Curdled [1996]

This brisk little high concept crime movie was originally a short, which explains why it winds up with a punchline rather than an ending. Gabriela [Angela Jones] is a Colombian maid in Miami, working for a company that mops up the gore after violent crimes, and she enjoys a literal and metaphorical dance around the scene of the crime with decapitation-happy serial killer Baldwin, whose latest victim has written his name under a large bloodstain our heroine is due to wipe off. Exec produced by Quentin Tarantino, who yokes in a From Dusk Till Dawn crossover that gets his face briefly on screen, this is a funky study of quiet psychosis, with Jones - the cabbie from Pulp Fiction - extraordinary as the young woman obsessed with but strangely not disturbed by head-lopping horrors. Not too shabby.
KIM NEWMAN

First Published In: Empire [issue unknown]

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