The Last Resort:
Golly, I sure do long for the days when exploitation movies exploited people's fears, or various subsets of humanity. In those days, excessive abuse of left-handed redheads in The Left-Handed Redheads Get Eaten By a Garbage Disposal would be cause for celebration from those who wanted the sleazy thrills of seeing left-handed redheads slaughtered gratuitously. Now, those who are exploited are folks suckered into renting abysmal junk like The Last Resort.
Again, back in the day video covers would try to top each other in the 'come-on' department by featuring ever more lurid, blood dripping severed heads, to lure you into plunking down your hard earned simoleons. Now, DVD cover designers go out of their way to make each cheapie cover look exactly like the last - in this case presenting a semi-sepia-toned bikini babe brandishing a bloody knife. Been there, seen that. A thousand times. All by literal design, of course - to give you that comforting feeling that you're taking no chances by renting ... what's the name of that movie again?
Oh yes, The Last Resort, the epic, 68-minute tale of five unlikable tramps who meet a bad end in Mexico. Mexico, where they'll rob ya, rape ya, stab ya and curse ya. Mind you, I love us versus them, city folk versus rural folk exploitation fare, I guess I'm just getting tired lately of seeing Central and South America represented as places where rich white folk go to get their comeuppance from resentful Indios or whatever. Anyway, these chickees head down for a bachelorette party; they want to get hammered constantly and tease a bunch of potential rapists ... I mean, available male tourists. Trouble is, they're spooked by a local bruja and suckered by the first tour guides they see. Before you can say 'no, gracias', they're left for dead in the desert and forced to take refuge in the titular deserted structures, wherein they get all possessed and commence to killin'.
Like I give a damn. And neither should you. Aside from the fact that what are most likely decent people made this, the whole effort should be consigned to hell. Do we have poorly written, unlikable characters? Si! What about ultra-cheap sets? Claro que si! Que mas, you ask? Well, how about edgy, knee-jerk, hipster editing, faux-gritty film stock look, and any other trick trying to cover up the fact that, even at barely over an hour, The Last Resort has a shockingly thin, tension free story?
Mild by today's standards gore is not nearly enough to cover for shabby and downright quizzical production values, either. I admitted defeat when our 'heroines' were shown dancing at a club: we're talking the five ladies and like one other dude getting down in front of some Christmas lights and a sheet covering a doorway - and there's no music to be heard! And the same footage is recycled two minutes later! As reprehensible as I find these ladies' desire to get all messed up on 20 shots of tequila, I'd prefer that vomitous hangover to watching The Last Resort again.
The DVD
Video:
This widescreen, 2.35:1 ratio presentation goes out of its way to look down. Colors are sun-bleached, dusky and stylistically drab. The image is gritty, full of grain and formulated to resemble something made on the cheap in 1972 - that is, The Last Resort wants to look like a real exploitation film. On the other hand, the somewhat murky image, with poor levels of detail, occasional edge enhancement and heavy digital noise reduction, really just doesn't look that good. Faux-distressed furniture from West Elm is one thing, but this is too much.
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound seems OK using my fake surround sound setup, but then again, there are scenes in a club where the girls dance, but there's no music! So make of that what you will. Otherwise, the mix doesn't seem terribly active, but dialog and music (when present) are mixed at acceptable levels.
Extras:
Do you need more enticement to buy a cruddy, hour-long horror movie? How about no extras? Well, there are English and Spanish Subtitles and a super-brief Trailer Gallery that includes a 'trailer' for a website on which you can watch 'Epic Fails'. If you ask me, End Times can't come soon enough.
Final Thoughts:
The Last Resort is short, boring, packed with unlikable characters, free of tension, scares or original ideas, sports a now-tired xenophobic attitude, is insultingly cheap and really lacks anything at all to recommend it. Don't rent this as a last resort, just Skip It and save yourself the trouble.
Kurt Dahlke~ Givin' you the real on the regular since 1999.
Buy: