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Review

The Double Born, a taut microbudget thriller from Tony Randel the director of Hellraiser II crackles with claustrophobic suspense and nearly unbearable tension. It's also one of the tightest microbudget thrillers we've ever seen.

Sammi Davis stars as Sophie, a borderline insane woman who is still grieving the disappearance of het young son many years before. Her husband convinces her to hire someone to help her paint and redo the little boy's room thus setting in motion a descent into total madness that spirals into murder. At her younger sister's suggestion, she hires two young loners from the town who we see behaving in a way that displays their own possible psychosis. Eventually, Sophie finds out her husband is sterile (she's been trying to conceive to make up for the loss of her son) and she begins a disturbing affair with both young boys.

While Davis' Southern (or possibly just hillbilly) accent often seems forced and her psychotic tendencies often have that Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire mania that can make viewers want to reach through the screen and punch her in the face, the acting, otherwise, is quite excellent for the apparent budget. Speaking of budget - the visuals, while clearly indicating that there was almost no money for lighting, actually manage to be more effective at conveying tension and insanity through ingenious budgetary workarounds. Rather than go out of their way to try to make the movie look slicker and higher budget than it was, the filmmakers actually succeed in exploiting their budgetary restrictions to the benefit of their film.

Davis, while made up to look quite distraught and haggard, actually comes off as kind of sexy in some of her scenes - particularly those in which her ample heaving bosoms are displayed gratuitously. The scene where she has threeway sex with the two young misfits is particularly sexy.

While you may telegraph the plot twists and some of the disturbing violence, you will noy be able to get out of your seat due to the tension and violence that get displayed. Violent (particularly an ear cutting scene), occasionally sexy and shockingly well-done, The Double Born proves itself to be outstanding at every turn.

 -- Rick Stanko

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