COME AND GET ME

Michelle (Alexis Fernandez), Leah (Kelsie MacDonald), Gemma (Allira Jacques) and Susan (Sarah Jane Blair) are four attractive best friends who plan a night out together in Brisbane. Gemma’s moody boyfriend Rick (Chris Thomas) is persuaded into dropping them off.

The girls then dine together and enjoy a bit of light banter before resolving to move on for more booze and to "dance until dawn". Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, the viewer is made aware of three crazed bogans – Johnny (Christian Radford), Bretto (Shaun Trainer) and William (Christopher Price) – with a penchant for the humiliation, torture and murder of young women.

In a protracted establishing scene, we see this terrible trio cruising the town’s streets in their van, shouting out at random women. One such unfortunate, Kate (Jess Taylor), makes the mistake of hurling abuse back at them … and pays a dear price indeed. Afterwards, the boys decide to go back into town in search of women to fuck. Cut to Gemma and her pals enjoying drinks, dances and fights in the local clubs. Inevitably, of course, both parties are destined to meet before the night is out …

Sure enough, following the beating and murder of William’s old school principal (the only real insight as to why any of the three loonies might be the way they are), he receives a call from a pissed-up Susan, wanting to meet up with him for the first time since they left school. Seeing as though he always had a massive crush on her, he’s particularly keen to get cleaned up and meet her. And his mates are equally excited when they learn that she’s out getting wrecked with three of her friends.

An hour later, and the boys finally get to meet the girls, agreeing to give them a lift home in William’s van. What could possibly go wrong …?

The collective who made this film are known as Slaughter FX. Which should give you a fair indication as to what the main focus of this film is. Sure enough, COME AND GET ME works with little more than a loose plot which serves as a springboard from one set-piece of drawn-out torment to the next. In each case, the punch-line comes in the form of cheap practical FX work similar to the type seen in early 70s Herschell Gordon Lewis films such as THE GORE GORE GIRLS.

Writer-director Chris Sun affords his female protagonists a degree of candid naturalism in earlier scenes. Come the time they’ve managed to piss Bretto and Johnny off and they’re screaming in fear, the terror they experience is palpable. These girls, as well as being hot, play the parts of victims very convincingly.

The guys are less successful in their portrayal of psychopathic aggressors. Radford is saddled with an annoying, unconvincing cackle while all three of them are given dialogue so abusive and profane that it’s often unintentionally amusing. That is, until it’s become tiresome (about midway through proceedings).

Sun’s film feels like a throwback to violent exploitation films of the 1970s and early 1980s, unapologetic in its lack of substance and an 85-minute running time copiously padded out by chases through the woods, and the cruel mocking of soon-to-be-dead female victims. The villains are male pig caricatures; the victims are scantily clad and willing to trade on their sexuality in a bid to escape their captors.

Interestingly though, for all the sexually abusive language and for all the violence, there is no rape or even nudity in COME AND GET ME. Sun, it appears, is not prepared to go to quite the extreme lengths the fever pitch of much of the action suggests.

There’s not much originality or exposition on offer here either, but there is a lot of gusto and gore. The film has suffered some rabidly scathing reviews on the likes of The Internet Movie Database, but I honestly don’t think it warrants such condemnation. I actually found it to have an admirable amount of conviction in its bid to convey hysteria.

We even get a twist of sorts at the end of this gory, low-budget Australian effort.

COME AND GET ME comes to region-free DVD courtesy of Bloody Earth Films, and is presented in all its gory glory. The transfer preserves the film’s original aspect ratio and enhances it for 16x9 televisions. Flesh-tones are accurate, detail is satisfactory during lighter scenes and colours come across quite strongly. But blacks don’t fare too well, with darker scenes – of which there are many – often looking murky or washed out. It doesn’t harm the film’s presentation much, as the films COME AND GET ME emulates never looked much better anyway.

English 2.0 audio is okay for the main part. But there are scenes where dialogue is muffled or background hiss is evident. Low-budget filmmaking, you see …

The disc opens to a static main menu page set to an up-tempo Motorhead-style riff. There is no scene-selection menu on this disc.

Considering the director introduced a premiere of the film in 2011 by saying anyone who didn’t enjoy it could "fuck off", extras begin with a predictably unapologetic and profanity-strewn commentary track from Sun and Radford. There’s an easy, chatty manner to the track that keeps it fun to listen to, even if the overall impression is slightly too self-congratulatory. Even Sun is surprised by how much cursing is in the finished film.

17 minutes of audition footage dates back to 2010 and adds the nice touch of interspersing the monochrome test material with completed footage from the film. Expect lots more screaming, but at the very least this indicates that everyone concerned was having a great time.

Sun then commentates through 17 minutes of FX clips. We get behind-the-scenes preparation footage from each of the film’s kill scenes, while the director speaks confidently but rather flippantly ("I couldn’t give a shit" etc) about how each effect was achieved. Split screens are employed to keep things illuminating.

12 minutes of rehearsal (or "rehersals" as the disc states) footage follows. This is presented, in black-and-white, on location. Like the audition footage, it’s accompanied by actual film clips to provide back-to-back comparisons. Watching this, the film suddenly seems to have been slightly better acted by the blokes than I initially thought. Slightly …

The film’s original 2-minute trailer is presented in 16x9 widescreen and set to another blazing rock track. Besides that, it’s a fast-paced affair with plentiful swearing, shouting and violence to speak of.

Executive producer Leah Bray, producer Dominic Crisci, Trainer, Radford, and Fernandez all turn up to contribute towards 9 minutes of black-and-white interviews. They’re all extremely enthusiastic as they speak individually to the camera, about shooting something akin to "one of those movies we all grew up to". Clearly, they loved the shoot and – rightly or wrongly – the actors have total belief in their characters.

What’s described as "deleted scenes" follows, but it’s actually a 7-minute selection of extended scenes. You can see why they were trimmed down, they do ramble on aimlessly in these unabridged takes.

4 minutes of bloopers follow, including more scenes from the audition tapes.

Finally there’s a selection of trailers for other titles from the Bloody Earth Films roster: RED RIVER, STASH, SHOCK FESTIVAL, INTERPLANETARY and GROUND ZERO.

COME AND GET ME really gives its actresses a tough time once things get going, and is chock-full of noisy, violent action. It’s perhaps not, as its early hype suggested, Australia’s "most fucked up" film … but it may come close. It’s not great, but there’s enough here to warrant a second viewing.

Review by Stuart Willis