TRASH ARTS KILLERS: VOLUME TWO * UK 2019 Dir: David Black, Thomas J Davenport, Robbie Hampstead, Jessica Hunt, Emma Jayne Lloyd, Sam Mason-Bell, Grant Murphy, Martin W Payne, Mike Peter Reed. 67 mins
Another sub-par compendium of short movies, this time framed by a young female artist (Martyna Madej) painting a grim work that evolves in between the eight subsequent tales.
“The Masked One” is a brief homage to silent cinema in which Alexandra Robertshaw is stalked by a mystery stranger in a plague doctor outfit – though more bearable than what follows, it sets a trend for weak pay-offs.
In “ArachnAcid”, a pair of annoying lads brag about their sexual conquests and the audience endures their interminable acid trip – mostly involving two bored girls in tinsel wigs blowing bubbles and messing around on inflatables to awful music.
“Final Demand” is at least topical: a dialogue-free, blackly comic tale of economic woe for Brexit-era Britain in which a white male frets over his £27,000 debt and the intimidation tactics of his creditors.
David Black’s obnoxious low-point “Sex Robot” sees a homicidal Asian sex-bot (Tritia DeViSha) turning against her lecherous male owner (played by Black), resulting in his request of “bugger me shitless” taken literally for a depressingly unfunny climax to a short peppered with predictably awful CG gore.
The rest are mostly just dull: “Sad Dad” has melancholic loser Simon Berry abducting strangers to keep as caged pets; Grant Murphy’s “Faith” is a downbeat study of a suicidal young woman (Natalie Bailey-Trist) saddled with a ridiculously intrusive score and an abrasive lead performance; and the low-impact “Mate!” is a gory chess game with no real punchline. Finally, Martin W Payne’s “Smother Nature” is a feeble attempt at a VHS-style voyeuristic woodland murder flick.
Review by Steven West
You can watch TRASH ARTS KILLERS: VOLUME TWO by clicking HERE
Review of TRASH ARTS KILLERS: VOLUME ONE can be found HERE
