REEL ADVICE: Borderline Cult

Why?

Why do I open my mailbox and find a Lions Gate package only to find that Ulli Lommel is still allowed to make films?

Every time I crack open a box with that man's name on it, I die a little inside. I can almost feel it shrivel up and wither away to a cracked, bleeding nothingness as I come to the inevitable conclusion that this monster is still given a shooting budget.

And, as the opening menu rolls, scenes of women being tortured play out before me and the back of the box cries its assent--Borderline Cult is rated R. For strong brutal violence, torture, and language.

You know what to expect by now...it's Ulli Lommel. Three serial killers band together to kidnap and torture hundreds of women in the border town of Juarez. That's it. No plot, no story, not even the basic rudiments of narrative to break up Lommel's latest string of kidnap-and-torture. Lemmel has apparently given up on even trying to put out a story in favor of just pure, full-on, misogyny and torture. Which is probably just as well--every time he's tried before I've mocked his feeble, shoddy efforts mercilessly and he probably figures it's better to just not bother.

Ah, but there is HOPE, o my readership. Apparently you and those like you have been paying attention. The torture porn subgenre has been losing ground of late--after the box office slow death that was Captivity, it does not bode well for vile, one trick ponies like Ulli Lommel.

But if this is one of Lommel's last--which I certainly hope it is--he's going out in grand style even for him. The first five minutes will involve what looks like needlenose pliers. In fact, Lommel's work will be enough to make you wonder if he's getting kickbacks from Home Depot by the end of things...he's got pliers and a foldable limb saw and a shovel and just all manner of home improvement devices put to their most diabolical of uses.

Cannibalizing his own miserable body of work, Borderline Cult uses much the same plot devices as Black Dahlia, in which Lommel brings in one victim, kills them, and then goes back for another, over and over again, until he's run out of film or budget or even just paper to write the horrible misery of a script he's shooting from. He even goes so far as to lock them in the same chickenwire cage.

Not even the ending can dredge up a point for this vile bit of Lommel slop--it's mostly just the last torture victims screaming their lives away interspersed with a trip to a fortune teller before revealing the final "scores" of so many other serial killers, and how they stack up against our killer here.

The special features include Spanish subtitles, audio commentary, a stills gallery, deleted and alternate scenes, and trailers for Borderline Cult, The Condemned, Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck, Brutal, Mummy Maniac, Haunted Boat, and Fearnet.com.

All in all, what a complete waste of time this movie is. What a complete waste of money and effort that could've gone into something with a story, but no. No, this is a movie where a bunch of people die for no clear or convincing reason, just three assholes in the desert who wanted to get famous and be remembered for something.