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MSRP $21.99
RATED NR
STUDIO Breaking Glass Pictures
RUNNING TIME 77 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
• Short Film: Circadian Rythyms
• Music Video: Knot Nine
• Music Video: Damn Laser Vampires
• Photo Gallery
• Trailers
The Pitch
Seventy-seven minutes of “WHAT IN HOLY HELL AM I WATCHING?!”
The Humans
Kate O’Rourke, Te Kaea Beri, Campbell Cooley, David Blyth
The Nutshell
Susan is a troubled woman who gave her daughter Tanya up after she was abused by her father. Now, years later, Tanya is back to confront Susan with all her deepest fears and desires, sending Susan into a state of madness and gore-filled retribution.
“It’s alarming how charming I feel!”
The Lowdown
Batshit. Bonkers. Bug-fuck nuts. All of these terms apply to Wound. It’s also frustratingly incoherent and dull, despite its numerous shock scenes. The film is a grotesque amalgam of Lynchian weirdness, Cronenberg sex, and early Peter Jackson gore.
I love descent into madness films. Having a main character lose their touch with reality is a fantastic way to create narrative conflict and tension. The key is escalating to a meaningful, revelatory climax. Jacob’s Ladder comes to mind as a particularly good example of this, especially with its bursts of gory, sexual, demonic imagery.
Similar to Jacob’s Ladder, Wound starts with a real jolt. We know we’re not in Kansas anymore when Susan promptly snips her father’s penis off with a pair of scissors. It’s not a quick snip, either. The scene stretches to ridiculous lengths. Huge gouts of blood spurt from the severed member. Then, Susan strangles the bastard. After that, there’s seventy more minutes of movie to suffer through.
Ohh. Ouch. Owwee.
The film plays like a desperate attempt to throw every type of crazy at the wall, just to see what sticks. Writer/director/Kiwi David Blyth profiles Susan as an abused, vengeful, murderous woman who displays bizarre compulsions, delusions, and kinks. She’s the kinda gal who sits down to have a shit while talking to her dead mother on the phone. When Susan finishes said phone call, she then delicately lifts a (thankfully) unseen turd out of the commode, wraps it in foil, and places it in her freezer.
That actually happens. Yes, really.
See? Told you.
Then, we’re introduced to Susan’s boss, with whom she has a BDSM relationship. She’s the submissive one, forced to wear clothespins on her nipples and not allowed to pee. It’s downright ugly, and seems to be just another way of reinforcing just how fucked up Susan is. Associating kink with a highly mentally ill character like Susan is almost an insult to sane people who enjoy a bit of kink.
I’m sorry, is this making sense to anyone? No? Good, just wait. We haven’t even gotten to Susan’s daughter yet.
Susan gave Tanya up for adoption very early, so Tanya’s never really met mummy dearest. We meet Tanya, and she is promptly raped in a goth club restroom by a fat, pig-mask-wearing, heavily tattooed chronic masturbator. Later, when Tanya and Susan finally have their awkward reunion, we are rewarded with scenes of Tanya sucking her mother’s breast until it bruises, and lapping up a large puddle of her mother’s menstrual blood.
More menses than you can shake a tampon at.
I’m not kidding around here. It’s really fucking repugnant. I almost admire how repugnant it gets, but this dreary jumble of shock scenes and abandoned plot threads adds up to nothing in the end. Individual scenes are effective for sheer shock value alone, but the narrative as whole lacks focus, follow-through, and resolution. Any thematic intention is lost amidst low production values and an off-the-charts weird script. The ultimate lesson, if there is one, is just too obtuse to sink in.
The film’s final fifteen minutes is a montage of absolute nonsense, concluding with yet another parallel to Jacob’s Ladder. It also includes one of the zaniest, most disgusting scenes I’ve ever witnessed, in which an enormous rubber vulva sprays out fountains of blood, and two fully grown people in baby masks squirm out of the gaping vagina. I can’t make this shit up. If there’s any reason at all to watch Wound, it’s the surreal depravity of it all. You have to see it to believe it, but I don’t recommend it.
“Ohh, Kermie!”
The Package
Video quality isn’t outstanding here, as Wound was shot digitally, on a minuscule budget. But I’ve seen a lot worse. Black levels are okay, but the image could be slightly sharper. The audio is an underwhelming Dolby 2.0 stereo track. The dialogue is clear and the music is perfectly audible and well mixed, but it’s not a knockout.
The extras are paltry, and have little to do with the film. I would have loved a commentary or interview with Blyth to explain more about his inspiration for the film, and what the film was trying to accomplish. I also would’ve loved to see some behind-the-scenes footage of the dick vs. scissors scene or the twins vs. vagina scene. Instead, we get Blyth’s first short film (in which another penis is removed), two music videos also directed by Blyth, a photo gallery, and a few trailers.
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars