BB Movie Review - Mr Rumsey

"Its early scenes, exploitative as they are, at least hint at an interesting movie; maybe one about relationships and the meaning of fidelity; maybe one about the ambiguous nature of exploitation; maybe one about the nature of drug addiction."


We venture into this synth infused take on camgirls, obsession and exploitation…

Our hero is a girl named Leah Lamont (Jennifer Mae) rather than, as you might have assumed, BB. Like several of the films’ characters, she has an alliterative name; perhaps this is set in some sort of adult version of the Marvel Universe. I say an adult version as, in the first scene of the film, LL attends an interview with Madame CC – Candace Camera – in the hopes of becoming a camgirl. A camgirl is a type of adult performer who engages in video calls with clients, who can pay to see them perform certain acts. LL takes on a stage name of CC – Candy Cummings – and, for a brief time, the life of a camgirl looks rosy; she’s raking in enough to buy her Romanian-American girlfriend first-class tickets to Bucharest, to visit her family during a time of crisis. But, wouldn’t you know it, before too long things have turned sour; her girlfriend may or not be involved with dodgy drugs and a dodgy ex and, more immediately concerning, she’s being stalked by a wounded veteran with a screenname of HH – HornyHal – though only we, the viewers, are privy to his identity, which is made clear to us in a series of his taped video-confessions.

These video-confessions quickly become tedious, as all HornyHal has to say about himself is that he’s a creepy stalker. These sections are not well-written enough to offer a compelling look inside the mind of a stalker, nor do they do much to move the plot forward, or even to give HornyHal’s actor Kristian Hanson a chance to prove himself. In a film that’s only 72 minutes long, they still manage to feel like padding, frequently interrupting what little the picture has going on outside of its stalk-the-victim plot.

With its explicit nudity and sex, beginning in its first scene, its dreamy, synthy score and its visual style – the sort of hazy editing and focus-unfocus-focus photography seen in flicks either by or emulating Harmony Korine – it’s easy to get suckered into thinking you’re watching an art film. But actually, this is a fairly simple stalker picture of the sort you’ve likely seen several times; just last month, a considerably better example of the type was shown at FrightFest. Its early scenes, exploitative as they are, at least hint at an interesting movie; maybe one about relationships and the meaning of fidelity; maybe one about the ambiguous nature of exploitation; maybe one about the nature of drug addiction. What we probably wouldn’t guess is that it’s only going to be a do-over of an age-old story, dressed up in an unappealingly pretentious package. By its final confrontation, BB is a curious, though not an interesting, example of a compromise that pleases no-one: it is not sexy enough to compete with true-blue pornography; not effective enough for thriller or horror fans; and not clever enough for arthouse audiences. In fact, it’s hard to find much to recommend about it.

Check out the original review here.

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