Trying to make sense of Muck will make your head hurt!
by Nav Qateel
A group of twentysomethings find themselves being hunted down by several large, muscular, albino-skinned, bald dudes. The reason the group of practically naked hot chicks and handsome guys are being hunted and killed is because, eh, well… there is no reason. But who cares, right?!
Some backstory would definitely have helped answer some of the many questions that begged answering. It may seem I’m nitpicking by asking things like “who were the big bald guys? Where did they come from? Why did they specifically want to kill our group of twentysomething? How come no one else had ever seen them before? Why did they have scars on their backs? How did Troit know where to go to rescue his cousin, when Noah only told him the name of the town and not the address?” And thee most important question of all was “why give the swampies individual names in the end titles when we couldn’t tell any of them apart anyway?” It would have been a bit like World War Z naming each of its zombies. For the millionth time, stop exaggerating! Okay, but you get the idea.
- Muck
- Written & Directed by
Steve Wolsh - Cast
Bryce Draper, Lachlan Buchanan, Puja Mohindra - Release Date
13 March 2015 - Nav’s Grade: C
*****
From first-time writer-director Steve Wolsh, Muck, is the first time I’ve ever seen a movie that didn’t have a beginning, an ending, any exposition or even a real plot. As it turns out, there is a prequel titled Muck: Feast of Saint Patrick being made that could address the missing film opening and exposition. This will hopefully take care of those pesky questions I have regarding the swamp killers, too.
Muck is bursting at the seams with T&A to the extent it felt like soft porn with some occasional horror tossed in to give the guys something to do. Let’s put it this way, if you were to turn Muck into a drinking game, with each time there was a closeup of a pair of boobs or an ass, you had to drink a shot, you’d be rushed to hospital with alcohol poisoning by the end. I kid you not. And that’s only on the closeups. Basically, Muck is wall-to-wall hot chicks in underwear, topless or butt-naked. The casting must have been quite an experience.
While I have a rather lengthy list of problems with this film, some of which I’ve already covered, there was also plenty that I really liked. Some of the dialogue was really amusing, even though it probably shouldn’t have been. The fights between the baldies and our pair of heroes were lots of fun and all kinds of crazy. And the soundtrack was absolutely kick-ass. I even went on Spotify to find the track from 39 minutes into the film. It’s titled “Beast” by Kim Logan (listen to it on YouTube) and simply blew me away. I now have most of the tracks from the film saved on Spotify, including all of Kim Logan’s albums. I at least thank Steve Wolsh for introducing me to the immense talents of Kim Logan. The filmmaker has some taste.
The movie did have enough solid, inventive and entertaining horror to just scrape by, and Steve Wolsh actually shows signs that he can deliver a good movie. He’s not quite there yet but he has the makings of a decent low-budget horror director. The soundtrack and certain original elements did elevate the film substantially, even though the usual horror tropes were in evidence, like flickering lights, stalling cars and stumbling-while-being-chased naked girls. (How do you stall an automatic car?!) I will say that it’s a film worth seeing, even if only once, particularly if you like looking at a lot of naked women … and listening to what could be some of the worst dialogue in cinematic history. To be fair, the prequel — which is currently in post-production and due out in 2016 — could complete this effort and tie up loose ends. It was a big gamble by Wolsh to release Muck in this manner, but the director’s next film could very well make all the difference in the world to his swamp-based horror universe Read all the credits at the end of the film. There were a few funny titles in there, particularly the last one.
Just keep your expectations sufficiently low — like, Earth’s core low — and enjoy the ride.
