Something of a national scandal in its native New Zealand, WOUND represents an apparent change of pace for director David Blyth whose approach to horror, while undeniably extreme on his 1984 breakthrough zombie splat-stick DEATH WARMED UP, thus far remained comfortably constricted within comedic confines, as evidenced by his cable favorite RED BLOODED American GIRL and the affectionate Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) tribute showcase MY GRANDPA IS A VAMPIRE. Plunging headlong into a universe of incest, child abuse, rape and revenge might seem like an uncharacteristic road to take then, though not so much when one compares the results to Blyth's debut feature shot at the age of 22, the 1978 ANGEL MINE, a chaotic satire of sorts tracing the increasingly surreal attempts by an upwardly mobile Auckland couple to achieve happiness. Spaced three decades apart, WOUND shapes up as a kind of dark mirror image to ANGEL MINE, echoing visual motifs such as the latter's lascivious leather-clad Doppelgangers (representing the couple's initially suppressed sensual side, gradually spiraling out of control) reappearing both as creepy rubber dolls and ultimately given birth to by central character Susan.
As played by Kate O'Rourke, whose plaintive prettiness made her a perfect casting choice for one of melancholy vampire Danny Huston's army of adoring acolytes in David Slade's effective 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, Susan's as close to an audience identification figure as the filmmaker will allow. Nervously preparing for a visit from her estranged father (Brendan Gregory), Susan's soon exposed as battling her own set of demons born out of childhood trauma which engender an early explosion when she takes a baseball bat - not to mention a large pair of scissors - to dear old dad ! A woman of socially crippling bizarre habits (a hint : don't eat anything that came out of her freezer...), she bears the scars of having the baby girl she had when she was 14 - presumably fostered by her father - put up for adoption by her unsympathetic mom (Sandy Lowe), or was it indeed stillborn as the latter continued to claim ? Subsequently stumbling across her mother's double life as a home-based dominatrix inspires Susan to commit matricide by burning the ancestral home down to the ground. Some mothers do 'ave 'em indeed !
Around this stage the movie shifts narrative gears towards sullen, angry orphan Tanya (Te Kaea Beri) who has just learned her birth mother's identity from a spectacularly insensitive social worker. Scheming to get in touch with the less than forthcoming Susan, Tanya enters a netherworld when she answers a text message while at a nightclub from a friend ("You were the only one who cared") by joining him in suicide on the railroad tracks, the tragedy of which is obscured by a jarring jump cut to a semi-conscious Tanya getting date-raped by the club's heavily tattooed, fat-arsed deejay appropriately wearing a pig mask ! This is where Blyth's pretentiousness rises to the surface however as his until now passably diverting exercise in poor taste develops ideas well above its station by audaciously aligning itself with the Greek myth of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, sired by Zeus (as they usually were...) and snatched by Hades who made her reluctant queen of the underworld through enforced nuptials. Also thrown into the mix is the "mooncalf" Caliban's famous speech on the nature of dreams ("Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises...") from Shakespeare's The Tempest, recited in full via ominous voice-over not once but twice, to placate the highbrows still reeling from the director's obscene onslaught of sledgehammer subtlety.
Let's not mince words here. This movie is grotesque which is not a bad thing in itself nor does it expose a raw nerve within this particular reviewer's sensibilities. Hell, I can even watch Tom Six's instantly notorious HUMAN CENTIPEDE without gagging, well, most of the time anyway. No, my beef with WOUND lies with Blyth's blatant misappropriation of contentious imagery intended solely to shock on the most basic level. Shattering society's few remaining taboos is all good and well but it remains my firm belief that a filmmaker should have a carefully considered reason rather than a mere excuse to create havoc when dealing with subject matter as innately sensitive as that which Blyth so gloatingly puts through the wringer. This callous crudeness of tone is compounded by the director's appalling attention span so brief as if ticking off a series of boxes. Susan atoning for her mother's alleged sins by assuming the role of a sex slave for hire could have been thoughtfully expanded upon. Instead, Blyth chose to literally drown all intellectual challenge in a tidal wave of bodily secretions, ironically nipping the coveted controversy in the bud by supplanting all that might have been truly subversive and disturbing with mindless albeit extremely enthusiastic gore.
As played by Kate O'Rourke, whose plaintive prettiness made her a perfect casting choice for one of melancholy vampire Danny Huston's army of adoring acolytes in David Slade's effective 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, Susan's as close to an audience identification figure as the filmmaker will allow. Nervously preparing for a visit from her estranged father (Brendan Gregory), Susan's soon exposed as battling her own set of demons born out of childhood trauma which engender an early explosion when she takes a baseball bat - not to mention a large pair of scissors - to dear old dad ! A woman of socially crippling bizarre habits (a hint : don't eat anything that came out of her freezer...), she bears the scars of having the baby girl she had when she was 14 - presumably fostered by her father - put up for adoption by her unsympathetic mom (Sandy Lowe), or was it indeed stillborn as the latter continued to claim ? Subsequently stumbling across her mother's double life as a home-based dominatrix inspires Susan to commit matricide by burning the ancestral home down to the ground. Some mothers do 'ave 'em indeed !
Around this stage the movie shifts narrative gears towards sullen, angry orphan Tanya (Te Kaea Beri) who has just learned her birth mother's identity from a spectacularly insensitive social worker. Scheming to get in touch with the less than forthcoming Susan, Tanya enters a netherworld when she answers a text message while at a nightclub from a friend ("You were the only one who cared") by joining him in suicide on the railroad tracks, the tragedy of which is obscured by a jarring jump cut to a semi-conscious Tanya getting date-raped by the club's heavily tattooed, fat-arsed deejay appropriately wearing a pig mask ! This is where Blyth's pretentiousness rises to the surface however as his until now passably diverting exercise in poor taste develops ideas well above its station by audaciously aligning itself with the Greek myth of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, sired by Zeus (as they usually were...) and snatched by Hades who made her reluctant queen of the underworld through enforced nuptials. Also thrown into the mix is the "mooncalf" Caliban's famous speech on the nature of dreams ("Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises...") from Shakespeare's The Tempest, recited in full via ominous voice-over not once but twice, to placate the highbrows still reeling from the director's obscene onslaught of sledgehammer subtlety.
Let's not mince words here. This movie is grotesque which is not a bad thing in itself nor does it expose a raw nerve within this particular reviewer's sensibilities. Hell, I can even watch Tom Six's instantly notorious HUMAN CENTIPEDE without gagging, well, most of the time anyway. No, my beef with WOUND lies with Blyth's blatant misappropriation of contentious imagery intended solely to shock on the most basic level. Shattering society's few remaining taboos is all good and well but it remains my firm belief that a filmmaker should have a carefully considered reason rather than a mere excuse to create havoc when dealing with subject matter as innately sensitive as that which Blyth so gloatingly puts through the wringer. This callous crudeness of tone is compounded by the director's appalling attention span so brief as if ticking off a series of boxes. Susan atoning for her mother's alleged sins by assuming the role of a sex slave for hire could have been thoughtfully expanded upon. Instead, Blyth chose to literally drown all intellectual challenge in a tidal wave of bodily secretions, ironically nipping the coveted controversy in the bud by supplanting all that might have been truly subversive and disturbing with mindless albeit extremely enthusiastic gore.