Avenged (2015)

Running Time: 95 minutes

Release Date: March 6, 2015

Review by: Stacey

I recently saw this in a list of "underrated horror movies" and I am still trying to figure out why it's there.  A "redsploitation" film made in 2013, Avenged (previously titled "Savaged", oooh, I get the double entendre...) mixed a revenge plot a la Kill Bill with supernatural/possession elements.  Throw in a deaf-mute woman as the victim and you've got a leading lady you kind of have to root for.

The movie follows Zoe (Amanda Adrienne), a deaf-mute woman who is taking off on a road trip to finally move in with her long-distance boyfriend, Dane (Marc Anthony Samuel), despite her mother's reluctance because of Zoe's disability.   Naturally, things don't go as planned when Zoe is abducted by a murderous gang of racist rednecks, who take her back to their place and brutalize and rape her.  They also happen to be descendants of some shitty white dudes who wiped out the Apache tribe on that land several centuries ago and have the skull of the Apache chief (Rick Mora) as a souvenir.  After leaving Zoe for dead, she's possessed by the spirit of the chief to exact their revenge before her body fully decays.

 

Well, that's a lot to take in.  Avenged is most definitely not your typical rape/revenge film.  That can be seen clearly when there are almost no shots of the actual brutalizing (thanks, director Michael S. Ojeda), but you know it happened, and that's enough to warrant her supernatural revenge.  Adding to the atypical-ness (is that a word?), the director threw in a possession of the victim to aid her, which almost never happens in these types of films.

 

 

I'm not sure why the need to make her deaf, but I can only assume that they thought it would gain more sympathy from the viewer but all it did for me was take away any chance I had to get a feel for her character because she had no lines (unless you count the chief speaking from her).  Not to mention the fact that she thought it would be a wise idea to drive long-distance alone with little ability to seek help if she needed to. Take a plane, girl!

 

To Avenged's credit, it was shot really well, which I'm sure was all owed to the fact that Ojeda's work is mostly as a cinematographer.  The visuals gave off a grindhouse-y vibe which made it work with the exploitative nature of the film.  The kills were pretty rad as well, especially when Zoe rips out one of the redneck's intestines.  Her slow decay during her revenge-seeking was pretty gross too, when she was shoving dirt into her open wounds filled with maggots and worms.  From the moment you realize Zoe is screwed no matter what, you know where the film is headed, but the kills are enough that you want to stick around until the end.

 

 

I won't go into the not very "PC" tone of the flick (we'll save that for someone else to gripe about), but the so-so acting and script really took away from the film, which could have been pretty good considering the spin it put on a sub-genre that's pretty formulaic.   Would I recommend it?  Catch me on a good day, I'll say yes.  Would I consider it "underrated"?  I wouldn't go that far.

 3/5 google kept showing me fucking pictures of shitty Avenged Sevenfold.

Check out the trailer below!