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STUDIO: Magnolia Home Entertainment
MSRP: $26.98
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 99 min
SPECIAL FEATURES: 

  • Deleted Scenes
  • Making of Donkey Punch
  • Director Interview
  • Cast Interviews
  • Director Commentary

The Pitch

Sex deviancy at the high seas

The Humans

Director: Olly Blackburn

Writer: Olly Blackburn and David Bloom

Cinematographer: Nanu Segal

Cast: Robert Boulter, Sian Breckin, Tom Burke, Nichola Burley, Julian Morris, Jay Taylor, Jaime Winstone

The Nutshell

A group of pretty young kids go out on a yacht to party. When one of the guys accidentally kills one of the girls everyone starts to go a little crazy.

The Lowdown

Donkey Punch begins with three girls spending a holiday in Spain meeting four overconfident men at a party. When the party starts to disperse, the guys convince the girls to return to their yacht to continue the party there. When the noise of the music on the boat gets too loud, they cast off to party at sea.

At this point I realized three things. No one in the cast can act for shit, save one of the young men, Shaun (Robert Boulter). The second thing I noticed is that the music score is annoying and grates on the nerves. The third thing I noticed is the characters are all interchangeable and no one really stands out except Shaun, the “nice” guy. With that, let’s return to the movie.

For a little while during the first thirty minutes of the film, it switches to almost full scale soft core porn. The too pretty kids swim about while at sea and exchange hits on a small bong. While out in the sun, they start a conversation about disgusting sexual antics such as the Dirty Sanchez. That is when Bluey (the asshole) tells everyone what a donkey punch is. Finally, everyone except Shaun and Tammi (the shy one) go into the ship and has an orgy. One of the guys whips out a video camera, they talk the girls into making out and then proceed to exchange partners for some fun sex. Just as a warning, this scene involves lots of full frontal nudity, mostly by the males. Then one of the guys donkey punches one of the girls, killing her instantly.

At this point, the acting actually gets a bit better, but the story gets a little derivative. The guys choose to throw the body overboard, much to the chagrin of the girls. It seems a bit unrealistic that, after the murder, the guys all seem nonchalant about the entire ordeal. As the girls panic and break down the guys just go on planning their next move. When Bluey (remember, he is the asshole) pushes things too far one of the girls stabs him and they try to escape.

What happens next is exactly what you would expect as one-by-one they kill each other. After the great setup, things just seem to drift from one kill to the next. One of the kills is pretty damn cool involving a flare gun but the others are the same old shit. I know it is a low budget indie, but I can’t get past the horrible acting in the film. It is a creative idea for a little horror movie and the setup is something that could have sold tickets regardless but the second half of the film was nowhere near as original as what preceded it.

The dialogue is amateurish, the acting is crap, you don’t care about any of the characters, most of the kills are boring, and the ending is lame. Other than that it was a pretty decent little indie horror film.

The Package

There is an audio commentary track with director Olly Blackburn and producer Angus Lamont. The two share a comfortable commentary that is spoken in tones so low that you almost drift off listening to them. They are pretty proud of their little movie.

There are three batches of cast interviews with various cast members in each interview. These are really good interview clips and, while there are some actors who don’t talk much, they are paired with someone who has lots of information they are willing to give. Julian Morris, Jay Taylor and Robert Boulter gave the best anecdotes. All together they check in at 28 minutes. There is also a 13 minute interview with director Olly Blackburn, which slightly repeats information you hear in the commentary.

Making of Donkey Punch is a relatively short feature full of even more interviews with cast and crew members. There seems to be lots of extra features except it is all interviews with no actual behind-the-scenes footage. Finally, there is a batch of deleted scenes including one that explains why there is no motor on the life boat when the girls try to escape later in the film.


4.5 out of 10