Julia (Valerie Azlynn) is on one of them
there Internet dates with the dashing man named Chuck (Kevin
Sorbo). Okay, so they don't really tell us his name,
just that he's known as The Stranger, but I'm not going to
call him that thus his name is now Chuck. So dashing and
charming is Chuck that Julia actually imagines Chuck having
her bent over a bathroom sink. That's something only a
charming and disarming dude can do. While the date seems
to be going well, Julia does a 180 and prematurely ends the
date, much to Chuck's dismay, places a phone call to who I
assume is her sister Jessica (Ashleigh Lee Willis) to let her
know that this guy could be the one, and then she exits the
restaurant. Guess what? Chuck is the one… the one
Crazy Rapist Murderer Serial Killer! Apparently at this
point in time in whatever town this movie takes place, I
remember seeing swamps so I'm guessing it's down New Orleans
way, there is a serial killer picking up women on the
internet, branding letters on their bodies, having his way
with them then disposing of them. Julia is branded with
the letter 'X'. Curious to see what Chuck is going to do
if and when he gets past the letter 'Z'. A-1
maybe? Double A? Ah, but that's neither here nor
there because 'Julia-X' as this movie is titled might be a
little bit more than Chuck bargained for.
All right, so Chuck has Julia all hemmed up in his little
hideout getting his torture on, and having a damn good time
doing it. He takes Julia along as he gets rid of
Sally-W, sets Julia up in his swamp hideout for more torture
action, but as it turns out Julia is a bit more resourceful
than Chuck gave her credit for. I mean Julia kind of
escapes, but she is in the swamp so surely the cute urban
blonde can't get too far, but again Julia is nothing if not
resourceful.
And the tables are turned. Telling
anything more would give all the good parts away. And if
by 'good parts' I mean '60 more minutes of brutal torture'
then that's what I mean. We know that there are those of
you out there who like that kind of thing.
I think I have to say writer / director P.J. Petite's film
'Julia-X' will probably be an acquired taste for most of you,
so if you actually enjoy nonsensical, completely ridiculous,
utterly pointless torture horror then this a movie that you
just might take to. Personally, I'm not one for
pointless torture horror so I wasn't taking to 'Julia-X' all
that much.
The concept is pretty cool, Internet dating gone terribly
wrong, and it was a bit of a pleasant surprise to see the
usually amiable Kevin Sorbo flip it around and play a
completely hateful character for a change. He's still
probably better served playing a nice guy considering Mr.
Sorbo does have a natural easy charm about himself that
doesn't lend itself all that well to crazed serial killing and
raping, but we appreciate my man extending his creative
reach. Valerie Azlynn and Ashleigh Leigh Willis?
Well… they are adorable and they did a fine job of bouncing
off of each like I would imagine real sisters would, but I
just don't know if they sold me on the whole psycho chick
thing. There psycho shticks tended to lean more on
the side of annoying than that of actually
intimidating. Actor Joel David Moore does show up
a little later as a schlub, which he can do about as well as
anybody, and lest we forget Ving Rhames who also shows up even
later playing somebody mean and ugly. Think Ving can do
that? Why yes he can.
The fact of the matter is that after a while, even if you like
watching people get barb wired, gored, stabbed, burned, and
tortured over and over again… and it does happen over and over
again which means that 'Julia-X' gets real repetitive, real
fast. Sometimes the monotony of the torture is broken to
watch Julia and Jessica bitch at each other, but then that got
kind of old pretty damn quick as well.
An acquired taste is what 'Julia-X' is.
