Film Review: Bitch Slap

Irreverent, bombastic, tossing its tawdry, trashy lineage right into the viewers’ face, Bitch Slap bombards the viewer with hooky acting, titillation, cleavage (through the entire film), gore, off the wall action, and enough twists to give Tarantino whiplash. Riding on the tale-end of the new Grindhouse wave initiated by the release of Grindhouse (2007), Bitch Slap succeeds where most fail. It starts and ends with the dialogue and Bitch Slap gets it right (or so wrong its right). Unlike Death Proof, Bitch Slap’s dialogue is not overly indulgent. It is comedic, comic yet somehow it’s never Twilight-bad. The acting from many of the characters is campy but it is that way by intention not by accident or because the actors and actresses are inept. Watching Camero (America Olivio) over act her lines and facial expressions are at times trying and others, a hallmark of B-movies Bitch Slap is homaging (watch for the pill popping scene).

The beginning credit sequence is very important to what the viewer will be watching later when the actual film begins. It is in this that the 1950-1970’s film linage to which Bitch Slap is ascribing to is established and what it advances a few steps with new technology.

Bitch Slap is a film that appeals to the lowest common denominator and its blatant which demographic the film is aimed at. One thing that I always found curious about action/horror movies is that they always present and extinguish on-screen T&A quickly yet the reason for its inclusion in the first place was because they think that is what the audience wants and expects. Bitch Slap presents its ogle material within the first minute of the film and its always present, no matter the situation, for the entirety of the film, no matter how ridiculous or uncalled for it is.

Realism is not a restraint that binds the events of this neo-exploitation film. If it did, Bitch Slap would not exist and we would never have Kinke (Minae Noji) moments involving a yo-yo with blade attachments.

Bitch Slap takes queues from Sin City and The Spirit and uses green screens (or are they blue screens now) for many of its scenes, though in Sin City you did not mind as much because it was the first time they had been used that effectively and became a narrative backdrop.

Bitch Slap’s three main characters, Trixie (Julia Voth), Hel (Erin Cummings), and Camero, all of whom are imbued with varying degrees of pulchritude, have secrets, some predictable, some unexpected. Screenwriters Eric Gruendemann and Rick Jacobson must be fans of director Bryan Singer, especially his early work.

Rick Jacobson’s Bitch Slap is a modern day exploitation film that parodies itself and its exploitative elements, some more than others, coterminous. Bitch Slap is also a testament to new glue resins. How else could Trixie, Hel, and Camero’s overflowing bosoms never fall out during all of the amped Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!–like stunt work and action scenes the trio initiates, takes part in, and endures.

Rating: 7.5/10

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