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Overall Rating : 8.5/10
Directed By : Tony Marsiglia
Misty Mundae (Shock-O-Rama)
Julian Wells (Skin Crawl)
Darian Caine (Lust For Dracula)
Andrea Davis (Sin Sisters)
Date Reviewed : December. 5, 2007
Supplied By : Seduction Cinema
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
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| PLOT Chantal has just arrived in California to become a movie star. Beautiful, naïve and dangerously delusional, she wanders the boulevards looking for her first big break. There she meets Tracy, an actress-turned-prostitute, and the two of them begin an uneasy intimate relationship. Tracy warns of the harsh realities lurking beyond the glamorous façade of Hollywood, but Chantal s innocence makes her easy prey for monsters that inhabit the dark underbelly of the film business. |
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| THE REVIEW In Tony Marsiglia's remake of a 1969 Grindhouse classic by the same name, Directed by Nick Phillips, CHANTAL tells the all too familiar story of a young bright-eyed girl arriving in Hollywood to make it big. CHANTAL is a young naive girl whom has saved up all of her hard-earned many and crammed her whole life into a suitcase and headed for the bright lights of Hollywood. Her goal? To become an actress, a big star. Upon arriving, she calls up her Mother and delivers to her hopeful promises, that in one weeks time, she will be a big named actress, telling her to be prepared to see her little girl's name in lights. For any girl that has Hollywood ambitions, this is the blueprint of their way of thinking, a majority believe that no matter where they come from, once they arrive in California it will all fall in their laps - but as Chantal would find out, sometimes reality can be a little less brighter than they expected. Chantal soon realizes that Hollywood is not always bight and cheery and that it actually has a dark side. We watch as Chantal, the nice girl, who simply just wants to become an actress to make her Mother proud gets swindled by just about everyone she meets. Those who wrong her, notice her vulnerability and use and abuse her to the fullest extent, which eventually causes CHANTAL to crumble helplessly, and unfortunately hopeless as well. Shot in or around 2003, CHANTAL is one film that I, and i'm sure many other Misty Mundae followers have been waiting so anxiously too see. After the long wait, CHANTAL is finally available, and I must say that it was very much worth the wait. Director Tony Marsiglia, and star Misty Mundae team up for what is being called Misty's last role with the company that made her a fan favorite, POP CINEMA. In recent years, Misty Mundae(now going by real name, Erin Brown) has been branching out into more "mainstream" roles. And if a film were to ever be used to prove Brown worthy of mainstream status this would be it. I have seen Brown in countless roles - each of them very different, but I haven't seen her quite like this....her performance here is excellent. In his version, Marsiglia, takes the general idea of Phillips' film, and further extends it with the utmost honesty, brutality, and realism. I was happy to see that nothing is sugar coated, what you see is real, it's harsh, and at times it's even offensive - but let's face it people, our world is an offensive place, reality is hard to deal with, and the people deny all of it are lying to themselves. In my opinion, CHANTAL is as real as it can get, the things displayed within, happen everyday we are just unaware that it is. The film is a detailed character study, as it's not such a film that goes from A to Z in a matter of minutes. We start out with a wide-eyed energetic girl in Chantal, but as we watch on, she slowly declines, and by the films climax, she is but only a mere, small shell of the character the film introduced to us in the beginning - both mentally and in psychical appearance. The film's cinematography Dang Lenawae(whom also shot Marsiglia's SINFUL), is quite impressive. Here, Marsiglia has chosen to present the film with a washed out color, while focusing more in detail on certain colors. This gives the film a worn and grainy look, and to me, it was the perfect look for the film as it puts an even further emphasis on CHANTAL's realistic feel. Over the years I have seen just about every type of film POP CINEMA has to offer via their many labels and I must say that this one is POP's "epic" picture. Although low budget, Marsiglia's CHANTAL doesn't give off any indication that it is, the characters are all well written the story has real depth - overall you get the feeling that this project was of high value to all that were involved, as nothing about it seems at all rushed or compromised(as it is so obvious in some of their other projects). The acting in CHANTAL is pretty much above average on all accounts(although I didn't really care for the role of a sleazy motel owner, by the Director himself, whom performance was a little too over-the-top for me). Erin Brown(Misty Mundae). once again shows us that she is more than just a sex kitten - she is a very versatile actress. Brown has a knack for taking characters that are so far different from herself in reality and making them very believable. She has always been good at playing the delusional, weird type(as displayed previously in Marsiglia's LUST FOR DRACULA). As CHANTAL she has the opportunity to do so again, except for this time it's a little different, it's basically a "tour-de-force" for her. In the beginning, the character is happy, bright and ambitious, later we see her giving in and giving up and basically trying to keep a grip on her dream, and finally, by film's and has lost touch with everything that surrounds her to the point of apparent insanity - not only do we get to see Brown play one character, but it's almost as if she is portraying multiple roles here, due to Chantal's many changes she undergoes during the course of the film. As I said earlier, I have seen many of the films POP CINEMA has released, and I have to say that this one has to be my favorite so far. Not to knock any of the other POP CINEMA films, but this is the first in-house production of theirs where the finished product feels like a "real" film - once you have watched it, you feel as if you have went along on a journey.....an adventure of sorts. In my opinion, CHANTAL is without a doubt, the best film POP CINEMA has produced thus far. |
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| GORE
METER N/A There really is no gore on display here, but the content is thrilling and realistic, witch suggestive scenes of rape and etc, |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 6/10 The score is mainly comprised of acoustic laced tracks, which I thought suited the movie really well. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I have read only but a few reviews, which have been for the most part positive, but I saw that this movie was rated really low over at IMDb.com, and I have to question why. The reason I question it is because, what more do they want? In my opinion, with CHANTAL, POP CINEMA has gone out of their way to give us their all with this project, as I found the story to be fantastic. Included on the second disc of this set is the 1969 original, which is shorter in runtime, and seems to solely go for a softcore aspect, rather than the complete and thorough story we get with the remake. |
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