If you thought the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse project was a bore, prepare to have your trash buttons ground down further still by this slice of self-conscious schlocksploitation. Salma Hayek is the battered sex slave who must slice and dice her way through an array of stereotypically sadistic Japanese villains (one is actually called “the Sadist”) in order to save her daughter from a fate worse than appearing in the sequel. Hayek gamely puts herself through the mincer as Knights of Badassdom director Joe Lynch splatters the screen with yucky gore and sub-torture-porn sleaze. Those with an adolescent nostalgia for video-nasty era degradation/retribution may be mildly titillated, but Lynch has neither the wit nor desire to raise this above the level of faux-retro fanboy fantasy.
