Harry Sparks, who made a big splash a decade ago with "Revenge of the Petites", returns with a sci-fi featur with embarrassing results in "Maid to Kill". Project fails in most departments, particularly the poor script and dialogue, many unconvincing dramatic scenes, zero futuristic details and poorly shot XXX action.
Opening posits a ridiculous version of "The Handmaid's Tale", watered down for simple minds. The fascist takeover of the USA is set in 2058 (I suppose 2024 would be too topical though seems more and more likely) but interior decor and costumes have not changed a bit from today. Minor SPFX are not enough to create the proper atmosphere, and use of green screen backdrops is crude and fake looking. One presumes it was made on a tiny, tiny budget -hardly appropriate to the project.
Sex has been outlawed, and surveillance drones enforce the ban. Male violators are executed while females become maids (Margaret Atwood, eat your heart out).
Aiden Ashley is the bad guy, ordering Lily Larimar to become an assassin to settle an old grudge Aiden has against her husband Isiah Maxwell who cheated on her on their wedding night. Lily's assigned to him and his wife Ana Foxxx (the girl he cheated with and who he subsequently married) as their maid -replete with a fetish maid's costume. Aiden gives her poison to kill Isiah with, but Lily, who previously killed her own abusive husband, is too timid to go through with it. Aiden has Lily's lover Kira Noir in a detention center being tortured, and Lily better assassinate Isiah to save Kira's life.
In between static 15-minute sex scenes (shot without reverse shots in dull single-camera fashion and all poorly lit) there are ridiculous "dramatic scenes", mostly groaners. Ana catches Lily and Isiah humping in their kitchen before he can drink a glass of wine she's spiked with the poison, but he instantly (and unbelievably) talks Ana into keeping their maid! Then when Ana is about to drink that wine, Sparks inserts a flashback of the footage where Lily spiked the wine, assuming the viewer is so stupid as to have already forgotten what was shown five or so minutes before.
It gets worse when Lily starts resorting to a large kitchen knife to do the deed - what happens with that knife, besides a blatant "homage" (ripoff) to Hitchcock's "Psycho", is utterly nonsensical. And an Ana confrontation with Aiden is even sillier. And when Aiden in the future still wears a garter belt I realized that Marc Dorcel must truly be proud!
Ultimately the movie's climax is staged entirely off-screen, heard but not shown. It reminded me of those old B movies where a car crash would not be shown, but only consist of one of those sound effects that AM radio deejays used to play for comedic effect.
Acting by a small but usually talented group of players is lousy, especially Aiden overdoing the "evil" character, when not exaggerating her noisy, fake orgasms.
Opening posits a ridiculous version of "The Handmaid's Tale", watered down for simple minds. The fascist takeover of the USA is set in 2058 (I suppose 2024 would be too topical though seems more and more likely) but interior decor and costumes have not changed a bit from today. Minor SPFX are not enough to create the proper atmosphere, and use of green screen backdrops is crude and fake looking. One presumes it was made on a tiny, tiny budget -hardly appropriate to the project.
Sex has been outlawed, and surveillance drones enforce the ban. Male violators are executed while females become maids (Margaret Atwood, eat your heart out).
Aiden Ashley is the bad guy, ordering Lily Larimar to become an assassin to settle an old grudge Aiden has against her husband Isiah Maxwell who cheated on her on their wedding night. Lily's assigned to him and his wife Ana Foxxx (the girl he cheated with and who he subsequently married) as their maid -replete with a fetish maid's costume. Aiden gives her poison to kill Isiah with, but Lily, who previously killed her own abusive husband, is too timid to go through with it. Aiden has Lily's lover Kira Noir in a detention center being tortured, and Lily better assassinate Isiah to save Kira's life.
In between static 15-minute sex scenes (shot without reverse shots in dull single-camera fashion and all poorly lit) there are ridiculous "dramatic scenes", mostly groaners. Ana catches Lily and Isiah humping in their kitchen before he can drink a glass of wine she's spiked with the poison, but he instantly (and unbelievably) talks Ana into keeping their maid! Then when Ana is about to drink that wine, Sparks inserts a flashback of the footage where Lily spiked the wine, assuming the viewer is so stupid as to have already forgotten what was shown five or so minutes before.
It gets worse when Lily starts resorting to a large kitchen knife to do the deed - what happens with that knife, besides a blatant "homage" (ripoff) to Hitchcock's "Psycho", is utterly nonsensical. And an Ana confrontation with Aiden is even sillier. And when Aiden in the future still wears a garter belt I realized that Marc Dorcel must truly be proud!
Ultimately the movie's climax is staged entirely off-screen, heard but not shown. It reminded me of those old B movies where a car crash would not be shown, but only consist of one of those sound effects that AM radio deejays used to play for comedic effect.
Acting by a small but usually talented group of players is lousy, especially Aiden overdoing the "evil" character, when not exaggerating her noisy, fake orgasms.