- Directed by: Mia Kate Russell
- Written by: Mia Kate Russell
- Stars: Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oEHjWY_CU
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Four young women join up at an isolated beach house for a celebration. When three bad guys show up, things take an assaultive, violent, and somewhat predictable turn. The movie takes place in 1986, which gives it a retro vibe. It’s well made, and there are enough variables to keep it interesting, but at the core it’s mostly something we’ve seen before.
Spoilery Synopsis
Australia, 1986. Kat and Nick are a couple, and she makes drug-laced cupcakes. Penny’s mother doesn’t trust Penny’s cousin, Kat, who drinks and does drugs. Credits roll.
Penny has Toni and Amy over for a “school’s out” party, and Penny’s mother finally leaves them alone. Penny and Toni kissed each other and liked it, but they don’t tell Amy, cause that’d be weird in 1986. They go to the liquor store and flirt with Nick and Josh.
Kat shows up and has custom cupcakes for each of them. It doesn’t take long before that and all the other drugs start to kick in, and Penny passes out. Kat admits that she drugged Penny’s for kicks. If they call the police, Penny might not be able to go to law school. Toni attacks Kat, and there is much arguing. Kat calls her boyfriend, Angus, to come and pick her up.
Angus wants to come inside to make a phone call, but Toni thinks he’s scary. Radowsky and Merrick are outside in the car as well. Against her better judgment, Toni lets them all inside. They’re obnoxious and a bit scary to Toni and Amy.
Toni figures that Kat will want to leave if she seduces Angus, which goes badly. In retaliation, Kat shows the men where Penny is passed out in the bedroom. This is quickly turning into Angus’s rape party, and Merrick wants to wait in the car, uninvolved. Kat, on the other hand, takes photos.
Penny wakes up, screaming, and Toni beats Radowsky into unconsciousness. Kat nags Angus into killing Penny with a shovel. Toni takes off in the car to get help, but Radowsky isn’t far behind. The store Toni goes to is closed, and the phone doesn’t work, but it does have a machete hanging on the wall. She knows how to use it, and soon Radowsky is in pieces.
Merrick and Angus argue about where they were supposed to go tonight. Important people were waiting for them. Angus’s father is important and lets Angus get away with anything.
Meanwhile, Amy steals the world’s slowest bicycle, and Angus chases her down on foot. He ends up shooting her.
Kat and Angus have sex while Merrick cleans up the bodies. Toni runs back from the store with the machete, but it’s a long way off.
Toni returns to the house and finds bodies; she missed the killings. She slashes Merrick, but he doesn’t die quietly– or quickly. Kat wants to kill Toni, and Angus gives her the chance, but even Angus starts to think Kat’s a lunatic.
Unexpectedly, Nick shows up, and Kat’s happy to see him. She’s covered in blood, so he immediately knows something is up. Nick sees too much and runs away. While Angus is out chasing him, Merrick gives Toni a knife to help her escape. When Angus kills Nick, Kat freaks out, because she liked Nick.
Toni cuts herself loose, grabs Angus’s gun, and shoots him. Merrick throws a knife to finish him off.
Now it’s just Toni and Kat in a … Katfight. Josh shows up, looking for Nick, and he finds Toni stuck to the window with a knife. He releases her, but he doesn’t live long after that. Kat and Toni get back at it, and it gets pretty bloody– cheese grater bloody!
It’s all looking pretty bad for Toni until Penny wakes up, not dead after all, and whacks Kat with a shovel. They ride off in the morning, leaving Kat and the others at the house.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s an Australian home invasion story. Since it’s 1986, there aren’t any cell phones, which is convenient for the killers.
So Toni is just fine in the morning after getting all those stab wounds? Doubtful. Still, it’s a bloody mess with a twist at the end, so it was pretty decent.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was kind of bored in the beginning when we were getting to know the four girls, but things picked up when the guys showed up. Well, a while after the guys showed up. But it gets more interesting eventually.
I was thinking 1986 wasn’t so long ago, then I remembered that’s 40 years. It gave it a retro vibe plus took the element of cell phones out of the story.
It’s just another “women suffering through a home invasion” story, but it’s well made and still pretty entertaining.
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