of the bad, disfigured, head-chopping baddie called Scarman. She is about to be killed, when the director Hilary Jacobs yells “Cut!”
The actor that plays Scarman is a bit psycho. When Hilary threatens to fire him, he kills her with a garden shear. Oops. Vanessa and her hapless, obedient doggie of an assistant Lossman stumble the gruesome scene and are almost killed themselves were not for luck.
Cut to years later, where film students now discuss the Curse of Hot-Blooded, ie people die whenever they try to finish the film. A group of students decide, hey, let’s do it ourselves! They’ll even get Vanessa back to star! (Molly Ringwald playing an actress gone into B-grade oblivion could have made a good inside joke, but the movie doesn’t dare go there.) Of course, Scarman comes back too, and people start losing their heads – literally. Plus, young director Raffy has a secret of her own.
At least the movie has a good excuse – as logical as horror movies can go – as to how Scarman can outrun, outdistance, and be where the victim is even if the victim is there because of a spontaneous decision on his/her part. But really, the dialogues are bad, the characters are mostly fresh meat to be beheaded, and the acting is atrocious. But the gore is good. There’s one scene where this girl is trapped with the baddie in a shed full of wood-cutting equipment, heh heh heh.
But typical fans of teen slasher movies who want T&A and hot lesbian antics will have to zip up their pants – there’s a small lesbian peck in this movie, but it’s done in a surprisingly respectful and not at all exploitative way. And while there is a sex-before-dying scene, nobody flashes any body parts that your mother wouldn’t want you to see.
Still, Cut is so bad that it is good – very good. It’s fun. And for those who couldn’t stand Kylie Minogue’s singing, she loses her tongue in this movie. I can’t help but to enjoy it a bit too much for my own good. No, that is not me cheering when Scarman does a super slicer on that boy’s head. Really.
