Murder for Pleasure (USA - 2009) is a slasher that stands out but not positively. This is a feature-length film with a high content of violence and gore, written and directed by Derek Braasch. Made on a very low budget, the film aims to provide the viewer with a massive dose of gratuitous violence. Thus, the story opens with a double-murder sequence that will set the stage for an endless roundup of atrocities of various kinds, inflicted, in most cases, on young victims of the fairer sex.
The protagonist of the story is Victor (Nick Bender), a boy who tells his analyst about the terrible bloody event that occurred during his childhood and traumatized him to such an extent that he became a vicious serial killer. Through flashbacks, the viewer can thus witness all the crimes Victor has been guilty of by adopting a rather colorful modus operandi.
The DVD cover (top image) is pleasing, however, attention to detail seems to have been devoted only to the DVD and poster artwork.
Murder for Pleasure is a film that will remain indelible in the memory of that viewer who, with masochism, will manage to follow it to the end. The splatter and gore effects, which should be the spearhead of this kind of film (torture porn), are actually bad, amateurish. Of note are the pregnant girl's belly, visibly bulging womb of rags rolled up under her clothes, the two "emasculations," and the improbable ease with which the killer kills the girls.
There is no shortage of good ideas, however (see last sequence with women paying homage to Maniac of Lustig) since Murders For Pleasure offers an infinity of efferences.
The positive elements in this film are few because ugliness and bad taste (including ungainly postures, makeup, hairstyles, and footwear) are rampant in it, constantly, and certainly not because of issues of a tight budget. With Murder for Pleasure that limit imposed by the limited means at hand was crossed.
The script and direction are passable but the staging is embarrassing, accompanied as it is by a number of glaring flaws. Indeed, the choice of locations, use of lighting and acting are bad. All is burdened by the absence of sound color correction.
These elements reveal the lack of accuracy with which the work was done. In this regard, it is necessary to point out all those sequences shot with scarcity of light in which the quality of the image is ruinously lost.
Murder for Pleasure turns out to be a very bad film, clearly shot with little care. Homages to such films as Maniac and Hostel could have been spared.
