CAST
Robert Boulter ... Sean    
Sian Breckin ... Lisa       
Tom Burke ...   Bluey
Nichola Burley ... Tammi       
Julian Morris ... Josh
Jay Taylor ... Marcus       
Jaime Winstone ... Kim   

Release Date: 18th July 2008
Running Time: 1hr 39mins

Oh lord, fresh from the brain-rattling nightmare of trying to explain what castration anxiety horror film Teeth was about without using certain very obvious words along comes Donkey Punch. Half the film critics in the world will just have thrown out the thesaurus at this point in trying to come up with euphemisms…
 
Jaime Winstone (Ray Winstone's daughter, which automatically improves her chances of survival) is dragged along to Spain by her two girl friends after her boyfriend cheats on her. Once there, they meet three hard-partying British guys who suggest they go back to the yacht they crew while the owner is away.

They follow and find Sean, the only sensible character in this film apart from Winstone's Kim, who isn't happy with their plans. All the characters pop E and get drunk, and the obnoxious Bluey (think Brian Austin Green with a harelip) starts to boast about his sexual exploits in an incredibly annoying faux-Jamaican accent. Sean and Kim remain on deck while the others go beneath for an orgy with a video camera (remember that, it'll come in important later) that captures the fatal moment when the titular sexual manoeuvre is performed.

The actors are all unkown bar Winstone, so obligingly the makers have cast lookalikes including a Richard Hammond and a Dolores O'Riordan to make it easier to remember who's who, but of course it also means you're unsure who will survive to the final reel.

A great feeling of dread is efficiently built up from the moment the obviously more than just a bit sleazy guys suggest going back to the boat. After that everything gets a bit Lord of the Flies - on a Boat in quite realistic fashion, and for a long while everything is uneasy and tense but then one of the characters suffers a stupidity leak and afterwards it's a quick downward spiral: there's death by flare gun, hand-held propeller and plausibility is shoved overboard.

The makers have quite obviously no idea how to end their film, or even what genre to end it in it, horror or thriller. Donkey Punch then must be judged a good film that falls apart, but what's far more interesting is that director Ollie Blackburn shows not a little bit of flair in his long tracking camera movements along the corridors of this opulent yacht.

In contrast to the disaster that was The Cottage back in March this is a low-budget British horror that leaves you eager to see what the writer and director will do next.
 
It also manages to provide one genuinely great moment between the two surviving girls when trapped in a room one of them makes a suggestion only to be met with the riposte: "You want me to run thru a glass door? You do it! You're heavier…"
 
Fergal Casey