A young woman who’d been raped as a child is forced into prostitution. Her pimp gets her hooked on heroin and graphically stabs her in the eye to train her to be more docile. While servicing clients at night, she sneaks away to train during the day to finally dish out some sexy shotgun-blasting vengeance on all who’ve used and abused her.

I enjoyed the kickass aspects and the story, while simplistic, had a gallon of style. Dark and dirty, stark and surreal, explicit sex scenes and graphic violence, this one’s chock full of ugly. A more obscure rape/revenge flick, this one is as much Kill Bill as it is I Spit on your Grave. Actually moreso considering Tarantino was clearly lifting much of his inspiration and more than a little of his plotline from Thriller: A Cruel Picture.

And not without reason, his own style isn’t unlike this film’s. The way the violence isn’t prettied up at all, it’s meant to be ugly, but at the same time it’s glorified. When Madeleine approaches her kick-ass scene and the use of slow motion therein, it’s really impressively cool.

The weird part is how the hardcore sex is more disturbing than the violence, at least when our heroine is doing the violence rather than receiving it. The actress was a softcore porn model, but the sex is clearly body-doubles cut in for effect, and the truth is it’s great effect. So far the explicit scenes in all non-porn movies have clearly been just for attention and accomplished nothing at all. Not so here. Here it really drives home the sleaze. Watching this adorable, mute girl’s face as she’s forced to undress, then cutting to a close-up of her open crotch being penetrated is really disturbing. It really drives home that she’s just being used, an object to be played with. We’re really forced to share her ordeals and the fact that she doesn’t speak makes empathy even easier, it gives her a childlike quality.

Then she kicks ass, and it’s really rewarding to see. Besides being done with stylistic glee, Christina Lindburg’s stoic way of slaughtering really makes this movie. Some seriously great shotgun blasts, too, although I’d have like to have seen more martial arts. Quentin got it right when he added the sword and drawn out martial arts. Here the film runs really, really slow, then almost seems like it’s over too soon when the payoff comes. Pacing is very poor here. Also the art-film style really annoyed me at times and the same slow motion that seems cool in some kills gets really annoying when used too long and too often.

I wouldn’t watch this over and over, but I’m not sorry I watched it once. Fans of the genre definitely shouldn’t miss it.

6 out of 10