Black Rock

Written by prolific indie-film stalwart Mark Duplass and directed by his actress/director wife, Katie Aselton, Black Rock is a wholly unbelievable thriller that plays like an idiot's mash-up of Deliverance and The Descent, with a dash of Thelma & Louise. The story begins with good-looking girlfriends Sarah (Kate Bosworth), Lou (Lake Bell), and Abby (Aselton) reuniting for a weekend excursion to the tiny island in Maine where they played as kids. Before long the women discover that they're not alone—meeting a trio of rifle-toting war veterans, recently returned from Middle East tours of duty, who are presumably hunting. The girls invite the guys to share a few too many drinks around a campfire, and from there on everybody starts behaving like morons. Blood is spilled, leading to a free-for-all battle between the sexes, whose members start beating and killing each other in a plot that is almost completely bereft of logic, intelligence, or plain common sense. By the end, two bloodied survivors have endured an ordeal that is only slightly more challenging than sitting through this mercifully brief waste of a movie. Not recommended. (J. Shannon)