content warning: gore, violence against women, sexual content, drug and alcohol abuse

For a horror film named after a sex act, Donkey Punch is a surprisingly sharp crime horror. Basically, a group of seven Brits on vacation take a fancy boat into international waters for some sex and drugs. They all get high, talk about the funniest sex acts they know, and one young man gets dumb enough to try the titular donkey punch. The blow kills the young woman instantly and the six surviving revelers all try to take matters into their own hands.

Donkey Punch is like a grotesque Agatha Christie mystery. You don’t know who will get popped off next, and you don’t know how it will go down. Donkey Punch even features one disturbing and unbelievable kill I’ve never seen in decades of consuming slashers like air. It’s And Then There Were None on steroids, only set in the same universe as Dead Calm.

High seas horror/thrillers are nothing new. The novelty here is not the depravity of the action but the quiet of the film. It feels like a really good cinematic adaptation of a play. The scenes are very controlled and usually break off into smaller interactions between two and three characters at a time. The pacing is slow and suspenseful. Characters inadvertently reveal huge truths about their real personas while literally fighting other characters on the boat.

The boat itself is perfect for this kind of film. I’m reluctant to call it a yacht (even if it may technically be one) because it feels so intimate. Once the party is over and everyone hunkers below deck for strategy and manipulation, the boat with bedrooms bigger than some characters’ apartments feels tiny. The murder is wisely played at sunset, meaning any attempt to escape the seemingly tight quarters results in an endless sea of night.

The darkness, isolation, and tight proximity become more claustrophobic as the body count rises. These young people clearly do not want to revisit what happened at all, so they silently agree to never reenter the space where a horrific murder happened again. There are only so many places to hide on a ship and nowhere to run to so far from shore.

The characters in Donkey Punch are so obsessed with escaping blame that they miss out on actually understanding what has really happened. The initial murder is filmed as part of the party, but even the witnesses in the room don’t know exactly what happened. Instead of trying to figure things out and work together on the best course of action, the young people immediately deflect blame and refuse to examine their own roles in the tragic death. No one is without fault by the end of the film and even the audience will question what just happened.