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Crush the Skull
USA 2015
produced by Aya Tanimura, Jimmy Tsai, Chris Dinh, Viet Nguyen, Joan Huang (executive), Jeffrey Gou (executive) for Ninja Crush, Cherry Sky Films
directed by Viet Nguyen
starring Chris Dinh, Katie Savoy, Chris Riedell, Tim Chiou, Lauren Reeder, Walter Michael Bost, Lincoln Hoppe, Devyn Stokdyk, Kartina Nelson, Jay Rondot, Jessica W. Bailey, Justin Ray, Christopher Custodio, Nathan Moore, Jerry Ying, Leonard Wu, Jibby Saetang, Kim Houghton, Michelle Grondine
written by Viet Nguyen, Chris Dinh, music by David Frank Long
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
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Blair (Katie Savoy) and Ollie (Chris Dinh) aren't really bad people -
sure, they make their money by breaking and entering, but actually do have
what you'd call a social conscience, and the one reason why Ollie got
caught during their last heist was because he wanted to save a woman
(Jessica W. Bailey) - who they actually tried to rob - from her abusive
husband (Jay Rondot). Thanks to their mob connections, Blair got Ollie out
of custody, but now they owe money to the mob, which is never a good idea,
and to cough it up on the quick the two of them throw in with Blair's
incompetent brother Connor (Chris Riedell) and his "crew" Riley
(Tim Chiou). Well, the heist doesn't go at all as planned, as first of all
there's no way into the place but through the headlights, and once they're
in, there seems to be no way out, and the place as such seems to be better
secured than any jail. Heck, even the cellphone signals of our heroes seem
to be jammed on purpose. Thing is, the more they investigate the place the
more they find out they rather would not have, like the place has secret
torture chambers, like women have been taped while being murdered there,
like there's a big secret basement with remote controlled doors ready-made
for tortture, murder and dismemberment. And they also find Vivian (Lauren
Reeder), who has been held in a cage in one of the rooms for weeks now,
having gone through hell since ... but of course, getting her out of the
house isn't all that easy since not even our heroes have found a way out
of the house. And then the owner of the house, a.k.a. the killer returns -
and he knows he has a bunch of mice in his trap, and knows how to control
the doors in his house and have them run exactly into the places he wants
them to to off one by one ... When it comes to good genre
entertainment, Crush the Skull is most certainly a movie that hits
all the right marks: It's a film that knows how to create drama and
suspense, when and where to put drama and plot twists, and how to create
believable characters - but it has also got a sense how to throw humour
(and lots of it) into the equation without making the thing moronic or
even losing the tension. That said, the premise of the film might be a bit
far-fetched, I give you that, but it's well-structured, subtly yet
flexibly directed, and the ensemble cast really all deliver on-point
likeable performances to make this one work like a charm!
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