Movie Reviews for Pervs (of the Best Possible Persuasion)

I know I promised a recap of the Rainbow Book Fair today, but since I was once again a giant idiot and didn't take my camera, I am once again at the mercy of others to receive photos. Since I'd like to do the recap with pictures this time (no more slideless slide shows, I promise!), I'm going to hold off until I get them. Hopefully Friday.

In the meanwhile, I thought I'd try out a new recurring feature here at Fantasy Unbound: Movie Reviews for Pervs. Perviness is a welcome thing in my world, of course, and if you follow this blog, it's probably a welcome thing in your world too. I've been watching a lot of movies of, er, questionable artistic merit lately--not much else to do on three-hour train rides, I suppose--and have often found myself in search of recommendations for a very specific kind of flick. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me asking the other day for something mindless, explodey, and full of hot guys. Well, I found some. And I'll be giving them a Perv Score: a weighted average of four criteria on a scale of 1 to 10.

Lest you think this might be getting too technical or serious, here are the four criteria, with the first three counting for twice as much as the last one.

1. Hotness of the star(s)
2. How often and how thoroughly the star(s) get nekkid
3. Severity of ass-kickings to which the star(s) are subjected
4. And, as something of an afterthought, whether or not the movie was actually any good

Perfect for this crowd, yeah? So let's get started on our first review, complete with screencaps (warning: kind of bloody and screamy), beneath the jump.

The first movie up for review is Eden Lake, starring Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly. It's essentially your typical pretty-couple-gets-chased-through-the-woods-by-a-sadistic-psycho movie, except this time the sadistic psycho is an entire pack of teenagers, and actually only one of them is sadistic but he's psycho enough that he terrorizes his friends into playing along. 

On the hotness scale, this movie lands an 8.5. Fassbender is one of the hotter men alive right now, and he had good hair in Eden Lake (don't laugh--this makes a really big difference with him). If you don't know who he is, here are two photos. Consider them "before"s; the ones from the movie are definitely "after"s.

Reilly was also lovely if you're so disposed, although not particularly my type. 

On the nekkidness scale, Eden Lake gets a 5. Both stars spend a fair amount of time toward the beginning of the movie in bathing suits, and pull them off like whoa. Fassbender basically has the perfect body in my eyes--long, very lean, and cut without looking like a gym rat--and his directors tend to find excuses to show it off. Coulda used a few more excuses in this one, but you will get a quick fix (the body shot below is from Fish Tank, though, because I forgot to screencap a bathing suit shot).

As for the ass-kicking scale? Eden Lake takes the cake with a super-impressive 9.5. We get about ten solid minutes of the hero tied up with barbed wire and tortured with a knife and a boxcutter by each of the teenagers in turn. Here, have a screencap (click to enlarge). Heck, have three. What can I say, I'm generous that way.

Believe it or not, this isn't a particularly gory movie, despite the screencaps. Also believe it or not, I don't particularly like gory movies; I could've done with a little less blood. Still, there was lots of begging and whimpering and screaming and almost-crying, for which I'll forgive a little too much blood.

After the torture, the psycho-teens get distracted and run off into the woods, leaving our poor hero alone. He works his way free of the barbed wire (more yumminess), and we get another ten or so minutes of him stumbling through the woods trying to get away, plus there's a delicious comfort scene when he reunites with our heroine and she tries to patch him up (although I must say, I got exhausted just watching Fassbender shake that hard for that long). Spoiler alert: it doesn't work. The kiddies played too rough and broke their toy. Sad. And also the only thing that kept this movie from being a perfect 10 in this category.

Which brings us to the quality scale, where I surprised myself by actually almost kind of sort of liking Eden Lake, except for the frequency with which the heroine is TSTL. Let's call it a 5. In fairness, I was expecting no better than a 2. In fact, when I settled in to watch it, I was pretty certain I'd turn it off after Fassbender dies (I assumed he would, given that this is essentially a slasher film). But I watched the damn thing to the end, where there's a nice little twist that I'll not give away. I think the most artistic value to be found in this movie is actually in the psychology at play between the teenagers. One who is truly a clinical psychopath manages to cajole and manipulate and bully the others into hurting the hero, and you can see first the power they find in it and then the toll it takes on them. That, plus what I'd consider to be generally superior acting for this kind of film, elevated Eden Lake from truly awful to just kind of meh.

However, on the Perv Scale, Eden Lake nets a very respectable 7.3 out of 10: definitely recommended for scratching your pervy itch.

(Got Netflix? Have it mailed--no streaming available. If not, you can buy from Amazon.)