Once again here is Jungwhan Lah checking in from the SF Indiefest, this time with a look at Evil Aliens director Jake West's debut feature, Razor Blade Smile.
I was pretty excited when I heard that Jake West's first feature film “Razor Blade Smile” would be screening at this year's SF Indiefest. After all, West wowed the festival audience last year with his magnificent love letter to the splatstick genre that is “Evil Aliens.” Considering “Razor Blade Smile” is about an assassin vampire seductress, I went into the screening hoping for “Evil Aliens”-with-vampires (perhaps unfair expectations on my part). Alas, the film never reaches the giddy highs of his subsequent alien gorefest, although it does provide strong doses of campy sensibilities, bloodsucking mixed with gunplay, and a genuine sense of glee in its cheesy bloodletting glory. I just wish there was more bloodletting to speak of…
Lilith Silver was once an average human woman living in the 1850's. But after intervening in her lover's pistol duel with Sir Sethane Blake, who turns out to be a vampire, Blake transforms her into an immortal creature of the night—one who can also roam freely during the daytime as long as she sports some shades. Lilith spends a lot of time in voice-over insisting to the audience that we know “fuck all about vampires” apart from rumors and stereotypes, yet her coffin-shaped closet full of automatic weapons and her skin-tight vinyl assassin suit both seem to indicate that actually, many of our preconceived notions about vampire clichés are indeed true, especially when it comes to interior decoration and costume design.
The film's opening credits sequence swiftly sets the tone, done in 007-style, with floating razor blades and neon backgrounds highlighting silhouetted female profiles…but then comes Eileen Daly's ever-present and irritatingly acted voice-over that unrelentingly tries to establish Lilith's saucy, in-your-face vampire attitude. The time is now 1990's London, and while Daly plays Lilith as a cool cat from the city, she also feels the need to go into fang-baring hissing mode every couple of scenes, which can get annoying. The modern day vampire, it seems, is all about the cash flow, which is why Lilith works as a contract killer while engaging in an affair with her (human) contact on the side. Her latest hit leads to an investigation regarding the shady dealings of an ancient Illuminati sect, whose influence may even extend into the vampire world. As West pumps up the camp factor, can the film's self-aware stylized antics overcome its ultra-cheesiness?
The answer to this question lies in one's ability to find humorous value and amusement in the ultra-cheese, along the lines of the Verhoeven-Eszterhas collaborations. While I do find such fare amusing, “Razor Blade Smile” wasn't winning me over until a seduction scene where Lilith beds Ariauna, a fake-fang-wearing vampire-wanna-be. What follows is a sexed-up haze of black fishnets, neck bites, and fake blood that plays out like a Goth kid's wet dream. But the film never stays static, continually shifting its aesthetic by freely moving from POV nocturnal city-roaming reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai to noir-ish mysteries and X-Files-style conspiracy theories to bizarre nightmare visions containing animated Masonic imagery. It's a genre-mish-mash that entertains for entertainment's sake, and that's certainly not a bad thing. In fact, the film is at its most successful when mixing styles, which draws attention away from the somewhat-stilted acting and poorly-edited action scenes.
Speaking of which, the film does contain several slow-motion gun “battles” that play out like John Woo sans the balletic grace. The choppy cuts mask the bad choreography, and even a few beheadings and a climatic vampire vs. vampire swordfight don't really deliver the type of action-oomph that a gun-toting, sword-wielding vampire film should, by its very nature, contain. If only “Razor Blade Smile” had a bit of the old gun-kata…or buckets of blood…or a stronger sense of blood-soaked insanity in its action sequences that would match the over-the-top tone oozing from the rest of the film…then it could have become something of a cult classic.
As it stands, West still deserves credit for his energetic approach to the material, despite the fact that it is clear the film's low budget restricted him from making the bloodsucking opera he probably could have made given additional resources. Nevertheless, it is certainly promising for a debut feature. And when taking into account how significant of a leap he makes between this film and “Evil Aliens,” I am only encouraged to believe that West's future projects will bring us more referential geekiness, more blood-gushing, and more ultra-carnage—these are the fortes of his talents. He is currently at work on something for the Sci-Fi channel, so let's all pray to the gore-gods that television censors don't water down his sensibilities…
Review by Jungwhan Lah