Julia X (2011)

Julia X (2011)

Dir. P.J. Pettiette

What little I'd seen of the promotional material for Julia X seemed to imply a weak teen-slasher flick. From the blatant attempt to appeal to moviegoers who discern with their cock not their brain to the very premise itself, internet dating, summed up in the tagline ‘Sex, Blood, Revenge, and that's just their first date,’ I was turned off.

To make matters worse it was filmed for 3D, which usually means you can expect the first and last twenty minutes to contain things thrusting at the camera lens. Indeed, many of the angles are evidently chosen for that very purpose, they make no sense to the actual story, are visually uneven, existing solely to facilitate thrust.

Despite all of the negative vibes I was getting I watched it anyhow. Why? Because I really wanted the hear the music, which was provided by Japanese musician Akira Yamaoka, composer of the majority of the hugely successful Silent Hill video games. Yamaoka's uncanny ability to pair ambience with unsettling allusions speaks to me on a subliminal level. It gets deep under my skin. He's been known to team up with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn from time to time, on average two tracks per album, and it's the same here, two tracks have Mary Elizabeth performing vocals.

As it turned out, the rest of the film isn't all bad. If it was I'd have suffered it for the reason already given but then quickly have forgotten it and not bothered to write any of this.

-Even serial killers are unimpressed with the iPod earbuds.-

Kevin Sorbo (pictured above) plays against type; he's a serial killer who meets women via an internet dating site. His date with Julia (Valerie Azlynn) ends with her running for her life as he pursues at a leisurely pace. You know how the cliché plays out. It sticks to formula for a while, but then one of the pair does something unexpected and the film takes a sharp left turn.

For a time even the change seemed forced, but by the midway point it's clear that Dir. P.J. Pettiette had something other than pleasing the typical horror hound in mind. I don't want to go into the actual reasons why the remainder of it was better, but I will say that Julia isn't a screamer and there's no unnecessary sex scene. Those two things alone separate it from the norm. The date that Sorbo was expecting becomes a play date unlike any he ever had before.