BETTER THEN IT’S TITLE IMPLIES: A Review of A DARKER FIFTY SHADES: FETISH SET

 

I’m going to start this review off with a confession. I fucking HATE Fifty Shades Of Grey. I think it’s stupid, pretentious and it presents the dangerous concept that a man who gets gratification from sexually and physically abusing and debasing women can somehow be redeemed and made into a good man. It’s bullshit, it sucks and it disgusts me how many women flocked to read/see such a degenerative piece of monkey scum..and trust me if I think that shit is fucked up that should say something. 

I almost completely passed on this film because of the similar title..boy am I fuck’in glad I didn’t! 

Out of respect for this movie, from this moment forward we’re going to simply refer to it by it’s original title, The Fetish Set.

THE FETISH SET Introduces a group of young women all trying to cash in on the rapidly expanding fetish market for their own reasons. The Group meet up at a yearly fetish convention hoping to make some money. Things go sour fast and soon the group finds themselves with a corpse on their hands and a deranged psychopath out for their blood. Some fetishists go too far and this one’s fetish is death!

Holy fucking shit did this one surprise me! First off, this thing has some o the best written dialog I’ve ever seen in a film. It’s funny, it’s off putting when it needs to be and most importantly it flows naturally. Had it not been for the insanely talented cast this thing could have been just another cheap thriller, instead we wind up with one hell of a thrill ride that manages to be at turns hilarious, disturbing and exciting.

The acting here was top notch all the way around, but I have to say “The Wolf” The deranged fetishist steals the show as soon as we meet him. From his nude ballet dancing in the moon light, to his freakishly caved in chest and thing for growling like an animal, this fucker is pure unadulterated evil, he likes to hurt people, he likes to see them squirm and there is no room for redemption, more there is no desire for redemption. This is the darker side of psycho-sexuality and God damn it it’s effective.

The other characters pop as well. We get Mai  the homebody who fulfills mommy fetishists, Reyna the bad ass lesbian, her submissive lover Angle, and Jo the drug addicted thrill seeker. Here’s where most writers fail with stuff like this. The majority of the time when we see characters like this in a film they’re portrayed as a group of friends….Unless you’re making a low brow slasher (which there’s nothing wrong with) that shit just doesn’t fly.. What made this one work is these girls aren’t friends, they’re co-workers, reluctant coworkers at that. It’s made pretty clear from the get go that they don’t really enjoy eachother’s company and that they’re all out for the pay check. That little detail made for some great verbal exchanges and truly believable tension between the characters.

I liked that this thing had the balls to straight up tell the truth. Men who get off on debasing women AREN’T good guys. There’s often a real mental illness involved and sometimes (although rarely) that illness, that obsession with sexual deviancy can take a turn to the darkest possible regions of the human mind, creating monster out of man, that’s a pretty powerful message and writer/director Shane Wheeler delivers it with gusto.

Overall I give this one 2 middle fingers chopped of and sanded to the bone. It’s my favorite Wild Eye Release thus far and the only complaint I have is that there isn’t more of it.  Wheeler is one hell of a director (especially considering this was his first attempt) and We here at B-is For Best can’t wait to see what he c

omes up with next!