Review

Unflinchingly bleak and boldly experimental, Warning!!! Pedophile Released fuses arthouse innovation and taboo exploitation into one gut-churning emotional experience. Kai Lanette plays Echo who begins as a twelve-year-old girl pleading for the innocence of the eighteen-year-old boy accused of molesting her. The film quickly transitions into the first of its three distinct chapters, "Female Age 15," which features an emotionally scarred Echo wandering through bleak wastelands of suburban detritus before she's brutally attacked and raped by two men whose faces we never see. The entire rape is shown as Echo cries and whimpers while intercutting to her attempted recovery. Her uncaring father throws her out of the house which leads us to the second chapter, "Little Girl Gone Bad," in which Lanette is now sixteen and attempting to survive while homeless and prostituting herself. This second chapter is by far the most exploitative as evidenced by the introduction of bold colors into the previously muted palette and the numerous gratuitous nude scenes offered by Lanette. Somehow, she survives this phase and we are taken into what may be the saddest chapter in the film, "The Sex Offender." In this chapter, Echo is now living with her accused molester's blind mother (Molly Wryn) and waiting for her true love Malachi to finally be released from prison. Malachi is released, but there are no easy happy endings in this film and his transition back into a society which doesn't want him back is anything but easy. Further emphasizing society's harsh treatment of sex offenders and released criminals is a subplot involving Stephen (Sean Cain) a prison buddy of Malachi's who's been unable to find a job who we're introduced to as his completely naked sister (Joanna Angel) is screaming at him to leave her house. Relentlessly sad, emotionally effective and with just the right dose of exploitation, Warning!!! Pedophile Released is a near masterpiece.

 -- Daniel Reed