On DVD: Direct-to-Video Horror-Comedy 'Botched' Proves To Be Anything But

If there's one thing I can say definitively about Kit Ryan's odd little horror comedy Botched, now out on DVD, it is that it's wildly original. You haven't exactly seen anything like Botched. Not in concept. Not in execution. Not in tone. This thing is its own beast entirely, which means two things: you probably haven't heard of it and it will be very hard for me to tell you what to expect without ruining it.

But it's also that originality that makes this a delightful horror surprise and exactly the kind of treat one hopes to find when scouring the shelves at the local video store.

Stephen Dorff plays Richie, a brainiac safe cracker and electronics expert who is effectively the wage slave of a powerful mobster. When the big job he is working on to pay off his family's debt gets... botched... the boss will let him pay off his mistake by taking one final, incredibly risky job: stealing a priceless artifact from a heavily fortified Russian high-rise.

Guess what? Things don't exactly go as planned, and Richie and his crew -- two bizarre, crazed Russian goons -- end up taking hostages on an unfinished floor of the building. Unfortunately for them, they aren't the only ones on that floor. And this mystery man ain't John McClane either. He's a ruthless killer hellbent on offing the hostages and the crooks, one at a time.

Ordinarily, while something of an original premise, this can lend itself to being yet another formulaic series of offings. But Botched proves to be anything but ordinary. It has a sense of humor -- a wicked, cruel, audacious sense of humor, but a sense of humor nonetheless. It isn't funny HA-HA. Doing it a disservice is a quote on the back of the DVD case promising that it's like Shaun of the Dead and Severance. Instead, unlike either of those two brilliant spoofs, it's more akin to last year's wonderful Murder Party.

Once you meet and get to know the killer (of sorts) the movie becomes a whole new, very deranged ball of wax. And the humor makes Botched more of a smile-inducing, damn-that's-weird sort of experience that just screams Midnight Movie/Cult Film at the top of its lungs.

Botched is a highly satisfying, fun ride of a bloody romp, a strange and wonderful dark comedy that is a breath of fresh air compared to any of the recent horror releases -- DVD or theatrical. This one comes recommended for horror buffs of all kinds.

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