Plot
Composed of three disturbingly sensual and terrifying short narratives, unified by the twin themes of sex and death.

Release Year: 2011

Rating: 4.7/10 (923 voted)

Director: Sean Hogan

Stars: Scott Ainslie, Mike Anfield, James Anniballi

Storyline
Composed of three disturbingly sensual and terrifying short narratives, unified by the twin themes of sex and death.

Writers: Andrew Parkinson, Simon Rumley

Cast:
Scott Ainslie - Middle Aged John
Mike Anfield - Michael
James Anniballi - Hoodie
Kate Braithwaite - Claire
Daniel Brocklebank - Frank
Tommy Carey - Al
Errol Clarke - Frank's Accomplice
Luke de Lacey - Richard Gull
Christopher Fairbank - X
Brendan Gregory - Dr. Reece
Oliver Guy-Watkins - Dealer's Client
Siubhan Harrison - Victoria Gull
Amy Joyce Hastings - Lucy
Phoenix James - Club Security
Jodie Jameson - Jen

Taglines: Experimentation ... Revenge ... All Part of Life's Twisted Games ...

Release Date: 3 Jan 2011

Filming Locations: London, England, UK

Did You Know?

Trivia:
Shown at Leeds International Film Festival (November 2011) as the full, uncut directors' cut.

Sex, Violence, Guilt and Revenge

Rating: 7/10

This is a collection of 3 short films that loosely touch on their subjects of rather twisted stories about sex and death. I guess "Little Deaths" is a good title for the movie considering that the French use these words as a metaphor for orgasm. So the title fits each short in this collection.

It starts off with the shortest of the three movies entitled "House and home" which could fit into any horror anthology. The plot is paper-thin and revolves around a twisted rich and religious couple that lures homeless girls in for their sick pleasure but obviously messed with the wrong girl here. Honestly, this short is not too special... at first the couples dysfunctionality and the hints on their elitist self-conception seemed interesting (with the twist ending it could serve as a kind of class war metaphor) but it just leads nowhere. What still keeps this interesting is the great visuals and the performance of the actress playing the homeless girl. The shots of her on the bed are unmatched throughout the rest of the movie.

Second is a pretty strange short about Nazi Doctor experiments, a drug made from the semen harvested from a poor human lab rat fed with human kidneys and a junkie prostitute trying a rehab on the new drug and regretting it. This one is rather on the gritty side visually, throws in some esoteric elements and hints on the connection of all characters involved and how the drug makes the users see the truth when being touched. Its driven by the rather sick central idea and the images of the human lab rat but ultimately falls apart with a "twist" ending that make no sense at all and ruined the whole thing for me because there's unconnected dots all over the place. The sexual element in this story feels squeezed into the plot for the sake of it, so the whole story feels forced and fake and definitely is the weakest link in this 3-part-chain.

Third off is Simon Rumleys bit entitled "Bitch". This one is a rather bleak drama about sexual perversion, power play and dependency. Dogs play a dominant role in the plot, so the title has some irony to it. The look of this part is also on the gritty side, playing a lot with tints which are overused but work well in some key scenes. Like "Red, white and blue" this is rather a character study culminating in a revenge that ends with no winners at all. Definitely the best of all three with a great and high impact finale that benefits from the perfect choice of music.

Usually these anthology movies fall apart but despite some flaws I can sure recommend it for Rumleys bit as well as for the great cinematography and acting of the first "House and Home" part. So check it out if you are into the twisted stuff where drama meets horror.

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