by Iloz Zoc

Around two-thirds into Murder-Set-Pieces I looked at my watch. I don't do that often when watching a film. In this case, though, I looked at it twice. I really wanted to get it over with, and, unlike some reviewers less meticulous (or masochistic) than I, I always watch the whole movie just to make sure I don't miss anything that remotely resembles art, or scares, or anything that stands out as a memorable horror-moment. I was disappointed that I didn't find anything like that here.

At the end of the movie I sighed with relief and wondered what I ever did to the staff at The Haunted Report to warrant them sending me this emotionless and tensionless excursion into the mind and actions of a one-dimensional, neo-Nazi, muscle-bound serial killing photographer prowling Las Vegas for his next torture-gig photo shoot. America's Top Model has more tension. Maybe I should send the staff a fruit basket for the holidays. Then maybe they'd send me the A stuff.

While many of the reviews for Murder-Set-Pieces mercilessly castigate director Nick Palumbo as a misogynistic this or racist that, that's not quite the vibe I picked up. He's just doing what any director does — telling his unsavory story through the camera lens. I actually thought Palumbo did a solid job of direction, but just made some questionable choices with the material, like his confusing use of ill-placed, tinkling music, flashbacks and shock-montages into the fractured mind of the nutbag photographer, or the spin-art overuse of blood on everything in sight. Then there's the bordering-on-comic way he'd cut to the photographer driving in his Mustang, again and again, prowling night-time Las Vegas for more nudie-cutie opportunities, with the same overused audio of the car's engine racing and sputtering.

But the most important directorial misstep here is the lack of tension-building suspense and the pedestrian way in which each murder-set-piece is handled. At no time are any of the tortures or murders the least bit shocking, the least bit emotionally draining. We follow the photographer around, as he bounces off the padded walls of his mind, as if we're carrying his equipment bag and nothing more. And when he whips out that straight razor, there's no fearful whimper from us, no gasps. Perhaps I'd have been more drawn in with the uncut version of the film, but Anchor Bay's R-rated DVD only implies defilement and torture, and cuts away from the chainsaw-through-head type of chunky violence gore-hounds love. So gore-hounds be warned: look for the uncut version if you are so inclined. As for me, I'd rather have more meat and less sauce.

Which brings us to the storyline itself, which is less meaty and less filling than a horror movie should be. Due in large part to Sven Garrett's lifeless performance as the photographer with too much killing time on his hands. Even though he suffers from manic bouts of shouting in German, and nose-bleeds as he flashbacks in weird vignettes with him as a boy walking train tracks while a flirtatious blonde parades in front of him, while his look is right, that's where his energy for the role ends. When he pumps iron, all sweaty and gritty, he still doesn't pump enough energy to light a diode, let alone a performance that cries out for psychotic, balls-to the-wall-abandon. His torture and killing sprees are monotone, with the only lively color coming from the blood all around him. So what if he likes to eat his meat raw and bloody? Without the gusto, it's just undercooked.

Even the cameos with Gunnar Hansen and Tony Todd do nothing to fortify the film. Hansen, playing another neo-Nazi crazy, sells the photographer a gun, and Todd, who manages an Adult Video store, tries to throw him out after he asks for a snuff film called Nutbag (an in-joke reference to Palumbo's other film).

The hidden torture-death playroom he uses to humiliate and terrorize his victims is a caricature of a hidden torture-death playroom, and doesn't generate an atmosphere of dread anticipation and fear. Way too much red blood is spattered over everything, making it more of a demonic Pee Wee Herman's acid-trip induced idea of what a playroom should be. While it does reflect a bit of a 1970s gleefully repellent grindhouse sensibility, with naked, hanging upside down and chair-bound women, it fails to elicit feelings of disgust or shocks of horror. Palumbo and Garrett show no finesse in the fine art of building and sustaining tension, even when the chainsaw comes out for some head-scratching the hard way.

The plot motivations also lead to some head-scratching. When the photographer's girlfriend pines away for him after he breaks off the relationship, he's such a lifeless kind of guy, you wonder where her tears are coming from. Even her little sister knows the guy's a creep and good riddance. Even after the break-up, he's still stalking the kid, watching her from his Mustang. When the kid complains, her big sister doesn't want to hear it; so she steals the spare, creepy-freaky guy's house key, begs a total stranger to drive her to his house, and lets herself in — to do what, exactly? Why didn't she just go to the police? What, the Vegas cops too busy to follow up on one more psycho? Especially when they've got a trail of dead bimbos across the strip? That's when I looked at my watch a second time.

The ensuing encounter between her and him, as he's all bloodied-up from playing with another hapless victim, is devoid of terror and suspense. There was no build-up leading to this encounter, so when it comes, it plays out without fanfare or intensity. When she hides under his bed — apparently the kid has never seen a horror film — I rolled my eyes in disbelief, and when she runs back to the playroom to hide — you know, the no-exit, basement torture-chamber soaked in wall to wall blood and nicely decorated with his recent kills — I doubted Palumbo ran his script through the reality-checker first.

The ending leaves the photographer with a headache and a sequelization antic that could spawn another film, and the blood-spattered, and hopefully wiser kid, walking down the highway in shock.

She wasn't the only one.

Well, it's been awhile, but the Mrs. and myself finally got around to sitting down and watching another flick together. This time around we take a look at E.G. Daily (of Tommy Pickles and Pee Wee Herman fame) as she jumps into the reins of a madame hell-bent on revenge. Does it work? Read on to find out!

She said:

So my husband messages me and tells me he has a new movie for us to watch. Mustang Sally is the name, starring one of my favorite B-movie queens E.G. Daily (yeah, Tommy Pickles, also in Valley Girl and Pee Wee's Big Adventure). He tells me she plays a prostitute who kills her clients. Okay, interesting idea… however there is more to it, or rather they meant to have more to it than that.

One thing I will start off saying is that the movie was not that bad. I enjoyed it. Got a lot of chuckles out of the writing. However the story is a tad confusing at times and unfortunately, too obvious at others. Our writer, director, and cameo actor Iren Koster had some great ideas on this movie. However he let too many things slip which ruined what could have been a great twist. There were no misdirections, there were no red herrings, there were no big shocks at all as far as the story line went. When major plot information came out, it just spurted all at once (pun intended) and came at you so fast that you almost couldn't digest it, then once you did it was like — well now what are we going to do with the second half of this movie?

The young men visiting the bordello are sent in on what is an obvious set-up. Three bikers enter a bar and talk the place up within ear-shot of the boys. The characters were very stereotypical. We had our jock who carried a football around like a security blanket, we had our goofy little comedy relief (and I am sorry, the boy needs some acting classes, his deliveries were way off), we had our rich boy, our sensitive guy — you name it, they were there, but only on the surface. No depth to them, nothing. The prostitutes were the same way. It was all very cut-and-paste, and not a lot of information on where Sally met these women.

We had characters show up that made neither real sense nor helped to really further along the plot line, such as the sheriff. We got too much information on Sally; we didn't get enough information on the boys' fathers who actually committed the crime against Sally. The ending was confusing on how our main boy got into the hospital in the first place. And had we not been given the information on who Sally was, well the ending would have been a great shocker.

The gore and the deaths were pretty damn creative for the most part. I got a kick out of that. The acting was below par, mood swings happened that made no sense, deliveries were pretty weak, but the writing was good. Very funny stuff throughout. Nudity, for those of you who care — not so much, considering the theme.

2 boot lickings out of 5.

He said:

So, for starters I must be honest. My original draw here was for E.G. Daily dressing up as a prostitute. Just so you all know what expectations I had going into this.

That said, I was pleased with what I got! Outside of general eye candy, I still remained somewhat pleased with this low budget extravaganza despite the issues contained within.

Plot descriptions on IMDb lead one to believe that Mustang Sally could be the tale of some evil prostitutes doing evil for evil’s sake. Once we dig down to the meat and potatoes, that’s not the case at all. What we have here is a pure and simple revenge fantasy al la I Spit on Your Grave without the gritty realism of said flick. More along the lines of Pumpkinhead 2 sans the big-headed revenge demon, the story here is near identical. Where the two flicks differ however is this time around, they give too much story too early, leaving us with little to no fat to chew on in between. Revealing the hooker motive early on, there’s little to no mystery involved. But, when you’re watching scantily clad women murder all of the stereotyped clichés that you loathed in high school, how much mystery do you really need?

Mustang Sally, in the end, is just a good time; mindless watching with nothing to figure out, nothing to concentrate on. The acting throughout is mediocre at best and cringe-worthy at worst, but it all adds up to B-movie fare that will make you giggle a fair bit throughout. And did I mention the scantily clad women? Those are always nice too. You know what’s going to happen; you know how it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of what order they are going to fall. With the bookend scenes of the main emo boy in the hospital going over his story, the beginning works as a good setup for the tale; when we go full circle to the point he is in the hospital, we never really find out how. As confusion sets in, the twist unfolds and all becomes clear. While this was a nice twist it was handled in the muddiest and most confusing manner possible, making this go from a "holy shit!" twist to a "eh, figured that’s where they were going" in about two seconds flat.

So if you think you’d like to see E.G. Daily in stripper shoes, this is your flick. If you’d like to watch prostitutes dressed as laughable stereotypes laying waste to annoying teenage boys, fire it up. If you’re looking for an engrossing tale filled with twists and turns and edge of your seat tension — better head back to Blockbuster.

2.5 scantily clad stabbers out of 5.

There's a great big empty hole in my life. Or at least my Thursday nights. Scrubs wrapped up its sixth (and we presume penultimate) season a few weeks ago with one of the sweetest moments in the show's run, and I have an intense yearning to quickly see my friends at Sacred Heart again and find out what happens to them next.

The latter part of that request won't be possible until sometime this fall, but I can always rely on my trusty DVD player to let me peek in on TV's wackiest – and, if the special features are to be believed, most realistic – doctors. Enter Scrubs – The Complete Fifth Season.

I first got into Scrubs just before the beginning of the sixth season by watching DVDs, and I discovered that it's a perfect show for the format. You can easily devour half a dozen episodes without leaving your chair, and only when it comes time to change the disc do you realize you haven't moved in three hours. As the seasons have progressed, that characteristic has only grown as the show has folded more and more engaging drama in with its unique brand of razor-sharp, lightning-quick wit.

The fifth season of Scrubs features some of the series' finest dramatic work, none better than a three-episode arc set up for Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley): "My Lunch," "My Fallen Idol," and "My Déjà Vu, My Déjà Vu." The heartbreaking final scenes of the first, set to The Fray's now-overplayed "How to Save a Life," are perfectly offset by McGinley's silent mourning in the second and third.

Of course, the comedy here is also top-notch. Mandy Moore joins the cast mid-season as a new love interest for J.D. (Zach Braff) and proves herself a surprisingly deft comedienne; Turk (Donald Faison) fronts an air band with the Todd (Rob Maschio), Janitor (Neil Flynn), and Ted (Sam Lloyd); the Todd confronts his sexuality — the sidesplitting moments come at you from all angles.

The centerpiece of the DVD set is the celebration of the series' 100th episode, "My Way Home," an ingenious homage to The Wizard of Oz directed by Braff. In addition to the sequential, 22-minute episode on the disc, you get to see an extended cut with optional commentary by Braff. Alone in the studio, there isn't much for Braff to do in the commentary, but it provides some nice insights all the same.

With deleted scenes and alternate takes for almost every episode that highlight the impressive comedic chops and improvisational skills that the cast has, this set is a great addition to any collection. Sure, Scrubs is now shown in syndication, but the DVD is a must for any fan so devoted that they pumped their fist upon hearing that NBC renewed the show for its seventh season.