Directed by Stacie Ponder and Shannon Lark
Written by Shannon Lark
Featuring Shannon Lark
Reviewed by Laceration Lacey
Shannon Lark and Stacie Ponder's short Lip Stick opens up on the vacant slummy streets of a no-name sleepy town in the deep hours of the night immediately focusing in on a seedy motel, dimly-lit by street lamps and flashing railway lights. The sombre silence is immediately pierced by the pleasure-induced gasps & moans of the yet-to-be-unveiled mysterious woman getting screwed to the high heavens. Flash forward a few seconds later - the seductive and quite obviously sex-crazed—mystery mistress appears in the nude (after what appears to be a damn good shagging), having a conversation with someone—who...isn't...there?...
Stereotypical blonde bimbos fear not! For the character's motive behind this perplexing little episode is somewhat indirectly revealed through the ‘maniacal-Mom’ inspired monologue that swiftly follows.
This woman has quite obviously been emotionally and psychologically disrupted by her Mother's firm implantation of the belief that she is worthless, good for nothing—no good to any man (which is apparently a touchy subject for the two). It seems as though the gaping void of dangerously low self-esteem has manifested itself as a malign taste for auto-erotic genital mutilation. (Yikes!) What begins as a lucid lip stick insertion scene that puts Linnea Quigley's in Kevin Tenney's Night of the Demons to damn sexy shame, wastes no time getting down and dirty with the kinky sex toys...and finishes off with a mind-blowing orgasm that you will likely never forget.
Throughout the progression of the film, we're presented with blatant indications that the character suffers from multiple personality disorder—or something similar; But it also seems as though maybe she is experiencing vicious self-loathing, to a fatal degree, in the mentally catastrophic aftermath of a really bad relationship. Whether or not this unidentified abusive entity actually exists or really is the 'alter-ego' that one would easily perceive is never revealed; it's very hard to tell between the rather disheartening 'I hate myself' monologues and the strange phone calls that often had me convinced that there was no one on the other end of the line.
The film is overwrought with ambiguity—which isn't really such a bad thing in this case, as Lip Stick manages to stimulate a few various organs—including not only your brain, but your girlie parts as well.
Visually, the film is a very visceral experience. Stacie Ponder's cinematography is some of the best I've seen of any amateur short film, undeniably a challenge for any set of eyes - even those belonging to the real sickos scaling an immeasurable level of desensitization. It goes without saying that of the 2008-2009 Viscera Film Festival selections, Lark and Ponder's Lip Stick has—above all else—managed to penetrate the deepest concaves of my vaginal cavity.
Rating: (4 out of 5):
