Film

This throwback exploitation picture recalls the guilty pleasures of Roger Corman’s dubious oeuvre, its generic situations, seedy locations and split-screen sleaze elevated by a hint of social comment. Australian director Jon Hewitt establishes his credentials early on: jaded high-class escort Holly (Viva Bianca) performs mechanical sex with a muscular hunk in front of a group of ‘ladies who lunch’. At the opposite end of the sex-for-sale spectrum is naive runaway Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence), a former nurse stumbling through her first night on the neon-drenched streets of Sydney’s red-light district.

Flung together by chance, Holly and Shay join forces for a three-way session with one of Holly’s regulars – but after witnessing something they shouldn’t have, the pair end up being chased by a killer. Shot guerrilla-style on location, cinematographer Mark Pugh’s fizzing visuals strike a nice balance between grimy authenticity and heightened reality. Less convincingly, the screenplay by Hewitt and Belinda McClory is long on coincidence and short on credibility. That said, the film’s quasi-feminist message cuts through the pervading air of salacious excess.