13 Girls comes a haunting!
13 Girls stars Sadie Katz (who is always amazing!) as a detective investigating the suicide of a group of Catholic schoolgirls, which leads to a huge demonic conspiracy involving a plot to destroy all men. Shades of True Detective? Jim Towns writes and directs, he helmed Manhaters! and House of Bad previously. FilmThreat has a good interview with him.
Among 13 Girls‘ casts is Sam Aotaki, who is also a featured player in Asylum’s Asian School Girls. P.J. Soles and Dean Cameron have parts, and also Jenny Jones, Ginny You, Elizabeth Ouimette, and Erinn O’Sullivan.
From The Press Release:
Cameras will roll on Jim Towns’ new thriller 13 Girls this October, reuniting the writer/director of House of Bad with his leading actress from that film- blonde, whiskey-voiced Sadie Katz.
Katz will play a troubled detective trying to solve the group suicide of an entire classroom of Catholic schoolgirls. As she gets closer to the truth, she must face her own devils if she is to help thwart a demonic plot to usurp the world of Man.
Katz has most recently appeared in Chavez: Cage of Glory and Scorned, which she co-wrote. Other talent already attached includes Daniel Roebuck (LOST, The Fugitive), Jamie Bernadette (Reel Evil, Axeman at Cutter’s Creek, The 6th Friend), Erik Preston (Halloween 4- The Return of Michael Myers), William Christopher Ford (Karate Kid III) and Australian actress Stef Dawson (Wrath).
House of Bad, which Towns describes as a ‘haunted heist flick’, is due out in February through Osiris Entertainment. He is also in development on A Man with a Gun, starring Tony Todd, which he wrote and is also producing.
13 Girls will shoot in Hollywood and the South Bay area, and is being produced by Towns’ Shadow Kamera Films and through independent financing.
Categories: Movie News Tags: Dean Cameron, Elizabeth Ouimette, Erinn O'Sullivan, Ginny You, Jenny Jones, Jim Towns, P.J. Soles, Sadie Katz, Sam Aotaki
Hidden Treasures (Review)
Hidden Treasures
2013
Written by Tina Hawthorne
Directed by David Ashton
Hidden Treasures is an interesting film, because the lead woman Elizabeth is manipulative over her former roommates/lovers, who eagerly go along with whatever weird junk she’s selling. They then drag their girlfriends into the mess, and commit a million sins that would end any relationship immediately. You have to take some of the scenes with a huge iceberg-sized grain of salt that anyone would go along with the shenanigans.
Initial premise aside, Hidden Treasures is an interesting “erotic thriller”, I use thriller because it’s not really any other category. We know Elizabeth is manipulative, but we don’t know how much, or if she’s even the most guilty party.
Someone does know something about plants (I haven’t determined if Tina Hawthorne is the real name of the writer of the bulk of Mainline Releasing’s films), because in addition to some of the lingo straight out of wikipedia is some actual plant knowledge. Maybe it’s just watching this film while in the middle of reading a book that also has a character who mentions plants by their scientific names all the time (the book is Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey), but I don’t really do that. But again, I can barely remember the common names for the different heirloom plants I have growing in my garden without saving the seed packets. It’s probably easier when you have someone you can talk plant shop with, but my wife and I are the only people we know who garden.
Sadie Katz’s character Cat is the plant enthusiast here, while Elizabeth Pierce’s father made his fortune in alternative medicine herbal plants and has a lush garden (tended by hunky gardener Jackson, who also knows a lot about plants.) Plants play into the plot with the characters continually talking about them. But there is also a bunch of missing jewels that Elizabeth’s late father somewhere on the property, which is the excuse she uses to bring in her old sex pals Mason and Chris. Judging by what happens next, its as if the characters are convinced the jewels are hidden on one of their bodies, because they keep getting naked and exploring around each other.

Look, buddy, the title is a metaphor about relationships in addition to referring to the stashed away jewels!
It’s hard to break down Hidden Treasures because you have to believe that Cat and Rachel would put up with their idiot boyfriends dropping everything to go help out an old hot friend who they probably had lots of sex with. And neither girl is too pleased, Rachel is openly hostile, while Cat attempts to be positive but runs into interference from everyone, including her boyfriend Mason, but not Jackson. Hmmm…. But basically the lesson is don’t be a manipulative horror and don’t be manipulated by said horror.
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Alyssa Branch, Chad White, David Ashton, David Page, Mainline Releasing, Michelle Maylene, Ryan McLane, Sadie Katz, Seth Gamble, softcore, Tina Hawthorne
Birthday Sex
Birthday Sex
2012
Written by Tina Hawthorne
Directed by Austin Brooks
Birthday Sex! We all know the song, we all jam it up on the radio, we all sang it ironically on our birthdays and then moved on to some other song. And now, Birthday Sex is also a softcore flick from our friends at Mainline Releasing, your home for movies that often have more to say than what they appear.
It’s Mia’s 25th birthday! Which is cool because she gets a parade of birthday presents that suddenly become terrible presents and her whole outlook on life changes and this birthday becomes the worst birthday ever that’s also the best birthday ever in the long run. Mia’s 25th is time for her to hit a crossroads, where much is made about how she suddenly wants to grow up and be responsible and boring, while her current boyfriend Tyler just wants to live life and party. Now, I’m not going to get into a big discussion about when it is okay to settle down and when you should still be up all night to the sun for good fun, because each person has their own journey in life. 25 is enough time to have had fun, and to be aware of yourself enough to know what you want in life, though that is far from a requirement at that age (and Lord knows I had no clue and am still winging it years later!)
Obviously, Mia took the Jimmy Eat World line from Praise Chorus seriously, that “even at 25, you gotta start sometime” One wonders if she though no one liked her at age 23 when she was amused by tv shows. One interesting aspect that may be a coincidence or may be on purpose, is that the actress playing Mia has a butterfly tattoo, and later you see butterfly posters on the wall. Symbolically, the butterfly is the mature form, released from the cocoon, while Mia’s journey sees her growing up and becoming the mature form of Mia. She leaves behind her caterpillar boyfriend Tyler to go hang with the fellow butterflies and the flowers.
Packed in this crisis of lifestyle choices are Mia’s two friends, the party girl Kristen (who is crushing on Tyler) and the bitter Sara (who hates all men because she was dumped once!) Never fear, a love interest surfaces in nice guy Simon, but will he and Mia get together, or will all these roommates and different goals and hormones get in the way of a love of the ages. Birthday Sex, surprisingly romantic despite the raunchy title and late night Cinemax air dates.
Tina Hawthorne is rapidly becoming my favorite softcore film writer, to the point where I’m now seeking out some of her films. I don’t know if she’s a real person or just a pen name, but the writing is good, nevertheless. (she also wrote Naughty Reunion, which dealt a lot with the relationships between the various high school stereotypes.) Director Austin Brooks also helmed Sexual Quest, which was another film more about relationships in a marriage than the actual sex, which there was a lot of.

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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Alan Stafford, Amber Rayne, Austin Brooks, Brandon Ruckdashel, Kenneth Blake, Mainline Releasing, Misty Anderson, Ryan Driller, Sadie Katz, softcore, Tanya Tate, Tina Hawthorne