Razor Blade Smile
While sitting through writer-director-editor Jake West’s “Razor Blade Smile,” his influences become obvious. Tarantino. Woo. Anne Rice. Julie Newmar. Howard Stern. West has created a film that is definitely style over substance, and even then the style looks like someone’s first film school project.
West bathes his film in every sort of trickery you learn in Cinematography 101. Fast motion. Slow motion. Black and white. Color gels. West tries too hard to impress. His film isn’t awful, but it is far from being good. It’s filled with wooden performances (you could drive the performances through a vampire’s heart and kill them), flat dialogue, and a premise that proves West has seen his share of current films.
Eileen Daley stars as Lilith, damned for eternity by her lover to walk the earth as one of the living dead. No, not as a member of Congress. The flashbacks take place in black and white so we know they take place in the past. I guess West thought we would be confused. In the present, Lilith passes the time hiring herself out as a hit woman. First she drains her victims, then she shoots them gangland style. Hey, a girl has got to have priorities.
As she systematically eliminates a rival group of bloodsuckers, Lilith must dodge a police detective hot on her trail. There’s a feeble attempt at a love story when Lilith falls for her contractor, but that goes nowhere. There are also numerous attempts at dispelling vampire lore by having Lilith hang out at a club for wannabe’s called Transilvania.
I guess they didn’t know how to spell, either. It’s all just an exercise in futility, because by the final frame none of this matters. What matters is the realization that you just spent an hour and a half watching someone’s film school project. There’s a big difference from being hip and trying to be hip. West figures that by copying the look and mannerisms of other hip movies he can create their success. He’s wrong.
He may have talent, but it gets lost in his desperation to prove how talented he is. There are moments of promise, but even these are dragged to their death by overwrought camera angles and dull pacing. Daley is okay as Lilith, but even she seems to be aping previous femme fatales.
COMPLETE CHECK-UP
VISION: [ ] 20/20 [ X ] Good [ ] Cataracts [ ] Blind
Nice transfer suffers from over saturation of colors. However, I don’t know whether or not to point the finger at the transfer or the actual film negative. The transfer looks clean, so I imagine the problem lies with the print. Delivered in the film’s original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, the images look as good as they’re going to get, with mediocre attention to detail. Flesh tones are a little harsh, but not deathly. Blacks don’t hold up as well as they should, but they’re not an embarrassment. The negative seems clean, so whites are pure. Depth of field is extremely flat.
HEARING: [ X ] Excellent [ ] Minor Hearing Loss [ ] Needs Hearing Aid [ ] Deaf
Okay 2.0 Dolby Stereo soundtrack. No real hiss or distortion, and stereo effects seem to work as expected. Dialogue mix is strong, but I’m not sure that’s a plus.
ORAL: [ ] Excellent [ ] Good [ X ] Poor
No Closed Captions or Subtitles.
COORDINATION: [ ] Excellent [ X ] Good [ ] Clumsy [ ] Weak
Nicely rendered main and scene access menus, plus a femme fatale article about the film and previous scream queens. There are also five theatrical trailers (the film’s original theatrical, plus four other A-PIX films).
PROGNOSIS: [ ] Excellent [ X ] Fit [ ] Will Live [ ] Resuscitate [ ] Terminal
The film doesn’t suck, but it is anemic. Only for vampire fans.
VITALS: $29.98/Unrated/101 Minutes/Color/26 Chapter Stops/Keepcase/#APX27005
ATTENDING RESIDENT: John Larsen
PATIENT: RAZOR BLADE SMILE
BIRTH DATE: 1998
HMO: A-PIX Entertainment
