Ally's Review: Switchblade Romance

It’s not often that I want to meet the director of a film so that I can shout abuse at them. The only other director, before this film, was George Lucas. A few days after watching Switchblade Romance and I still can’t grasp what happened at the end. I can only assume that the director had a breakdown right at the end of filming, or perhaps someone held a gun to his head and instructed him to ruin the movie. They are the only reasonable explanations I have come up with.

As Fin and Clarky have both said, if you stop it before the twist then you will feel very satisfied with the selection of this movie. Until the twist I was thinking that Switchblade Romance (terrible title aside) was probably the freshest slasher movie I’d seen in a very long time. I was thoroughly impressed and I was all set to place it amongst the best horror movies of the decade.

The villain of the movie was fantastic. He was ugly, disgusting and absolutely relentless. Just when you think he’s been tricked or stopped... he regains the upper hand. I also love that you don’t get a clear shot of his face in the movie (pre-twist anyway) I thought that was a great touch. He combines all the best traits of a slasher villain and moulds them into something new and exciting.

There are other things to admire. The acting, the story, the sound effects, the lighting, cinematography... they are all very good. There is really very little not like about it until the end. But my goodness... the end is just so remarkably bad - and totally nonsensical - that it wipes out all the good will that I had towards the film and director. I’d recommend that people watch it just to see how suddenly a movie can be ruined. I’ve never seen anything like it in any genre. I’d just love to know what Aja was thinking! Has he watched the final cut of this movie and thought “Wowzer! This twist is inspired, people are going to love this”... surely not? If he did then he is even crazier than the person locked up at the end of the movie.

This film was heading to a comfortable place in my top 20 of the movies watched at Horror Club, but now it will have to banished to the depths beside such turkey’s as Drag Me to Hell and The Host. A real shame.