One could swap out the cars and the post-apocalyptic setting of Eric Fleitas and Luciana Garraza’s Scavenger for the horses and the Wild West, and not much of the story would change. This is not a problem, as the directors, who co-wrote the actioner with Shelia Fentana, finds the parallels between those two genres and push them to their limits. The results are savage and brutal in a movie that is uneven but fun.
The Argentinian production, whose native title is Carrona, follows Tisha (Nayla Churruarin), a serial killer. She tracks down loners and kills them, selling their corpses as meat. Tisha eventually meets and is double-crossed by stripper Luna (Sofia Lanaro), which lands the intrepid killer in the clutches of sadistic cannibals.
“…Tisha seeks revenge…”
In a sequence that goes on for far, far too long, their leader, Mr. Big, repeatedly rapes her. Now, Tisha seeks revenge for the sexual abuse, her family, who were killed at the start of the downfall of civilization, and the old lady that hired her for this doomed mission.
In terms of updating an exploitation tale for the modern age, the filmmakers are mostly successful; mostly. The violence is as intense and visceral as the setting is bleak and miserable. The dark recesses of human cruelty and the depraved base of wanton personal desires, both common themes in the heyday of exploitation cinema, are dutifully examined here. And while what the screenwriters have to say about such is nothing new, the fact that they look at these facets of the human condition so unflinchingly should be commended.
"…savage and brutal..."
