Bloody Mallory

Review by William Weird

France is known for a lot of things. The Eiffel Tower. Black berets. Frog legs. Snooty, stinky, snarky prostitutes. Baguettes. Something that rhymes with "baguettes." Women who chain-smoke unfiltered cigarettes and refuse to shave their armpits, then go out to do some nude modeling and expect you not to toss your cookies. Then there's French cinema. French cinema is known mainly for pretentious art films so arty and pretentious that I often find myself unsure if I'm supposed to be angry at how full-of-shit and pompous these crap-cakes are, or just fall asleep because of how boring n' bland they are.

One thing French cinema is definitely not known for is popcorn entertainment. I'm talking about the kind cheesy, kooky, colorful, crazy-cool, camp action-comedies that toy companies gravitate toward. There's a reason that so much of the world seems to hate the French, and it's because, from the outside, it looks like they don't really know how to have fun. The lot of 'em just appear to take themselves way too seriously. The only thing they ever fuckin' laugh at is Jerry Lewis, and I'm not even going to delve into that cultural anomaly. What I will delve into, though, is writer/director Julien Magnat's BLOODY MALLORY, a movie that apparently intends to make up for countless decades of pompous self-importance in French cinema by cramming as much garish, outlandish, cartoonish insanity into its runtime as possible.

In keeping with the thematic and stylistic content of Magnat's own award-winning short subject student film THE NEW ADVENTURES OF CHASTITY BLADE, this picture plays out like a story written for Heavy Metal magazine by RuPaul whilst watching reruns of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. BLOODY MALLORY stars Olivia Bonamy as the title character, a take-no-shit, tough-as-nails paranormal investigator with fire engine red hair and the phrase "fuck evil" stamped across her knuckles in big, bold black letters. In the film, Mallory leads a team of monster-fighting supernatural secret agents whose ranks include such oddball personalities as Talking Tina, a little mute girl with an I.Q. that's off the charts and a unique psychic ability to transfer her consciousness into the minds of rats, bats, blondes, gas station attendants, and other creatures of lesser intellect, and subsequently take control of their bodies. There's also Vena Cava, a towering drag queen with blue hair, nunchaku, an extensive knowledge of explosives, and a pair of platform boots concealing machine guns in their soles.

When Pope Hieronymus I (kudos on the name choice, Magnat) is kidnapped by the forces of darkness, Mallory and the, er, "unconventional" squadron of superheroes she leads are the only ones who can be counted on to save the day. In the adventures that ensue, they'll team up with a headstrong, gun-toting Vatican priest, drive their bubblegum pink hearse through the streets of vanished village that exists out of phase with the rest of reality, and butt heads with a shapeshifting succubus, a swordfighting vampiress, and an insane, malevolent fallen angel hellbent on unleashing his equally insane, equally malevolent brethren. In the end, it's up to Mallory an her crew to (what else?) avert the encroaching apocalypse

There's a lot of great shit to get excited over here. BLOODY MALLORY has got parachuting trannies, exploding nuns, and a battalion of bouncing baby demons, not to mention a leather-clad badass babe blowing away ghoulies n' ghosties n' long-legged beasties. The movie is as manic n' quirky as a good, high-octane anime picture, without the obnoxious overreliance on the sort of cutsie-wutsie crapola that so many "japanimation" flicks put so much stock in. Plus, it's got stellar, striking visuals out the wazoo (I'm a sucker for bright colors and extreme-tilt camera angles). Imagine HELLBOY by way of PRISCILLA: QUEEN OF THE DESERT , or VAN HELSING as envisioned by the folks responsible for TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR!

Y'know, for as long as I can remember, I've had a soft spot for the whole "monster hunter" gimmick. I grew up devouring horror movies and comic books en masse, so characters like Blade were perfect for a kid like me because they offered the two things I loved more than anything, superheroes and monsters, together in one place. Of course, so did creature/crusader crossbreeds like TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and THE TOXIC AVENGER , but that's a whole 'nother story. The point is, I had a weakness for "monster hunter" tales when I was a kid, I have a weakness for "monster hunter" tales now, and I suspect I'll have a weakness for "monster hunter" tale right up until I'm senile and incontinent. Unsurprisingly, BLOODY MALLORY had me hooked right from its first silly, saucy, splattery, sacrilegious scene, packed to the rafters as it is with virgin-despoiling demonoids.

This flick is actually quite a lot like the stuff you see flooding American multiplexes during the summer months, when the multimedia conglomerates like to unleash their big, surefire blockbuster money-makers a la' TRANSFORMERS and THE DARK KNIGHT . The difference here is that this flick is much better than the kind of garbage Hollywood gets a kick out of force-feeding audiences, and I'd point to the idiosyncratic weirdness at the heart of BLOODY MALLORY as the reason for that. It comes from Julien Magnat not only being a fan of this kind of indulgent rock-and-roll schlock, but existing in a cinematic culture outside it. Growing up from outside Hollywood looking in, Magnat is able to bring his own unique flavor to what has increasingly become a formulaic style of filmmaking, and reinvigorate it in a way that someone creating it from within wouldn't be able to. He comes to the table with observations and experiences that someone like Michael Bay or Stephen Sommers would not have, and is all the better because of it.

For the most part, the popcorn action movie operates neigh exclusively in the domain of the juvenile-minded heterosexual male. And while I'm nothing if not a juvenile-minded heterosexual male, I like the way BLOODY MALLORY doesn't try to cater to me n' mine with endless scenes of testosterone-overdosed manly men blowing shit up with big fuckin' weapons while scantily-clad Megan Fox clones gyrate on the sidelines. Instead, the film opens things up, making itself more easily accessible to females, the L.G.B.T. community, and even young kids (despite, mind you, a smattering of gore and some rather shameless usage of the f-word).

Bonamy (who, in her signature satanist-smasher get-up, looks a helluva lot like the heroine of RUN LOLA RUN ) is fantastic as Mallory (she reminds me a lot of those characters that Milla Jovovitch played in flicks like RESIDENT EVIL and ULTRAVIOLET ), and Mallory herself is a similarly fantastic character. She's a spunky, sparky, self-reliant lady who fits in neatly between other "lipstick feminism" heroines such as Xena, Selene (from the UNDERWORLD franchise), Lara Croft, Ellen Ripley, and Buffy Summers. You know the kind of chick I'm talkin' 'bout, the kind that a little girl can look up to and learn independence, intelligence, ingenuity, and inner strength from, ...but also the kind that a horny guy can leer at and still knock out a few knuckle-children to.

Also worth watching out for is the immensely sexy Valentina Vargas, who many genre fans will recognize as Angelique, the prostitute-cum-Cenobite from HELLRAISER - BLOODLINE . And then there's Jeffrey Ribier, who regularly steals the show as the "sweet transvestite" Vena Cava. Watching him/her/it trade barbs with a flabbergasted bigot pope is a hoot n' a half, to be sure (in point of fact, Cava's only line of dialogue spoken in English is "Give me sodomy or give me death."). And since we're on the subject of the pope, I hereby offer up a hundred heaping helpings of praise to Magnat for the ballsy way he portrays the pope (and indeed organized religion in general) with an even harsher, more scornful light than the one he shines on all those creatures that go bump in the night. The big plot twist near the end is a doozy!

All the acting is, of course, played completely over-the-top, which is precisely how you want things played when the story and style is as totally out-there and absurd as it is here. BLOODY MALLORY feels like a comic book come to life, complete with a highly saturated, hyper-stylized color palette and the same type of wacky bombastic escapism you're prone to find in one of Marvel's more kitschy, cosmic offerings.

Having said that, I do have a few bones to pick with this flick. Although it's wildly entertaining almost from start to finish, the film does lose quite a bit of steam during the third act, and, what's more, I'm torn about how I feel in regards to the way Mallory ultimately saves the day. On one hand, it's deflating and anticlimactic. On the other hand, it's totally in keeping with the offbeat spirit of the picture as a whole, and its audacity is charming in its own right. This, now, brings me to BLOODY MALLORY's curious, slightly anarchic flavor. Start to finish, the flick switches back n' forth from serious to spoofy, from somber to funny, from action-packed to strangely touching. It can be difficult to get a grip on a movie when it keeps changing tone on a dime and throwing curve balls your way every few minutes. Some people can't hang with that sort of thing. I personally don't sweat it. As far as I'm concerned, it comes with the territory when you're watching foreign cult cinema. It always seems to me that the natives of other continents have a much more instinctive and skillful knack for playing around with such genrebender elements than us North Americans. Nevertheless, while it doesn't bother me too much, I know this sort of thing will be a huge turn-off for others.

Another thing that damages the movie is the fact that, although it's got lots and lots of imagination, it, unfortunately, never really goes as big n' bombastic as it clearly wants to. Restrained by a restrictive, low-to-middle range budget, as well as Magnat's admirable-but-limiting choice to keep C.G.I. use to a minimum, BLOODY MALLORY could've, and should've, been left to run amok and be even more ridiculous n' explosive than it already is. But the small budget leaves the whole thing looking a little like a second-tier middle-of-the-season TORCHWOOD episode. Still, I give props to the F.X. guys for the kick-ass job they did with their practical make-ups, especially with the ghouls at the start of the film.

More than anything though, I suspect many audience members would be taken aback by the whole crossdressing element, and I'm sure there's a whole mess of people who'll be offended by the decision to portray the pope as a pompous asshole. There's a lot of staunchly liberal political subtext at work here, which I know will give some folks cause to turn up their noses right off the bat. But for those who can look past the financial limitations, for those who don't mind a little gayness mixed in with their gaiety, and for left-wingers n' unrepentant blasphemers (read: non-Christians) alike, or just, y'know, people who don't take life so seriously, BLOODY MALLORY offers up a strange, decadent conglomeration of a Joss Whedon/Russell T. Davies-style story told with an aesthetic ambience borrowed from the Spice Girls (it also borrows the all-female pop music group's extreme emphasis on "girl power"). In short, it's a bullet-riddled, lipstick-smeared, post-MATRIX joy to behold.

If you know what the word "otaku" means and label yourself as such, do yourself a solid n' add this flick to you laundry list of must-see motion pictures. BLOODY MALLORY would make for a great double-feature if paired with the live-action CUTIE HONEY movie. On the other hand, if you don't count yourself among the droves of irritating animephiles out there clogging the interwebs, there's still a good chance you'll dig this flick quite a bit. If you like superheroes, and/or creature feature-action movie hybrids a la' UNDERWORLD or HELLBOY (or even something a little more obscure, like MATTHEW BLACKHEART: MONSTER SMASHER ), or if you're just a lousy stinkin' pervert who gets off on red-haired hotties shooting guns, doing karate, and running around with their supple asses sheathed in pants so tight they might as well be tattooed on, well then I think you'll find BLOODY MALLORY more than worth the mere 94 minutes it takes to watch it.

In an ideal world, BLOODY MALLORY would have its own T.V. show (in truth, it always feels more like a program pilot than a proper feature film), comic book, video game, and action figure line. Drunken nerds would dress up as Vena Cava at sci-fi conventions, completely oblivious to the derision of their portly peers, while attention-starved sluts would turn themselves into slinky Mallory impersonators.

As it is, BLOODY MALLORY offers audiences the chance to indulge themselves in the same kind of serio-comic schlock that Magnat himself wishes to indulge in by making the movie. It sucks that this kind of thing comes out of France so rarely, because here it's proven that they can do it very well. It's turbo-charged, candy-coated, brain cell-deadening daftness makes it stand out in a film culture that often takes itself far too seriously. BLOODY MALLORY is defined by its own indispensible disposability. That is to say, it's a throwaway movie that you should never throw away.

More than just a pulpy superhero horror-comedy b-movie, BLOODY MALLORY is also a fun, funky kaleidoscope of Crayola-colored camp that will help get you in touch with your own inner child, your inner pervert, and your inner he-she.

Oh, and I totally fuckin' loved that one scene with the crazy li'l kid running 'round holding an electric carving knife. Classic.

Until next slime...
Stay sick!
Your pickled pal,
William Weird.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Recommendation: rent it
Best moment: the identity of the diabolical demon behind the doomsday plot is finally revealed