My Review Of “Velvet Vengeance”

“Velvet Vengeance” is the feature adaptation of Jeremy Campbell’s short film of the same name. The film stars Lindsay Norman, , Paula Marcenaro Solinger, Forrest Vickery, Elisa Castillo, Cody Hofmockel and Carl “The Coach” Bailey. “Velvet Vengeance” follows Alice, who sets out to seek the killer of her brother, local legendary maniac, Dolly, still roaming the area searching for victims. The film is a blend of classic, grindhouse horror, neo-western, last-man-standing movie where heroine meets slasherette and her psycho family.

Synopsis: A young woman is faced with the tragic murder of her brother. The police swear that the murderer is dead but Alice can not shake the feeling that the killer is still alive. Against her friends and family's best wishes she travels to the location of her brothers murder to hunt the killer but little does she know that she is the one that is being hunted.

The story builds off of a strong and creative concept when stripped to the core subject matter, that of a young woman seeking resolution and justice for her brothers mother. She faces nightmare and walks through the valley of death, facing the depraved and evil that humanity can often produce. The story grows from the baser concept featured in the short film, unfortunately it is built upon with a lot of weak add-ons that mare the power of the idea in flaws. I was eager to see “Velvet Vengeance” so my expectations were a bit high but there is no lowering my hopes enough to cloud the train wreck that this feature adaptation becomes on screen. The extra elaboration of character development and added elements just tear at the core story until there is nothing recognizable of the original concept-that I could have overlooked if the script, especially the dialog would have been stronger. Everything seems to fall apart right from the beginning. My heart aches over that because the short film was great and seem to work.

The acting is what you expect from low budget indie acting. The cast, well the key cast, seem invested in the characters enough to pull off this story that throws in every genre, every aspect from nearly every classic horror film, everything plus the kitchen sink, but the dialog is weak beyond what the actors could have worked with, or built up. The scenes never really come off convincingly, I didn’t buy that these people existed even in the most exaggerated, fictional circumstances I had a hard time believing the characters. “Velvet Vengeance” does manage to give a action packed ending but it seems hurried and too little to make up for the first two acts.

When sound quality was okay, the creepy, sound effects had power and offered some spookiness to the films lukewarm atmosphere but the sound quality more often was a fail, shredding the overall experience of watching the film. The editing was messy at best. Most people are going to be disappointed or just divested in “Velvet Vengeance” pretty much within the first 15 minutes which sucks because Dolly is such a great nightmare and the story here had so much potential. On a positive note the actually soundtrack that involved song/music fricking rocked, Hex is the only real shining moment in this nightmare of a film. Again to say that is painful because my hopes were high and I was expecting to love this movie. Whoever was around the director and his team that never bothered to speak truthfully during production and editing were not friends of the director or they would have pointed out the errors, (and there are plenty), before hand.