Tony D’Aquino’s The Furies is a gore-filled, action-packed romp of dismemberment, face slicing and head explosions. It focuses on the story of Kayla (Airlie Dodds) and her attempts to find her friend Maddie after they are kidnapped off the street. Waking up trapped inside a box in the middle of nowhere, Kayla swiftly discovers that she is not alone, other women are here as well, and they are being hunted by men dressed in rotting human skin who seem to want nothing more than to butcher them in any manner of excruciatingly inventive ways.
This is nothing less than an unabashed and unapologetic old-school slasher film that’s faintly reminiscent of 2010’s Predators. It delights in its practical effects and gore. The men pursuing our heroes are all memorable and deeply unsettling, and the terror of the women is palpable as they try to escape and fight back. Kayla especially is very believable in how she evolves throughout the movie, starting off as kind of a wuss who doesn’t really want to get into any trouble, to maybe not quite a certified Ripley-Grade Badass, but someone who stands up for herself even in the face of imminent peril.
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The whole thing with her being epileptic, though… it’s a bit wasted. It’s a good idea, certainly, but other than the last time where it becomes a fairly important plot point, not a lot is really done with it or with the things she sees while she’s seizing. Her attempts to explain to the other characters mostly fall flat, relegating this aspect of the story from “pivotal” to “merely interesting”.
The other issue here is the ending. Quite frankly, The Furies should have ended ten minutes before it did, rather than veering off into an unnecessary “behind the scenes” explanation about why these girls were being hunted that ultimately sucks a lot of the mystery from it and appears to have been added either as sequel bait or because the creators weren’t comfortable with an ambiguously triumphant ending.
That minor disappointment aside, if you’re in the market for some old school blood, guts and gore, The Furies will scratch that particular itch very nicely.
The Furies is available on Digital HD on 16th September from Signature Entertainment.
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