‘Casting Couch Slaughter’ VOD Review
Stars: Krystal Shenk, Emir Skalonja, Michael Balch, Mark Bogumil, Heather Dunham, Jacob Hodgson, Sarah Jeanne, Gora Chand Saha, Kristina Santiago | Written by Krystal Shenk, Emir Skalonja | Directed by Krystal Shenk, Emir Skalonja
When you sit down to watch a film called Casting Couch Slaughter you have a certain expectation to what kinds of sleaze and slaughter you’re expecting. Thankfully Krystal Shenk and Emir Skalonja’s film delivers. In spades.
The film follows two porn directors who set out to make, what they call, the greatest porno ever made… all from their casting couch. Over the course of their auditions, they meet a score of bizarre, horny, violent and religious characters. But everything comes to a bloody pause once they encounter a savage, power drill wielding maniac, who brutalizes his victims with a rusty drill bit.
Opening with public access like adverts before getting into the “feature presentation” Casting Couch Slaughter is filmed in an old-school SOV style, right down to the fuzzy VHS-like quality. In fact one could say this is a late-80s horror film, especially with the use of video tapes and cameras and the use of over the top ultra-low budget gore effects which became almost iconic during the original shot-on-video boom! The only thing that lets this period piece down is the use of mobile phones… Otherwise Casting Couch Slaughter is pretty much a perfect snapshot of SOV films of the 80s.
Of course, as with any exploitation film dealing with the adult industry, there’s plenty of sex and sleaze here too – with a rather interesting focus on BDSM and dom culture.
Speaking of effects, the VHS filter does wonders for this movies gory kill scenes. The fuzzy nature of the footage adds a grisly appearance to the already nasty drill-bit murders – which sees skulls opened and brains mashed in a glorious display of over-the-top video nasty-esque violence. Though, even with a short 62 minute run time, Casting Couch Slaughter‘s violence is actually few and far between – opening with a couple of kills and then closing with the wholesale massacre of the entire cast. With a BRUTAL scene that will make guys watching wince (and some might even cry). To be fair it’s well worth the wait!
If you’re a fan of nasty ultra-low budget filmmaking, SOV horror and the kind of indie genre films SRS Cinema release, then I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of Casting Couch Slaughter. I did… Though I don’t know what that means about my mental state!
Casting Couch Slaughter is available to rent or buy now on Vimeo on Demand.
You’re correct in stating that when one sits down to watch a film called Casting Couch Slaughter that certain expectations of sleaze and slaughter are to be met (never mind the lowering of expectations for the SOV standard that has been set in the past).
And, you are also correct that the film does deliver in spades. However, where we disagree is in what exactly those spades are filled with.
The film, despite being only 62 minutes long (and possibly flying in the face of that very fact), drags on and on, unnecessarily holding on shots far past their expiration date, and loitering around in scenes that really should have been trimmed down, cut short, or deleted entirely (that is, if the directors weren’t trying to achieve some semblance of a valid feature length running time).
The film feels incredibly lazy. The characters drone on and on repeating themselves as if the entire thing were poorly improvised, with only a writing prompt loosely agreed upon by everyone in the room before the directors called action.
I did find the film’s stance on having even less of a story than the average porno an interesting strategy. A series of job interviews, a string of murders, roll credits.
The only interesting thing the film does happens to be by complete accident (or quite possibly because the directors forgot what their movie was about). At one point, one of the interviewees is leaving and gets strangled to death. This is interesting because she is the only person not to die by drill bit. Why? Was the drill broken that day? Did the killer randomly decide to change his MO because the battery died on his power tool? Or is there another killer lurking off screen?
We’ll never know, because the movie can’t be bothered to keep track of itself.
Being a fan of the directors and their earlier works, I was excited to see them tackle something of a different nature. And, I was sorely disappointed. It feels like they just aren’t trying anymore. Many of their past films, while not blockbusters, really, really felt like there was some genuine effort behind what story they wanted to tell and what ended up on screen.
I saw none of that in this movie. Maybe next time.