Razor's Ring

So far, I haven't had a great deal of pleasure of watching the horror releases from MVM who I'm pretty sure should stick to anime and leave the horror genre well alone. The latest release to cross my path is the low-budget indie movie Razor's Ring by rookie director Morgan Hampton who not only directed this film but wrote it, scored it and produced it.

Whilst out jogging in the country one day, Scott sees a couple in a rather beat up sports car purposely knock down a dog. He is then taken prisoner by them and held at gunpoint in the back of the car whilst they force him to drink whiskey and become a party to their reckless disregard for life. The two hellraisers have obviously played a lot of Carmageddon as they have a points system for the things they knock down and kill and next on their list is the cop who pulls them over.

Scott draws the line at children and when he sees that the car is headed for a young girl at a picnic, he grabs hold of the steering wheel and forces the car to crash, but not until it has hit and killed an old man, probably related to the young girl. The family obviously don't think too much of this and, rather than report them to the authorities, decides to call 'Red'. Soon Scott, Julie and Razor are in a truck headed to an unknown destination but, obviously, to where Red lives.

When they arrive, other three are locked up in a shed, a more flimsy outdoor building you could not imagine, yet they make no attempt to break through the thin door which is only held in place by a rusty padlock. Anyway, Razor is taken away and returns minus a thumb (actually, he still has the thumb but it is wrapped in black cotton and held against the palm of his hand!). Next go is Julie, but she returns intact having stripped naked and being stared at for several minutes. When it's Scots turn, he continues his protestations of innocence, saying that he was in the car against his will and had nothing to do with the crash. As the other two had changed their story, Red believes Scott, but he is still held down and has a drillbit hammered through his hand.

One day Julie is taken and doesn't return leaving Scott and Razor alone and the two strike up an unlikely friendship with Razor putting this good fortune down to the lucky ring he wears. It isn't long before Scott is alone in the shared as Razor has also been taken but they haven't been badly treated and have been quite well fed during their stay. With Scott now staying in the main house, he is invited to a party that Red is hosting for friends of hers and is enjoying his dinner when he finds the titular piece of jewellery in its food and suddenly realises what he's been eating for the past few weeks. From there, the horror has only just begun...

I would like to start with the good points but, to put it bluntly, there aren't any. Razor's Ring is just about as inept as filmmaking gets. The camerawork is terrible, the acting world full and the script full of clichés and underdeveloped characters. Some of you may think that being a film reviewer/critic/journalist (choose whichever term you want) is a really good gig as you get to watch films for free and all you have to do is write several hundred words saying what you thought about it. Just to prove that life isn't all sweetness and light, you occasionally get films like this which fall into the category of 'we watch them so you don't have to'. I spent well over an hour watching Razor's Ring, more time writing this review and then there's the time and effort spent setting up the item, taking screenshots and then uploading the thing. All of this to say avoid this film at all costs.

The Disc

Extra Features
Thankfully nothing much as I really didn't want to watch this again in the commentary or find out more regarding how the film was made so it is quite a blessing, for once, the door the disc has in terms of supplementary material is the theatrical trailer and some trailers for other MVM releases.

The Picture
This was clearly shot on digital and operated with no particular consideration for the viewer. There is absolutely no pattern to the angles, blocking or framing and the shot selection seems utterly random. As with other digital films, there are particular problems with bright lights and the picture breaks up badly when someone is shot against a bright background.

I've come to expect that, in a low-budget film, when you're running low on things to show or things to say that you just ramp up the gore and use your home-made blood by the bucket load whilst throwing in all sorts of passing intestines and offal. It was therefore surprising what a bloodless film Razor's Ring is with just about all violence committed off screen with a restraint that actively works against the film.  This makes me wonder why the BBFC saw fit to award this an 18 certificate; my guess is they're still a bit touchy about the dreaded 'cannibal' word.


The Sound
I had to turn the volume on my amp way up for this as the volume varies wildly with some words and scenes quite easy to make out whereas others are really muffled to the point where you can't make out what is being said.

Whoever was responsible for the Foley clearly had no idea what they were doing as the sound effects, instead of making me wince, just had me laughing at the sheer ineptitude of what I was hearing with sounds either badly synchronised or sounding nothing like noise the action would have made, so punches and other blows sound nothing like punches really sound.

Morgan Hampton's score fails to build any tension, dread or atmosphere and is clearly done on the cheap. Some of the music sounds like it's playing from a mobile phone and one scene with a supposed ominous drum beat came entirely from the right channel.


Final Thoughts
Razor's Ring is an utterly anaemic movie that fails on every level. I've no idea what MVM saw in it that made them want to distribute the movie and sports an RRP of £12.99 on something as terrible as this is utterly crazy. I watched this right through and I think that's an achievement - I would urge you to avoid this and don't even contemplate watching it out of morbid curiosity. There are better low-budget debut films around retailing at less money and you should watch those rather than this.