If you ever watched DEAD CALM (the 80’s thriller-on-a-boat with Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane) and wished it would be remade in Spain with drugged up morons having sex before killing each other as a substitute for dramatic tension, then this is the movie for you! A predictable thriller that adopts a textbook format, DONKEY PUNCH is a bland affair (perhaps the jacket potato of the cinema world) but, to the credit of writer and director alike, it does manage to get some of the basics right.

For those of you who don’t know, “donkey punch” is the slang term for a sexual practice best avoided and it is this very event that forms the lynchpin of the film. We start out with three young lasses from Northern England who have come to Mallorca for a girly holiday away from their problems back home.

Thus we begin with the usual shots of glossy bikini-clad bodies as they lure the masculine half of the cast. When the three lads appear they do the obvious thing and get drunk before agreeing to get on their luxury yacht and sail out to the open sea to party. Drink is drunk, drugs are dosed and banter is shared before we get to the sex scene, which would actually be worth watching if you’re into soft porn if it wasn’t for the hideous and immensely annoying Bluey (Tom Burke) whose mildly amusing chav speak quickly changes from being entertaining to being a complete mood killer. After this particular scene however, it all goes downhill as an accident leads to division amongst the group, suspicion and ultimately a hilarious series unfortunate mishaps and insane acts of violence.

The close quarters of the luxury yacht does provide a decent setting for some tense stand-offs, as well as some interesting ways to kill people, and director Olly Blackburn does some good work with the actors to build up some of the fear factor, but there’s just not really anything special about this film.

DONKEY PUNCH is a horror/thriller which stands out above a lot of its recent American counterparts which have lapsed into absurdity in recent weeks with films like THE HAPPENING, and which is a welcome return to the crucial core of the genres which are sometimes shamefully neglected. Blackburn and Bloom are at pains to create tension, realistic characters and the bad stuff that happening without a clearly identified ‘bad guy’, but there just isn’t that magical edge that allows the movie to rise above mediocrity. And that’s a real shame.

DONKEY PUNCH WILL HAVE A LIMITED RUN IN THEATRES FROM FRIDAY 18th JULY 2008!