How disappointing. I was all set to hate this movie. I was even looking forward to it. I couldn’t wait to eviscerate another SOV atrocity. But as I was watching DEVIL’S BLOODY PLAYTHINGS, something strange started to dawn on me. The movie wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was downright interesting. How could this be? It had all the hallmarks of the kind of 21st century indie sex ‘n horror film nonsense that I usually pretty much detest: it was shot on video, which I’m not all that fond of, it appeared to be made by goth-y faux nihilist types, and had a silly blood and boobs aesthetic that I think for the most part effectively died in the early 1980's. But as the flick unfolded, I was fairly entranced by its single-minded perversity as well as its deliciously surreal details. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is actually a pretty fucking good movie. Who’da thunk it?

This warping little beastie of a film concerns a strong-willed but entirely bent New York hipster chick that makes hidden camera bathroom porn and the rather unhealthy relationships she has with a series of female roommates, in particular a rather mousy young thing who’s recently arrived from South Africa. Although it starts out innocently enough with drunken pointless twenty-something banter between the two new flatmates, things quickly take a hypersexual pychodramatic turn as Christine (Ruby Larocca) begins to assert her weird dominating personality over the pretty and thin immigrant, who’s about as assertive as a sea-sponge. Sexual humiliation becomes the rule and Karen’s (lovely Zoe Moonshine) personality begins to dissolve, shaking her from reality and sending her into a spiral of ever-increasing madness. Shades of Polanski’s REPULSION and Fredrick Friedel’s AXE swim to the surface as certain people in the girls’ lives begin to disappear …

There really is a fascinating, overwhelming sickness that permeates this little movie. The whole thing, from start to finish, feels grimy and sticky, filled with filth and yet not unpleasant. It’s a self-conscious kink-fest, reminding me in some ways of the New York sexploitation roughies of the 1960's, wallowing in violence and weird sex and using limited cinematic techniques to their advantage, making it seem more real even when it makes left-hand turns into perspective-distorting surreal territory. PLAYTHINGS regularly sends you into this weird place, with odd characters and unexplained events, never giving you the safe-footing that other more timid flicks might offer. The shocking conclusion, in particular, reaches into a kind of astonishing gore-poetry and has an almost fairy tale feel to it. I don’t really know anything about the folks that made this, but I’d guess that its director, William Hellfire, has a real future ahead of him, if someone would actually give him a decent (decent even for an indie horror) budget and some actual film stock to use. At times he seems a little too enamored of the nihilism tinged trash-hipster vibe, which at times threatened to turn me off, but he saves it with the very real sense of no-budget perversity on display. I personally think we need more sickos like this making sex flicks, as such things are a welcome anathema to the ugly, conservative moral climate of this day and age. Fight the good fight, William!

The DVD of DEVIL’S BLOODY PLAYTHINGS is only an OK package. The picture quality is great, but considering it was shot on video, the visual appeal of the movie is not really what’s gonna draw you in. But the fullscreen presentation gets the job done and there is nothing distractingly bad about the tech details. Extras include a kind of pointless “blooper reel.” But it nonetheless reminds you that there are actually just normal folk in this thing and not raving loonies and dangerous sex criminals, which says something for the movie itself, I think. There’s also a couple of trailers for this one and for another project, the amazing titled ORGASM TORTURE IN SATAN’S RAPE CLINIC. I think I’d like to see that one some day.

When all is said and done, DEVIL’S BLOODY PLAYTHINGS is not really that great of a movie. It is, however, a fairly riveting and totally involving and disturbing experience that all fans of this sort of low-budget filmmaking should make a point to see. It’s got a lot of sick wit and while it may have obvious limitations, there is the glimmering sliver of a new grindhouse moviemaking talent in here. Either that or he’s just a total perv of the highest order. Either way it’s pretty damned entertaining. Have fun with this one, weirdos!