THRILLER

(18) 99min

The first fruit of the UK Film Council’s collaboration with Shane Meadows’ regular producers Warp X, Donkey Punch is a misguided attempt by Brits to muscle in on the already hackneyed torture-porn genre. Tammi (Nichola Burley) joins her two girlfriends on a holiday in Mallorca, only to be lured onboard a luxury yacht by some unscrupulous boys. After some messy drug taking, Tammi ends up blissing out above the decks while the other girls are making a porn film down below. But, when one girl is unfortunate enough to receive a ‘donkey punch’ during sex, breaking her neck, the boys imprison the two remaining girls and a stand-off develops, leading to a series of violent deaths by knife, rope, flare gun and outboard motor.

A feeble entry into an already overworked genre, writer/director Olly Blackburn’s Donkey Punch is a soulless photocopy of a template familiar from Shallow Grave and Dead Calm. The relentlessly unimaginative script constantly tips over into banal absurdity as the vapid characters alternate between trying to kill each other and arguing about what they might or might not say if they have to testify against each other in court. Making such slavish rip-offs used to be the preserve of exploitation filmmakers; the only real surprise here is that it’s the public who are footing the bill for such poorly-staged amateur dramatics.

General release from Fri 18 Jul.