a SIFF 2010 review
Exploitive Trannies Doesn’t Tick Me Off
Israel Luna’s Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives has been stirring up controversy ever since its Tribeca Film Festival debut last April. Now the film is a getting a small, midnight-only theatrical release in a handful of cities before making its way to DVD in November so a greater number of people are potentially going to get their opportunity to see what all the fuss has been about.
Willam Belli, Krystal Summers and Kelexis Davenport in Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives © Breaking Glass Pictures
What they’ll discover is that a lot of the GLAAD hullabaloo has been mostly unwarranted, the film nothing more than a gleeful 1970’s-style exploitation throwback made in the same reverential style as Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse and Scott Sanders’ Black Dynamite. Like those films (to which Luna owes plenty as he) this one is extremely hit or miss, but for those with a penchant for the genre and a taste for the campy unusual it can also be more than its fair share of fun.
The movie concerns five transgender performers (some are Drag Queens, others are full-on transsexuals, while one I’m really not altogether sure about – and that’s just fine) working at a Dallas nightclub. After their show has ended their make their way for a local bar, Emma (Erica Andrews) and Rachel (Willam Belli) urging Bubbles (Krystal Summers) to join them on a late night rendezvous with a couple of Hispanic hotties (Kenny Ochoa, Gerardo Davila).
But what was supposed to be something sexy and wild instead turns into deadly danger, the evil Boner (Tom Zembrod) setting a trap for Bubbles as her friends to get what he feels is revenge for her gender deception. The girls, soon joined by Pinky (Kelexis Davenport) and Tipper (Jenna Skyy) in a failed attempt at rescue, are suddenly at the brutal whim of a psychopath, and the battering he and his friends unleash on the five of them is one the survivors will never forget.
It’s no real surprise where things go from there. Like I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left or even Tarantino’s Death Proof vengeance will be had, the remaining girls putting on their fanciest outfits and arming themselves with the most ferocious of weapons in order to get a little bit of payback. There is blood, there is gore, and there are even cases of pointy items getting rammed into orifices they do not belong. But it’s all in good, campy, over-the-top fun, and while Luna can’t help but make a political statement or two it’s not like any of them are overly overt.
Am I completely fond of the picture? After watching it three times I can safely answer no to that question and feel relatively comfortable about it. The film takes its time getting going, the opening 20 minutes a bit too self-satisfied with itself thinking much of its dialogue is a heck of a lot wittier than it actually is (although there are some great lines, Belli and Andrews getting the majority of them). Additionally, the actual bashing itself goes on a tad longer than I found comfortable, descending into a kind of unsettling ugliness that’s in exact opposition to the winking campiness of the rest. I’m also getting sick of “missing” and “burned” reels, and this is one joke Luna frustratingly runs right into the ground.
Yet I am willing to let that slide because of the myriad of things about Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives that works. For one thing, its transgender heroines are only stereotypes on the surface, and while what they say and what they do can often border on the cliché what they stand for is far more interesting. They represent an entire spectrum of gender identity, a spectrum so-called “serious” fair seldom seems interested in exploring. These women are confidant in both who they are and in the lives they lead, and for that I give the film major props especially considering the slick (and sick) nature of the genre of which it’s a part of.
Next, I don’t know how he did it or where he found them but Luna manages to get some surprisingly good performances by key members of his cast. Zembrod is suitably menacing in a way that is positively unsettling, and while his character is strictly – and understandably – one-note that doesn’t make the villain any less despicable. Belli, an actor many well recognize from a brief stint on “Nip/Tuck,” has many of my favorite lines, an early off-the-cuff remark involving The Burning Bed and Farrah Fawcett one of the best.
Summers and Andrews are easily my two favorite performers here, however. The latter steals the picture with her easygoing mix of comedy and sensuality, enlivening just about every scene she’s in with shocking ease. The film noticeably lags without her, and as things moved along as surreal and as silly as much of it became (sometimes pointlessly so, most of the time not) the one constant on my part was my wish that somehow she’d miraculously reappear.
As for Summers, she anchors things in a way that is very similar to what Camille Keaton accomplished in the otherwise risible original version of I Spit On Your Grave or what Zoë Bell and Tracie Thoms did in Death Proof. They became strong, female heroines willing to descend to unheard of depths to get their vengeance yet somehow managed to retain their femininity in the process. Summers somewhat surprisingly does the same, and even when she’s wielding a bizarre multiple-edged sword or forced to talk with an inane lisp Bubbles remains a figure worthy of respect and admiration.
Like all films to stir up controversy, I get the feeling that the majority throwing stones at Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives haven’t even taken the time to actually see it. What they’ll find certainly isn’t without problems, but as a loving homage to the genre it plays in and as a moderately deft examination of gender and the cold, often heartless politics that surround it Luna and company get far more right than they do wrong. As a midnight programmer it accomplishes the job, doing it with far more flashy aplomb (as well as in far more awesome footwear) than it probably has any right to.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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