Movie/VOD Review: PERNICIOUS

By PETER BROWN / Associate Editor

Posted: June 23rd, 2015 / 01:14 PM

Rating: NR
Cast: Ciara Hanna, Emily O’Brien, Jackie Moore, Russell Geoffrey Banks, Bryon Gibson
Writer: James Cullen Bressack
Director: James Cullen Bressack
Distributor: Benetone Films
Release Date: June 19. 2015

You are no doubt aware of the little blue kids that have graced that good and bad from the likes of THE GRUDGE/JU-ON movies. Maybe you have had an ass-load of them as the result of numerous parodies of blue kids in the SCARY MOVIE franchise. Maybe you are fed up with this horror trope of little blue kids being the main antagonist in horror movies.

But are you ready for little gold kids?

Because that’s what you get in PERNICIOUS, a mishmash of torture porn and creepy little Asian kids that haunt a trio of hot chicks that travel to Thailand for a teaching job. Now, that last part is quite funny because first, if I ever had a teacher that was as hot as the ladies in this film I’d never learn a damn thing. Second, the whole teaching part is laughable as they never get around to it nor does it rarely enter into their stream of consciousness instead they are focused on getting sh**faced and screwing random men they meet in a local tavern.

PERNICOUS, or meaning something that is harmful (thanks Google), begins with the three ladies discovering a gold statue of a little kid inside their rented Thailand house. Soon, drinking, bringing home random men and torture porn. Er wait, I think I skipped an important item there. So after getting drugged by the strange and dangerous men they brought back to their place next we see the ladies taking out their anger on the three strangers in a variety of gnarly ways.

We have your garden variety eye gouging, fingernail pulling, teeth pulling, throat slicing, tongue ripping and nipple tweaking going on.

But from there things tone down a bit and it becomes more a supernatural haunted flick with said little gold kid running around terrorizing the three girls. Turns out the little gold kid is a haunted girl that takes possession of the ladies and makes them do bad things. Mix in a Asian voodoo lady and this is one strange flick that is going in a variety of different directions.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new here. Blue kids. Green kids. Gold Kids. It has been done and is no longer scary. The torture porn is fine and people that love gore will get a kick out of it but again they aren’t re-inventing the wheel. The combination of the supernatural and gore is an interesting aspect but moving between the two is a bit confusing as they once again move to it at a different point in the film.

Still, there are worse horror movies out there and with a good looking cast and some decent special effects, it might be worth checking out if you have exhausted your other horror options.

PERNICIOUS is available on video on demand everywhere and in limited theaters,

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