Naked Poison VCD

He starts off at the office, obviously, which seems to be a giant cafeteria where people work at their tables. Turning his boss and boss' girlfriend into paste-lipped aphrodisiac addicts who do his bidding while crawling on the floor doggie-style Min runs into a slight obstacle when the girl he takes up-skirts photos of turns out to return his crush - her innocent smile transforming his raincoat venom into syrupy sweet sap. Plagued by an enormous, prosthetic member that leaps to life whenever he's aroused, Min tries hard to be a good boyfriend, but when you've got a dog woman chained up under your bed, a spider-infested corpse, and two sex-herb addicts under your thumb you don't have much time for hearts and flowers and remembering birthdays. A strange cop drops in to stir the mix and things get very wet and sticky before the climax. So to speak.

A gooey, sweaty movie dripping with fluids this flick sports a charmingly sleazy tone, like a glistening hamburger dropped in the dirt. With the humid, charged atmosphere of the hour before a late-night summer storm it works its hothouse, cut-rate locations to their last shred of effectiveness. Lighting scenes of humiliation with flickering fluorescents and sulfur street lamps, coating props with dust and grime, and taping up soft core calendars on every available surface, the green-tinged atmosphere simmers with sleaze.

The producers, Stormriders Management Company, are the most effective production company in Hong Kong right now, turning out cheapjack, lowbrow movies that would look right at home on the grindhouse screen, and Naked Poison is the best horror movie on their slate. Decent actors giving overly-committed performances in genre movies that are directed like Shakespeare's plays at the Old Vic, Naked Poison is a greasy-palmed ode to all the trashy things in life. Like a day-old drumstick dropped in a floor drain you know you shouldn't eat it - isn't that a roach licking on the bottom? - but it looks good anyways and if no one else was in the room you'd gobble it up.

by Grady Hendrix