Director: Mark Polonia
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Desperate to start her modeling career, a young woman signs up for an elite modeling agency and quickly becomes one of their top clients with her risqué performances, but when she attracts the attention of a demented admirer must choose if it’s worth it before he gets to her.
Review:
This wasn’t that bad for an indie throwback. Among its better features is the strong setup that provides a rather strong expose on the nature of her modeling career and the exploitative nature of everything she does for it. The predatory nature of the business is taking young, impressionable women and selling them on the nature of the business through photoshoots in glamorous locations with high-profile clients, but forcing them into risqué routines and services that might fall out of their comfort zone, but are demanded by their clientele. It sets up the later half, following up on this, where the outpouring of investment in the adult side of the industry where she has to keep herself in shape, or responding to all sorts of weird requests from fans that soon puts a strain on her relationship that threatens to derail everything they’ve built up for the sake of pervy clients and sleazy messages.
By the time she starts thinking of the impact on her relationship and the disgusting nature of the clients she serves, the idea of the killer targeting her has already started. With the first murder occurring as a way of getting her into the facility in the first place, the stalking of her online, and the threatening messages left for her, everything sets itself up for the killer to start targeting her in more obvious ways, such that it leads to her psychologically breaking down to the point of questioning her involvement in the agency. The few attacks we get here on the other models at the agency, from a bathtub drowning to a sequence taking out a victim in their home using BDSM equipment to trap and torture them, focus nicely on the masked maniac being involved in the stalking scene that sets up the final confrontation at her house filled with some solid brawls and shocking twists to come about, giving this one some likable factors.
This one does have a few drawbacks holding it down. The biggest detriment in the film is the rather slack pacing that comes about since there’s not much in the way of kills throughout here. Rather than adapt a pattern of the killer knocking off the other members of the agency so she can have a bigger career or something similar that would play more in line with the genre’s sensibilities while also providing a body count, it spends a great deal of time on building up her work for the business at the expense of offering up stalking and slashing scenes. That setup ends up rendering the only real confrontation with the killer and her to be the final few minutes of the film, which is a bit disheartening, similar to how the killer’s identity is so plainly obvious it’s hard to imagine this being much of a surprise due to how it’s patently obvious from the initial introduction of the character. All combined together with the obvious cheap production and feel of everything, these all hold the film down overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A really solid and enjoyable indie giallo throwback, there’s enough here to be enjoyable and worthwhile for what it is, while there are a few issues here that keep it down overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of indie genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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