journal features

movie review - Very Bad Things

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 1999.07.10

This one isn't for the squeamish. It starts as a fast-moving, slick but not specially funny comedy, but degenerates from there into an unpleasant, cheesy and (with one exception) very predictable affair. The basic premise is that a gang of friends head to Vegas (from LA's sprawling suburbs) for a bachelor's party. The ringleader (Slater) has arranged for a prostitute in advance, as part of the cocaine-driven fun. Within minutes of her arrival, though, she's dead. They decide to cover up the whole thing, which leads to more murders, and the eventual dissolution of the group of friends.

It's quite grisly. People get chopped up (and reassembled); people get cut, bashed, and slashed; death scenes linger. Fun wow.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

Society is indeed a contract... [the state] is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

—Edmund Burke