Goth (2003)

2003
Directed by Brad Sykes
Starring Phoebe Dollar, Laura Reilly and Dave Stann

Longtime readers are well aware of my hometown Greatest Video Store Ever.  One thing that I haven't expounded on nearly as much was the Second Greatest Video Store Ever, namely the Hollywood Video that was in my college town.  I don't know how many stores in this particular chain there are around the country, but nonetheless, THIS place was boss.  I was a regular customer from 2004-2007, and they still had a huge stock of VHS tapes, just about every classic ninja movie you can name, the entire library of Charles Bronson, and an old-school horror aisle to die for.  I was able to find quite a few hidden gems at this store throughout those years...and Goth, a little-known direct-to-video...um...gem...from 2003 was not one of them.

Ah, yes, Goth, a certified POS in every sense of the word.  I honestly don't know what I was expecting when I brought that baby home from Hollywood Video.  Honestly, I think a good, scary flick about the whole Goth subculture being taken too far COULD be made.  This, however, was not that movie.  The acting is terrible.  Well, actually that might be a bit much - the characters are terrible.  It's low-budget, but definitely not in the admirable or charming way, looking like it was lit by an itty-bitty book light for much of its sparse running time.  Watching the flick close to ten years ago was an interesting experience to say the least, as I sat there for 90 minutes slack-jawed at the almost complete lack of narrative, arc, or anything close to compelling.  But, I remember it, so I can't quite award it zero points.  With ringing endorsement, let's dive into the meat and potatoes of the cinematic opus that is Goth.

Meet Chrissy and her boyfriend Boone, played by Laura Reilly and Dave Stann, respectively.  These are two dark creatures of the night who are about to head out for a very dark, dark night on the town.  Be prepared to read the word "dark" a whole lot in this review, because this movie pours it on, both figuratively and literally.  All things considered, these two actors aren't terrible in the roles of Chrissy and Boone, although the camerawork and framing in these early scenes that's meant to endear this relationship to us is definitely far from captivating stuff.  I don't know exactly how well these characters rate on the authentic Goth dark-o-meter, but you're reading a guy who has religiously shaved every day since he was 17 and gets a crewcut every four weeks.  Hell, I think the darkest I ever got was when I once bought a pair of camouflage pants at J.C. Penney when I was in college.  Long story short, I'm not the authority on the subject. 

Cue clubbing montage, and from here our heroic dark teens (can you tell they're dark?) run into a like-minded idealist.  Someone who shares their values, and has not only the Hot Topic costume jewelry that Chrissy and Boone rock but a whole slew of face paint and tattoos.  And said character's awesome name...is Goth.  I kid you not.  Now, I gotta give it to Phoebe Dollar, the actress who played Goth (in the movie Goth).  She definitely didn't mail it in.  Having said that, she goes way over the top to the point that the movie quickly becomes unwatchable pretty much from this point forward, as you can pretty much tell where it's going from here and it doesn't get any better.

The general gist of the movie is this - the two main kids think they're dark but don't take it far enough.  Goth...she takes it all the way.  As in, she likes to rape, murder and torture, and she wants everyone to join in the fun.  Goth is f**ked up.  For the next sixty minutes, this is your life, avid watcher: Goth guides Chrissy and Boone through her dark world (that's the last time I use the word, I swear), and it doesn't take long to escalate.  There's lots of tying people up.  Lots of LONG scenes where a camera holds in on close-up as Goth cuts somebody's face with a gag knife that squirts blood from the tip, complete with this soul-destroying dirgy soundtrack in the background. 

Oh yeah, there's no less than two sex scenes featuring some very overweight strippers.  Consider this the REVERSE SKEEVY PARAGRAPH.  But I gotta say, even if they HAD hired smokin' hot chicks to be in the scenes where Goth forces Boone to have sex with people for Chrissy's cuckolding pleasure, this stuff still would have been the opposite of titillating.  So if you were at least looking for a good guilty pleasure movie to satiate your Goth fetish, this ain't the one for you, daddy.

I honestly can't remember how the movie ended.  I think we got something like a two-minute sequence where Chrissy grows a pair and stands up to Goth, leading to a twist ending that I DO remember that somehow manages to out-dumb everything that preceded it by a landslide.  If you get the impression that this was a bad movie, you're right.  Still...while I've never once felt the urge to go back and re-watch this one for obvious reasons, I have to state that it's oddly a flick that I would recommend.  I've told you that it's bad.  Still, you can't appreciate just HOW bad it is until you experience it for yourselves.  And it had a trailer for Terror Toons before the main feature.

Wow, a very lean and mean review.  Now THIS is a trend that I can get behind!  Rating time: Goth gets * out of ****, and that * comes from the fact that it's occasionally unintentionally hilarious.  Otherwise, me no likey.