Thanks to a discussion with Filmgazm colleague, Connor, and getting into the annual spirit of making resolutions, I’ve decided to do my best to highlight the various new releases put on the streaming service, Shudder. Something I feel actually pretty strong about due to their commitment to take various festival films and other indie darlings and put them on their site for an even wider audience to check them out. For this particular horror fan who still has a Netflix DVD account, it’s helped me see some of the better horror films of the year. And what film kicked off this year? A little one called For the Sake of Vicious. A film about how far a person is willing to go for revenge mixed with some brutal gore effects and engaging fight scenes.
The plot of this film sees a grief-stricken father capture and torture the man he believes raped his daughter. He also takes him to the house of the nurse who took care of her to help keep him alive. For reasons. Admittedly, this film stumbles pretty hard in the story department. Instead of utilizing a straightforward approach, we are dropped into the middle of the story with no explanation. Answers are spread throughout the film’s runtime. This would work better if the story necessitated this decision, but it really doesn’t. It actually makes for a rather weak story. Where the filmmakers succeed, however, is the above-mentioned gore and fight scenes. The former is some of the more brutal I’ve seen and made me cringe numerous times. The latter, for a small indie film, is some of the dirtiest and realistic I’ve seen put on screen. For the Sake of Vicious makes for a passable starting point for this year’s slate of Shudder films. The story may not be the most engaging, but it more than makes up for it in the gore and fight department. You just have to patient and wait for it to get there. |