Sadly Over-hyped

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

. . . with maybe a little A BOY AND HIS DOG thrown in for good measure. Just as in PETER PAN, this movie focuses on the three Darling boys, but in an incestuous twist, one of the trio is hung up on just-like-a-sister Wendy. As the littlest Darling notes in his opening voice-over, "Patrick was never ready for Wendy to be dead." So Patrick plays dress-up all summer with Wendy's occasionally-animated corpse (mostly in a friend's bathtub), while his little brother Beetlejuice falls in love with the dogs belonging to Wendy's likely killer, Rody, who is incommunicado for the season, while the other main suspect in Wendy's demise--her actual lover, Brian--has moved on to getting "sleaze comfort" from middle brother Carol and the late Wendy's mutual crush, Addy, while oldest brother Patrick--whose umbilical cord was wrapped around twin Carol's throat during delivery--is busy feeding his own second crush Rody's dogs (now beloved by Beetle) to the carnivorous Wendy before feeding himself to her at the bottom of his backyard swim pool. While Wendy may seem to be the quintessential ZOMBIE WITHOUT A CAUSE to her tribe of Lost Boys, none of the parents in MAKE OUT WITH VIOLENCE really give a hoot whether any of their children will survive the summer, since they all have important grown-ups stuff to do which monopolizes all their time and attention. Hey, this is Tennessee, where no one has heard of science, so Beetle's other interest--bugs--must be purely gastronomical.

A previous reviewer says it all, and says it well. This film reeks of indie cred, and has a few good performances (and a few awful ones) and a great soundtrack, but it's not funny, quirky, offbeat, frightening, thought-provoking, or anything else worthwhile. It would be a fairly impressive film school project. Why it won awards and so much notice I will never know, but I suspect it has something to do with yet another triumph of form over substance.Best high school oriented not-quite-dead girl double bill ever: Deadgirl - truly frightening and truly funny and an intense ending; Jennifer's Body - not really a zombie film but who cares? Brilliant. Best. Ever.Skip Making out with Violence.Spoiler Alert: There's really no making out in this film. Also no violence.

There are enough stylistic coups to indicate that the creators of "Make-Out with Violence," an uneasy genre-bending tale about twin brothers who are keeping the not-quite-dead (or once but no longer dead) object of the oldest brother's affections on ice in the bathtub of a friend's house, have potential to make a really good movie. However, this isn't that movie. It's not especially bad, but it suffers from a lack of confidence in tone. The writers and directors pitch it somewhere between the deadpan humor of "Napolean Dynamite" and the disturbing surrealism of "Donnie Darko," but don't commit fully in either direction. Therefore, it too often leaves the audience feeling adrift, not sure how we're supposed to be reacting.It doesn't help that the majority of the acting is sub-par, especially that of the actor who has perhaps the most crucial role, Patrick (Eric Lehning), the older (by minutes) brother. Cody DeVos, on the other hand, playing the younger twin Carol, goes a long way if not quite all the way at making up for what Lehning fails to deliver. Leah High, as Addy, love interest for Carol, does some nice work, but Jordan Lehning, as the friend who lends his house to a zombie, and Brett Miller as Beetle, the younger brother of Patrick and Carol who also serves as our narrator, are weak.The film's central conceit -- that Patrick's love for a zombie is a symbol for all the unrequited angst-filled yearnings swirling around this group of almost-adults over the course of a lazy summer -- is a good one, and the movie's not a total wash by a long shot. But mostly it spends its running time being just good enough to make you wish it was better.Grade: B-

Unlike Deadgirl, which was released around the same time, this movie struck me as pretentious nonsense that exists only to showcase the indie cred of all involved. There wasn't anything really *wrong* with it, per se, but I found myself constantly rolling my eyes and sighing heavily. Most of the scenes are melodramatic, though the acting is decent enough. None of the characters ever seem to express any strong emotions, though I suppose that's probably the fault of the writers/directors than the actors. Speaking of the writing, it was pretty mediocre. I've seen much, much worse, but with the pretentiousness of the directing, I was really expecting something a bit deeper. The soundtrack seems to be a major part of the experience, and I'm sure that if you're one of those hipsters who can't get enough of pretentious, derivative pop music, you'll love it to death. Unfortunately, I don't think I was in the target demographic for this movie. Some movies can transcend their genre and target demographic, like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (spaghetti western), The Shining (horror), and The Godfather (crime drama). That requires good directing and writing, however, and this movie simply can't rise above the silly pretensions of the Smeagol brothers (or whatever). If you're into this sort of thing (pretentious "indie" movies), you'll probably love it, but I was overcome by boredom and annoyance.