Homicycle (2014) — Triskaidekafiles

HOMICYCLE

WRITERS: Screenplay by David A. Lloyd and Trevor Payer

Additional Dialogue by Jennifer Mulligan

DIRECTOR: Brett Kelly

STARRING: Candice Lidstone as Julia

Peter Whittaker as Brock

Ian Quick as Slug

Pavel Lubanski as Diesel

Duncan Milloy as Hitch

John Migliore as Chains

Christina Roman as Axel

Veronica D'Arc as Rat

Mac Dale as Eddie

QUICK CUT: After suffering a great loss, Julia tries to get on with her life, and seek justice, with the help of a new stranger who comes to town.

THE MORGUE

Julie - A cop who lost her husband a year ago. It still haunts her, and having the culprit go free is not helping matters.

Brock - A local crimelord who takes out Julie’s husband because reasons. He’s a big, campy figure. He’s mean, and he rules over his minions with an iron plunger.

I have 70 minutes of pain, all for you. I don’t want it any more.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! What more do I have to say about this besides, Homicycle! So get your murder running, and lets do this.

The movie kicks off with an intro from the film's 'producer' in a very late 70s way, with a warning that this movie could kill you. It's nicely done, it feels authentic, in a cheap and sleazy way, and sets the tone for what's to come. Or it doesn't, because I wish there was more stuff like this, but I digress.

Once the movie starts properly, we are told it is one week la...Wait wait, YOU CAN'T START ONE WEEK LATER. One week later than what?? The producer's warning?! Yeah, this movie is a bit of a comedy, and that can be hard to poke fun at because they beat me to half the jokes, but stick with me.

Okay okay, I took a moment, took a deep breath, and refocused myself, let's get back to this. We open on a hooker walking the streets, until Slug the thug shows up, because she's been skimming a bit off the top.

He takes out a hammer, bashes her hand a few times, and fortunately for her before it gets any worse, that's when a figure in leather and a biker's helmet shows up.

Slug calls out to the masked rider, wanting to know who the hell he's supposed to be.

He tries to hit the figure with his hammer, and they don't even flinch. The vigilante grabs Slug by the neck, and shoves his hand into the spinning tires of his motorcycle, slicing it off.

As Slug screams at his bloody stump, the hooker asks the figure who he is, and he turns sharply as the word HOMICYCLE pops up on screen. Is..is that an answer? Well fine. I'm gonna call them Homicycle throughout the movie.

We then get a flashback, which I can only surmise by the smeared, blown out footage, because THIS time the movie doesn't give a time frame, when it would actually be helpful.

Julia and Eddie are enjoying a day off, when it gets randomly interrupted by Brock and his gang showing up, curb stomping Eddie, and murdering him in front of his wife.

Let me tell you a story - a man and a woman, a year ago…

She wakes up from her dream/nightmare and heads in to the police station where she works. The LT calls her in to talk about it, and it is like they are sitting in a black void. They literally found a corner in an abandoned bit off office space and filmed it. There is nothing here.

Oh, and the man who killed Eddie has been acquitted and released, so I guess there is our plot.

We cut to Brock's lair, where he's surrounded himself with women, and oh, hey Slug, there you are. And with your hand. I'm gonna presume this is one week previous? But with this movie, it could easily be after, and they're just fucking about withy continuity like any good exploitation movie would do accidentally.

Greed is for amateurs. Disorder, chaos, anarchy: now that's fun!

Slug mentions a new business that opened a week ago, and Brock is NOT happy, because he needs to know immediately, so he can shake them down for protection. Mo’ money, no problems.

Being a very unhappy criminal, he has one of his flunkies beat the snot out of Slug, while we jump to Julia visiting Eddie's grave.

She leaves her wedding ring on his headstone, and as she walks away, his hand bursts out of the ground. And in case you missed all the jokes so far, why yes, this movie is very much The Crow.

Later, Rat and Roach are wandering around looking for people to threaten, when Homicycle shows up, and rips Roach's head off.

Don't any of your street-demons have real grown-up names?

Rat, like her namesake, knows how to survive and scurries away, so she can tell the rest of the crew that death is coming for them.

Following an UTTERLY pointless 'hot babe' contest where one of the goons is watching, Brock tells him to go shake down a warehouse owner.

Before he can cause any violence though, Homicycle shows up, grabs a nailgun, and uses it to great effect to take out the thug.

Rat shows up at Brock's to tell him Roach has been killed, describing their assailant as someone dressed in black leathers, and a helmet. Tt, musicians.

We get another dreamback to Eddie's death, with a little more going on, but not much. And here's a problem with this movie. It's already VERY short. So showing the same scenes multiple times, does not help flesh this stuff out. And we never really flesh out WHY Brock is there to kill Eddie. Outside of "Dur hur, he cop, me bad, me kill cop!"

But that can be made to work! Just not so much here, you just gotta let it go and roll with stuff. But on top of that, the dude literally just strolls up to the cop's house and murders him dead bang right on the front lawn. I guess we're supposed to assume he's got THAT much control, he's THAT confident, but without really getting into the why's of the now, it just doesn't work.

While Julia goes to have a chat with Brock, Rat visits another group of thugs shaking down another business, because that's all these people do I guess.

Fortunately for the plot, Homicycle shows up to wreck some shit and add more bodies to their body count.

He walks into a boardroom where Bad Stuff is happening, and we get a long drawn out gunfight which feels awfully familiar. But also not really, because Homicycle just stands in one place and sweeps his guns from left to right and back.

Finally, there's no one left, and Rat tries to scurry away some more, only to run smack dab into Homicycle.

She tries to make a deal, since she can get him close to Brock. Instead, he shoots her in the face, splattering the wall behind her. I guess you'd call that, graffiti.

Meanwhile, Julia has arrived at Brock's, and he plays the innocent, despite being literally the person who held her back, and pulled the trigger, on Eddie's face.

Our friend Rat won't be joining us this evening on account of a slight case of death.

Brock gets a phone call about the massacre, and clobbers Julia in the back of the head. He hits her so hard, the film breaks, and we cut to an intermission.

Once again, this is a SHORT movie. 70ish minutes or so. So dropping in FOUR MINUTES of vintage intermission commercials to make this even barely scrape up to 70 minutes sure is something to see. Credit to the director that this stuff was deliberate to do exactly that. I respect honesty. And they are a weird little hoot to see.

ANYways, Brock shows up to another very empty warehouse. Because set design was not in the budget for this movie.

Brock asks the goons what the hell is going on, and one of them goes on and on about how the toilets are back up. He asks if they tried a plunger, and throws one at her head.

She's shocked, complains, and says she coulda killed her! But Brock reassures her that NO ONE has ever died from having a plunger launched at them. And you do not get THAT specific with a joke, if you don't intend to prove them wrong, right?

The group splits up to guard the place, while Brock, Slug, and Julia head to the boss's office. And it's not long before Homicycle shows up.

Someone stuck Diesel's knives into all his major organs in alphabetical order.

And yes, we do indeed get a payoff to someone dying by a flung plunger. I do appreciate a good setup and payoff, at least.

Meanwhile, Brock is getting annoyed that everyone seems to be disappearing, and sends Slug to go check things out.

Julia, who has worked her way out of the ropes because they did a shitty job tying her up, sees the open door, shoves Slug against the wall, and just books it on out. Okay, that's actually pretty hilarious.

Unfortunately, her escape is short lived as Slug grabs her, and they tie her back up to the chair, so that was amusing yet pointless.

Quick impression for ya… Vroom vroom, crash! I’m dead!

We sneak in a bit of distractionary violence as Homicycle shows up to take down Chains, who manages to suckerpunch the vigilante, and proceeds to stomp him into the pavement.

Chains figures the night is won, since there ain't no coming back from a beating like that one, and triumphantly calls Brock to tell him.

But of course Homicycle stands up behind Chains and punches a hole right through the thug's chest. What a heartless move.

Ya know, my daddy used to say every man's got a devil. And you can't rest 'til you find him.

Meanwhile, Brock realises Chains hasn't shown up, so sends Slug to see what the holdup is. He finds some blood, freaks out, and jumps in his car.

Brock hears the car driving off, and I guess that's how he is still around, as he drives off to the start of the movie.

So the crime lord takes his hostage and goes to check things out, and ends up running right into Homicycle, and getting several knives embedded in him.

We get the usual who are you, what do you want, I can give you money, etc etc etc scene, as Brock tries to talk his way out of things.

Eddie Draven lifts his visor so Brock Dollar can see the face of the man who has laid waste to his organisation and, uh...

I don't even know what this is. It looks like a ball of dough with an attempt to spread raspberry jam over it, or possibly draw a smiley face??

So, your him, huh? The avenger. The killer of killers. Nice outfit. Not sure about the face, though.

But...no seriously. What am I looking at here??

Homicycle turns his attention to Julia, reaches out his hand, and gives her back the wedding ring, so she knows who it really is under all the jelly and bread.

And so Homicycle rides off into...not the end of the movie, because that would bring me joy. Instead, we get a rerun of the One Week Later scene!!

The only major difference is there are scenes of Homicycle driving to the scene of Slug harassing the hooker, and *snort* he's following traffic laws.

And the scene ends in EXACTLY the same way as before, adding nothing. WHAT IS THE POINT? That was just here to add another few minutes to the movie!!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks pretty good. I mean, the production values are appropriately low, but the video quality itself is good.

Audio: Sounds pretty good too.

Body Count: I will say this about Homicycle, it delivers a hefty pile of bodies.

1 - 12 minutes and we see a flashback to Julia's fiance getting shot. Eddie?

2 - Homicycle tears Roach's head off.

3 - Legbreaker gets nailed

4 - Homicycler shoots a dude in the face

5 - Another in the chest

6 - And someone in a wheelchair in the face

7 - And a woman in the head

8 - Another in the head

9 - He twists one woman's neck around

10 - And then shoots Rat in the face

11 - Diesel gets shived in the neck

12 - Hitch dies from having a plunger launched at him

13 - Runs girl gets beaten to death with Hitch's leg.

14 - Chains gets his heart punched out.

15 - Brock gets several knives shoved into him.

Best Corpse: Roach’s head getting ripped off is pretty great.

Blood Type - B: The effects are cheap, but they should be. The head rip is solid though, and there’s a lot of splatter too.

Drink Up! Every time there’s a flashback

Movie Review: This movie is hard to properly review. It’s made bad on purpose, and those are always a challenge, plus while I was tearing at it, it IS also going for humour, as I said. It’s bad on purpose, that’s the joke, and quite frankly, it succeeds in what it wanted to do. There’s a lot of little touches that a lot of other movies like this don’t bother with, and I do appreciate that. But while the movie succeeds in what it set out to do, it just doesn’t land with me. I ‘get the joke’ I just think it could have been told better. But since it achieved its goal of being a bad movie, and there’s enough little things that do work or make me laugh, I am giving this a surprising three out of five road rash hands.

Entertainment Value: There are a few laughs here, a few good running gags, and the acting is pretty good, from the main cast. And I absolutely LOVE Brock. He hits that perfect mix of evil with a smile. When he throws out a good line, it lands perfectly. Easily a highlight. The grindhouse feel is very well done. And at only 70 minutes, it isn’t THAT much of a waste of your time. There’s enough here to get some entertainment for some, even if I was more frustrated and wanted the movie to get on with it a lot. Three out of five knives to the chest.