Directed by Mike Marshall
Starring Akemi, Albertine, Cherry, GoGo, India, Kokeshi, Loretta, Maia, Manko, Mnislahi, Nic, Sawa, Shenni, Tiffany, Toy, Venla and Yuki.
That’s right more Suicide Girls! These scantly clade and tatted young women are on vacation and we’re along for the ride.
The Movie
Several different European Suicide Girls take a trip in an Italian villa, enjoying the sun, pools, partying and photo shoots. Then they go home. The end.
Suicide Girls: Italian Villa is simply a string of interviews and photo shoots of several different Suicide Girls models from a variety of European countries. If you don’t know what the Suicide Girls organization is, it’s a bunch of goth, punk and indie girls posing for softcore pin-up photos. Think if Playboy girls were less busty and covered with tattoos and piercings.
The format is all the same. A girl at a time is the focus of an interview portion, talking about what brought her to Suicide Girls and the villa. The interview is interspliced with footage of their vacationing activities they describe and clips of other girls. Then there’s a photo shoot of that focused girl, maybe some more dialog, and then it’s off to the next girl. Rinse and repeat. Probably rinse very thoroughly, as this may get somewhat dirty by the end.
But that’s it. That’s the whole film. All the girls do is lounge around, go into town, drink, party and pose. That’s fine for photos, but for an hour and a half, there needs to be more to keep my attention.
I might be more enthusiastic if I found the girls more attractive. Not that I have anything against tattoos, piercings or odd hair colorings. Those are fine. It’s just that a lot of them are just really skinny, “visible rib cage” skinny.
This is presented as the second Suicide Girls DVD, and I’m not surprised. At this point, the Suicide Girls team didn’t seem to understand that there should be more fulfilling content to differentiate the film. There’s nothing here to warrant buying this DVD as opposed to looking at the photos on the Suicide Girls web site.
2/10
The Video
The film is presented in 4×3 fullscreen. I would complain about that if I thought having that wider view would add more to this production. It wouldn’t.
Some shots of the film are done in a grainy filter for an old home-movie look. It gives the film a simple summer vacation feel, which is basically what it is. At least it’s a decent effect though.
4/10
The Audio
Simple Stereo. Some of the girls were difficult to understand, especially the narrator. Some of that are the accents, but it’s also just not the clearest of recordings.
The DVD makes a point to say it is featuring music from several performers, some of which are Suicide Girls in the film. Some of the music is even character-specific for the different girls. Almost all of it is forgettable background music.
3/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features
The one disc comes in a thin cardboard case kept close with only a small paper slip band. The case itself is kind of neat, covered with pictures of the girls laid out like a scrapbook. The cardboard case would typically seem cheap, but it’s decently done and works well for a low-budget release like this.
The back of the box lists English and Spanish subtitles in the DVD’s stats, but then it goes on to list them as special features. At this point in DVDs, subtitles are about as special a feature as the 4×3 fullscreen.
Otherwise, the special features are music videos by a couple of the girls and movie trailers, including two for two other Suicide Girls movies. Oddly enough, only one of those is unrated and shows nudity, as if the other one has to worry about minors watching it.
Two of the three music videos are forgettable, but one – Tying Tiffany’s Honey Doll – earns this release some official geek cred. The video portrays the lead singer green screened in with a bunch of action figures and Barbie dolls, with a band consisting of Ultraman on keys, the Thing on drums and Luke Skywalker on guitar. Throw in some obscure giant robots (Why can’t Go Nagai catch on here like he did in Italy?), and color me impressed.
6/10
Is it sad that I’m more impressed by that one geeky music video than I am with the entire release? Yes, and that’s why this is overall a lackluster release not worth whatever it costs.
Overall (Not an Average) 3/10
The Review
The Series 2/10
The Video 4/10
The Audio 3/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features 6/10
Overall (Not an Average) 3/10