Dir. Olly Blackburn, 2007, UK, 90 minutes
Donkey Punch, in young male slang, is a term for a hard blow to the back of the neck during sex, which produces a clench that gives pleasure to at least one person in a couple. This act kills a vacationing girl from Leeds during on orgy onboard a yacht in newcomer Olly Blackburn's thriller, and triggers a desperate scramble to hide any evidence.

Olly Blackburn's cruise in the Mediterranean sun to bloody murder is stylish, deftly scripted, and superbly acted by its sexy ensemble cast. Even though its young actors are barely known, the film can benefit from its topicality at a time when tabloids run lurid stories about vacations among girlfriends that go terribly wrong.

Strong physical acting from a stunningly photogenic performers make subtitles barely necessary, and should give the film a boost internationally. So will the prospect that members of the cast are likely to get future roles from being seen here.

The three young women in Donkey Punch are Spice Girl clones who have fled cold rainy Leeds for the sun of southern France and the hope of some fun. Lisa (Sian Breckin) and Kim (Jaime Winstone) are game for anything, and Tammi (Nicola Burley) has just broken up with a boyfriend.

Bar-hopping, they meet British lads from the crew of a yacht and come onboard. Over Tammi's objections, they set out to sea, drinking and ingesting drugs supplied by bad boy DJ Bluey (Tom Burke), and Lisa and Kim take the party below-decks with Bluey, handsome Josh (Julian Morris), and young Marcus (Jay Taylor), who videotapes the frolic, as Tammi and Sean (Robert Boulter) say on-deck for a languid sunset. It looks a lot like date-rape, and it gets worse.

Egged on by tough Bluey, Josh gives Lisa a donkey punch that kills her. Left with a dead body, the men throw Lisa overboard, triggering a gruesome battle with the conscience-stricken girlfriends.

Olly Blackburn brings an eye for beautiful youth as a director of commercials and music videos, and he tells a taut story that keeps dialogue to a minimum, luring you in withDOP Nanu Segal's tactile focus on taut bodies, until the crime hurls the boating party into chaos. All the action unfolds in tight spaces, which keeps the bodies colliding to heighten the drama and suspense.

The script by Blackburn and David Bloom evokes the bloody fatalism of Hostel and Hostel 2, both hugely profitable tales of credulous vacationing females lured into peril, but not before the girls cavort in scenes reminiscent of Girls Gone Wild, a popular American video series that shows drunken college girls exposing themselves at parties and having sex.

As in the Hostel films, the men seeking to harm the young women are punished, with an odd selection of object onboard the ship that become weapons, ratcheting up the gore to the point that it's eventually more hyperbolic than realistic, predictably destroying Delaney Wagener's meticulous maritime design.

Blackburn has assembled a solid cast that pivots from folly into fear with a frightful believability.

Burke has a fearsome nastiness which alerts you right away that something very wrong will happen. Julian Morris goes from carefree sex to the dread of a young man who sees his future disappearing after his shameless brutality kills a girl.

Far more eerie than anything else in Donkey Punch is the striking resemblance of blonde Sian Breckin to Natalee Holloway, the American high-school girl of 19 who vanished in Aruba in May 2005 while on vacation with girlfriends, after a night of partying with three young men from 'prominent' local families.

More a slick commercial genre film than anything 'independent,' Donkey Punch was just the Love Boat that earnest Sundance needed, and an auspicious feature debut for Olly Blackburn. Forget about the ratings - just add the warning 'Don't Try This at Home, or on Vacation.'

Production Companies/Backers
UK Film Council
Film4
Screen Yorkshire
EM Media
Warp X
DO Productions

International Sales
Lumina Films

Executive Producers
Peter Carlton
Lizzie Francke
Hugo Heppell
Will Clarke

Producers
Angus Lamont
Robin Gutch
Mark Herbert

Line Producer
Marlow De Mardt

Screenwriters
David Bloom
Olly Blackburn

Cinematographer
Nanu Segal

Original Music
Francois-Eudes Chanfrault

Editor
Kate Evans

Costume Designer
Sarah Ryan

Production Designer
Delaney Wagener

Main Cast
Robert Boulter
Sian Breckin
Tom Burke
Nicola Burley
Julian Morris
Jay Taylor
Jaime Winstone

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