Olly Blackburn’s sexy thriller Donkey Punch premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and we caught it as part of Fantastic Fest, where it was paired with a “Hipsters Overboard!” Donkey Punch Boat Party on Town Lake in Austin, which sadly did not involve the actually tossing overboard of any hipsters. Austin has tight jean, rakish-angle hat-wearing party rats coming out of the woodwork, and it probably would have been a benefit if some had slipped into the dark water, never to be seen again.
The film is what you would get if you mashed Dead Calm and Open Water 2 together and sprinkled it liberally with heavy doses of ecstasy and trance club music. I know that it probably doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in a review when you reference Open Water 2: Adrift in the second paragraph, but that film should have had a title of its own and not been a sequel, because it’s not a bad Saturday afternoon thriller itself. Plus, it also involves a gaggle of young hipsters who shouldn’t be out on a luxury yacht.
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Fantastic Fest announced their film awards late last night, even through we’ve still got three more days of movie watching and alcohol drinking to go. As expected, The Good, The Bad and The Weird took the Audience Award, although JCVD took third place in that category, which continues to baffle me. The much buzzed about Let The Right One In was named best horror film over Donkey Punch and Acolytes, and the Danish film How To Get Rid Of The Others took top award in the Fantastic Features category with Cargo 200 and Ex Drummer in second and third place. Thankfully they gave the wacky and fun Santos a special award in that category.
We’ll have a lot more to say about these films and much more soon, so keep checking back for more festival information and news throughout the week. Heck, I’ve even enjoyed seeing Conquest of the Planet of the Apes at this thing. The complete awards listings can be found after the break.
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