5ive Girls DVD Review

Written and directed by Warren P Sonada
2006, R2, 90 minutes, Rated 15 (UK)

Starring:
Ron Perlman as Father Drake
Jennifer Miller as Alex
Jordan Madley as Mara
Terra Vnesa as Cecilia
Barbara Mamabolo as Leah
Tasha May as Connie
Amy Ciupak Lalonde as Miss Pearce
Krysta Carter as Elizabeth

Review:

Five foxy chicks with special powers (a blind girl with second sight, a “faith” healer with no faith, a couple of witches and a girl who can walk through filing cabinets), are sent to a catholic reform school to clean up their bad behaviour. Something’s amiss in this school, and the girls soon realise that as well as the dominatrix headmistress (Amy Ciupak Lalonde) and some rather severe school rules, they’ll soon be battling an ancient demon, too. Expect lots of cat-fights, rituals, bible references and a little casual lesbianism thrown in for good measure. Think “Buffy”, think The Craft and then rent one or other of them instead because this isn’t as good as either.

5ive Girls isn’t really a film which requires much thought or in-depth analysis — it’s a bit of fun, and for that the story is acceptable, if not always entirely logical or consistent. The digital effects look fairly fake, but some of the make-up effects are quite nice, and the set, props and costumes are effective so as not to be jarring or noticeable. While the script isn’t great, and doesn’t have the appeal of shows like “Buffy” or films like The Craft, which left many teenage girls wishing they were witches or vampire hunters, nor is it completely horrible either.

The female leads in 5ive Girls adopt a strange camp style of over-acting which is initially quite uncomfortable to watch; Amy Ciupak Lalonde is the guiltiest. It took me a while to put my finger on what this acting style reminded me of, but eventually it came to me: porno. Obviously, the scenes of attractive-but-slightly-dirty-looking girls having to stand in their underwear, while they’re searched by the severe young headmistress, helped me make the connection. Similarly, the fact that they’re all clearly too old to be wearing school uniform emphasised this idea. I actually felt embarrassed to be watching when the girls were reciting “Hail Mary” as one of their classmates was spanked with a ruler by the headmistress.

Ron Pearlman’s (Hellboy) ambiguous priest is given too little to do and was quite a strange and unexplained character, especially when held up again the archetypes and hyperbole of the women in the film.

This is definitely one for the boys.

Ultimately, though, it’s a fun film and I quite enjoyed watching it. It’s pacey and fast-moving, surprisingly violent at points and there are some reasonable scares. What with these things and the soft porn you could do a lot worse for a rental.

The disk I had included a trailer and a behind the scenes feature, however extras, picture and sound won’t be rated, as this was a screener.

The behind the scenes feature includes interviews with the female cast members, clips from the film and bits of footage on set. Quite nice to hear the cast interviews, especially if you liked the film, but I found the clips annoyingly over-long — if you haven’t seen the film then it might spoil it a bit; if you have they’re a bit obsolete.

Grades:
Movie:
Video:	n/a
Audio:	n/a
Features:	n/a
Overall: