I
just finished watching the latest flick by Michael DiPaolo. Michael's
day job is videotaping all the confessions for the Brooklyn District
Attorney's office, so you can imagine what kinda slime this guy
has witnessed over the years.
About
10 years ago Michael started turning this material into movies,
beginning with "Brutal Ardor," the story of a battered
wife, and continuing through "Bought and Sold," which
is about a sexually-tormented runaway, "Requiem for a Whore"
and "Where No Sun Shines," which is a hidden-camera
documentary that takes a look at hustlers and homeless people
in the sleaziest parts of New York City.
Every
Michael DiPaolo film is like getting hit over the head with
a concrete piling, and he doesn't disappoint me with "Transgression,"
his latest and most elaborate. Molly Jackson stars as a TV reporter
who investigates a serial killer, gets kidnapped and terrorized
by him, and starts to know his mind so well that she gets these
ideas of her own about how to work out her anger against men.
She tells her story from Death Row on her last day of life.
With
DiPaolo flicks, it's not so much the story as how he tells the
story. He loves to use religious music with scenes of graphic
sex, violence, torture and death. I do mean graphic. I've seen
so many slasher flicks that not much bothers me anymore. These
scenes BOTHER ME. My kinda flick.
Twelve
dead bodies. Eighteen breasts. Bondage. Rape. Mutilation. (All
the usual New York City tourist attractions.) Blood-drinking.
Throat-slashing. Aardvarking. Corpse-licking. (Yuk.) Chest-slicing.
Gratuitous alcoholism subplot. Handcuff fu. Wooden-spoon fu.
Wire-hanger fu.
Drive-In
Academy Award nominations for...
Molly
Jackson, as the TV reporter-turned-serial-killer, for saying,
"I killed three men and found God."
Sharon
Ann Sposta, as the creepy mom who says, "Your father and
I didn't raise you to be with people like him."
Julio
Rodriguez, as the cop boyfriend who says, "That little
incident-you enjoyed it!"
And
Michael DiPaolo, for being one of the few filmmakers who is
absolutely original.
Four
stars. Joe Bob says check it out. Joe Bob's Drive-In New York
Times Syndicate June 30, 1996