*** FIRST LOOK! *** YOU SHOULD GIVE A DAMN 'BOUT THIS 'BAD REPUTATION'
If there's anything that sends waves of nostalgia through this cult film fan's heart, it's a good revenge film. The grindhouse circuit was filled with them in the old days. But when everyone began cashing in (Cannon, I'm looking at you), the quality dropped. It's nice to see some indie filmmakers bringing back the goodness that was the revenge picture, with their own style to boot. To that end, director James Hemphill dropped Horror Express a line to talk about his new film, BAD REPUTATION. BAD REPUTATION is being described as "a high school revenge movie in the tradition of CARRIE." It does sound like it channels that film's very real feelings of teen angst and isolation. It also sounds brutally honest and all too real. The heroine of the film is Michelle (Angelique Hennessy), a Plain Jane at a high school where being plain makes you a social outcast. When she is invited to a big party by high school jock, Aaron (Jerad Anderson), Michelle is thrilled and tries to transform herself for the big event. She arrives in a beautiful dress and is clearly a hit, as all the guys notice her. Aaron and his friends get her drunk, but when they want Michelle to go a little further, she refuses. Not taking rejection lightly, they rape Michelle. When Aaron's girlfriend Debbie (Dakota Ferreiro) finds Michelle with her dress torn, Aaron denies any wrongdoing. The guys all say that Michelle came onto them and her dress was only torn when he spurned her advances. As revenge, Debbie and her friends humiliate Michelle and spread ugly rumors about her through the school. Michelle embraces the power given to her by her bad reputation and begins to dress provocatively and lure the in-crowd away from Debbie and her friends. It's all a plot to seduce and destroy all those responsible.
Don't know about you, but even if this wasn't dropped into HE's lap, this plot would have still gotten my attention. Sounds like a great new twist on the revenge genre.
We also got some bios of the cast and crew. In addition to a lengthy art and theatre background, Angelique Hennessy has been featured in the films RAISING HELEN and THE WEDDING CRASHERS, as well as the TV shows LAS VEGAS and JUDGING AMY. She might be familiar to many of our readers as the "Veil Girl" in My Chemical Romance's "Helena" music video. With a background every bit as athletically challenging as his jock character's Jerad Anderson also found time to guest on ER and Nickelodeon's JUST FOR KICKS while mastering sign language. Dakota Ferreiro) has a background in dance and theatre too extensive to list here. Suffice to say, she has appeared in COLLATERAL and BAD BOYS II and has also worked with Prince, Inrique Eglesias and George Michael. She will appear in Zalman King's new series, FORTY DEUCE.
Hemphill is a writer, and from the looks of his credits, perhaps a better one than myself. He is a film critic and journalist, writing for Film Quarterly, Cinemafantastique, American Cinematographer and the Chicago Reader, among others. He worked as a script analyst for David Fincher and Ron Shelton. His first screenplay was picked up by the Turner company, "and then rewritten into oblivion and never produced." Good thing Hemphill is writing, producing and directing BAD REPUTATION himself . His cinematographer is accomplished short film director Forest Allison, who is stepping in as a Director of Photography for the first time.
Hemphill is currently in post on BAD REPUTATION and estimates it will be finished in a couple months. It will be hitting the film festival circuit later this year, so keep an eye out for it. Horror Express hopes to have a screener available to review soon and looks forward to following the progress of this new independent film.
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