DVD Review: Donkey Punch (2009)

Donkey Punch ***
Directed By: Olly Blackburn.
Written By: Olly Blackburn & David Bloom.
Starring: Robert Boulter (Sean), Sian Breckin (Lisa), Tom Burke (Bluey), Nichola Burley (Tammi), Julian Morris (Josh), Jay Taylor (Marcus), Jaime Winstone (Kim).

For such an extreme horror film, Donkey Punch is surprisingly plausible. Each step in the movie escalates the action just enough to keep it all in the realm of possibility. By the time we have gotten to the gruesome finale, you feel like you may have actually seen something that could have happened. None of the characters are really all that “good”, but none of them are really all that “evil”. They make, what at the time, seems to be the most logical decisions.

The basic story is this: three British girls on vacation meet up with four British guys on vacation. They laugh, and flirt and drink, and then the guys suggest taking the party to the yacht where they are staying. The girls agree. More laughing, drinking and flirting take place, followed by some experimental drug use. The guys, trying to impress the girls, start telling sex stories, including some rather graphic, and kinky things, none more so then the “donkey punch”, which is essentially when taking a girl from behind, right before the guy cums, he punches the girl in the back the neck, causing her an involuntary muscle spasm, and increasing the man’s pleasure. Everyone just laughs the story off.

That is until three of the guys, and two of the girls go downstairs to the master bedroom. What follows is a rather convincing orgy scene that ends when the least experienced guy, egged on by his friend who is of course videotaping the whole thing, gives one of the girls the dreaded donkey punch. Instead of having a muscle spasm and increasing the pleasure, she simply falls dead on the bed. What to do next, divides the remaining people into two sides – one who want to report it immediately, and ones that want to dispose of the body over the side, and say it was all a drunken accident. The conflict leads to more fights, and more deaths. By the end of the film, we’ll have seen people shot, stabbed, set on fire, gore with an outboard motor, jump to their death and strangled with a rope. Yet, somehow, the movie remains plausible throughout.

I realize I haven’t really mentioned the characters to this point, and they reason being is because they are in many ways mere caricatures, and not real people. For the guys, we have the take charge captain, the sweet guy trying to keep the peace, the seemingly shy guy who is more cold blooded than the rest, and the braggart who is really a coward. For the girls, we have the innocent, who is just trying to get over a breakup, the party girl who is willing to do anything, and a character who falls somewhere in between. The movie really isn’t interested in who each of them are as people – there isn’t really time for that. Once the crisis takes over, there’s too much to do.

Donkey Punch works because it feels real. What would you do if you were in the same situation as the men? What if you were in the same situation as the women? We definitely see terrible, evil things done during the course of the movie, but in reality there were no good choices to be made. The characters seem to try and choose the lesser evil each time, which inevitably leads to even greater evil. To do the right thing is no longer an option, so they either have to try and soldier on, or give up. It is a fine little movie – one that stays with you long after it’s over.