Sculpture (2009)

Sculpture (2009) Dir. by Pete Jacelone

Sculpture is a psychological horror gore-fest that tells the story of Ashley Steele, an aspiring artist who returns home after the death of her father only to find the haunting memories of her repressed childhood await her. She is commissioned to create a life-size sculpture of the perfect man, and uses body builders from her brother's gym as models, but soon finds herself spiraling down a path of unspeakable psychopathic terror and murder as she frantically tries to complete her masterpiece. Written by Pete Jacelone on www.IMDB.com

I was recently given a screener of this film, and after multiple attempts to watch it, I was finally able to finish it today. It is a wickedly cool movie with an interesting and fairly original story by an onslaught of writers including Marv Blauvelt, Pete Jacelone, Paul Quintero, and Trevor Wright. I felt like the story was definitely a strong point to this film and the story really drives the film.

Raine Brown serves up a above par performance as the questionably insane Ashley Steele, and it is always nice to see a girl as a psycho in film. Raine does have some acting mistakes but overall she did a really great job. There were some great supporting roles from Alan Rowe Kelly(talked about him alot lately), Susan Adriensen, and a great Asshole performance from Marv Blauvelt!

The concept of this film is really what makes some of the film's mistakes forgivable. While Raine had a strong performance, there were moments of severe overacting, and that made me cringe a bit a few times, but her stronger scenes are all when she is really calm. The first half of the film seemed a little off as far as pacing the film goes. The second half of the film picks up a lot and you forget about the bumpy start. The film is very sexual, VERY SEXUAL, and at times it adds to the story, but at other times seems to take away from it. I get it, there are lots of big muscular men around, and you will have that working with some of the guys from Muscle Wolf Productions, but at the same time it often felt distracting in the film. That was the least distracting part of the film. The special effects are what distracted me the most. Watching the film, I couldn't help but feel like it would have been a stronger film if they had used less Gore and more story/acting, and I am a HUGE fan of Gore. The special effects struck polar opposites at different points of the film. The cutting and stabbing with knives and other things looked really really good, but the molds and some of the other effects looked like poorly made Halloween costumes. Also, I don't think how hard it is to remove a persons limb was taken into affect either. I think it could have been more suspenseful having used less blood and guts and in result it could have added more questions as to the final result of her sculpture. At one point of the film I couldn't help but ask myself, "Where the hell did she get a Katana?!" but I let that slide for simple fact that I like swords, even if they are randomly added to a movie. Unfortunately, my love for swords was quickly replaces with shocking disappointment when I witnessed the beheading that followed. It was hands down the worst beheading I have ever seen on film. It almost ruined the movie for me, but it didn't.

I did like the film as a whole, and I think it is worth at least one viewing for everyone, but for some it should be owned on DVD just to show to your friends at a party, haha. I look forward to seeing more films by these guys, and especially more films by the writing crew.

Entertainment Value: 6/10 Katanas
Cinematic Value: 4/10 Katanas