By David Dent
Onur Tukel is no stranger to serving up difficult movies for his audiences. His last, 2021’s That Cold Dead Look Your Eyes, was a zombie movie which took the rise out of the New York arts scene. Poundcake’s targets include but are not limited to: dumb podcast creators; Manhattan socialites; #metoo; the complexity of consenting anal sex (twice); and horrible office politics. All this around a story of a slasher rapist, patrolling the streets of NYC, looking for CIS white males.
Named Poundcake – after his propensity to aggressively attack his victims’ rear ends before (or after, it’s not clear) killing – by the media, this nameless, masked avenger (or revenger, we never find out) strikes fear into the heart of straight white men, who all fear they might be next. The backlash voices from the City’s population, in the movie largely distilled via podcast excerpts and salty dinner party conversations, seem to range from general could care lessness to outright support; these white guys have had it coming to them for centuries, opinion confirms, and it’s about time they felt the oppression already experienced New York’s minority groups. “Just because I’m rich, hot and white doesn’t make me a monster!” says one soon to be Poundcake victim.
For a while Tukel suggests, in his depiction of various gatherings of the city’s populace, that we might be offered up the potential identity of the rapist/killer somewhere within his cast of characters, but by the end of the movie we’re not even sure that Poundcake exists, or whether he might instead be some distillation of the rage and hate speak generated by the news of his crimes and the resultant homophobic and sexist responses. Those within the epicentre of his atrocities – witnesses and friends of the deceased – are hauled to account by social media ‘stars’ and then ignored, in favour of a ‘truth’ more in line with the interviewers’ beliefs. Even the subsequent call for calm – “high five a white boy!” – seems deeply cynical.
Oh and I should point out that much of this is toe curlingly, look away now funny, although I’m really not sure to what audience Poundcake is aimed. Certainly Tukel is no Millennial (he appears in the film as the ‘butt’ – sorry – of the running anal sex theme) and the whole thing comes across as a bit of a mirror held up to 21st Century ‘woke’ America. Awkward it constantly is, offensive it certainly is, but you won’t be bored.
Poundcake screens as part of Frightfest 2023.
Bloody Flicks 