Anarchy Parlor (2015)
Whilst traveling in Lithuania a group of friends are duped into visiting a local back street tattoo parlor by an inked girl (Finnish tattoo artist Sara Fabel) where things go from bad to worse.
You never know what you'll get from direct to dvd horror films. From poverty row hand held affairs to well produced films with a decent budget.
Anarchy Parlor thankfully falls into the latter category.
Shot entirely on location in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, which looks a stunning city from all the aerial views seen in this film,
Anarchy Parlor could be construed as
Hostel lite. The story feels slightly derivative to begin with, echoing the 'it's Eastern Europe so you're all going to die' racist style elements of Eli Roth's film. I ask you why do westerners visit these places if they all die? Have the authorities or INTERPOL not noticed yet? However as the plot slowly unfolds there's more going on than first imagined, it just takes it's time getting past the cliches to bring it all together.
The students are at times as dumb as they come, seemingly in Europe just to take drugs, go to raves and get laid with the local talent. Their decision making at times is ludicrous, however i get the feeling the film makers knew this, i mean how else are you going to get your self brutally murdered on holiday unless you make stupid choices like antagonizing the locals and wandering off down dark alleys with tattooed harlots?
The acting isn't bad although the lead girl (Tiffany DeMarco) does resort to crying the same "You're sick!" line as she watches her friend go under the knife. Other than that she's quite good in a role where her characters actions appear to get a bit of the old Stockholm Syndrome. The film belongs to Robert LaSardo though. An actor whose name you probably won't know but you'll be familiar with his face. A character actor who generally plays a tattooed heavy, prisoner or drug dealer and you may have seen in
CSI Miami,
Nip/Tuck and
Death Race among his 119 acting roles. Coming across as a pleasant fella and the kind of man who puts you at ease as you go for your first tattoo, seriously, i couldn't believe it either, LaSardo's performance is excellent, and especially creepy as you think he's going to get up to lots of horrific acts. And he does!
Whilst not a torture porn film like
Hostel,
Anarchy Parlor is very gory. The camera loves the slice of a knife in close up detail, and it's a film that would never have appeared in video shops in the early 80's, or indeed 90's, uncut anyway.
Going under the title
Killer Ink on UK dvd,
Anarchy Parlor is a film i rather enjoyed.