Gold Digger Killer

This Hip-Hop horror flick from Jeff Carroll
has all of the earmarks of standard Hollywood fare: a high body count,
severed limbs (or, in this case a penis on a bathroom floor), death
penalty as suitable punishment for deviant behavior – especially if
you’re pulled over on a dimly lit street enjoying road-head. But the
similarities are strictly plot-points; the delivery, execution and commentary
are unique to this film.

Before the credits roll, the film’s principle
dualism is revealed in the form of a poor pregnant girl performing a
coat-hanger abortion in lieu of funds for medical care (that is: in
lieu of a decent supportive man), and bleeding to death on her bathroom
floor. This is to say that only one member of a relationship can excel.
It is the parasite versus the host. The friction is between gold-diggers
and deadbeat playas; the film allows little room for altruism.

During a routine trip to the abortion
clinic, Imani hears the news of this fatality through one of her friends,
(a woman who practices abortion as birth control and tells the doctor
to keep his opinions to himself and “vacuum this shit outta me,
please”) and realizes that her hoopty-driving ass needs to ditch
her student boyfriend and find a brother that’ll buy her a new whip.

Immediately, the action is broken up
for the first of a series of poetry-slam interludes that act as commentary
on Hip-Hop, misogyny and relationships: “If you fuck him, he will
leave you.” This dynamic achieves a nearly metaphysic quality when
Imani delivers a poem of her own at what we come to understand is called
Club Juicy.

Imani, if you have not guessed, becomes
the Gold Digger Killer after her first experiment in gold-digging goes
horribly awry and results in a date-rape gang-bang. Her first victim
is the hilariously dim-witted and morally bankrupt hotel clerk who finds
her half-dead and proceeds to indulge in sloppy seconds, err, fifths.

From that point, the plot is Hollywood
fodder: bloodshed and eventual capture. The interesting moments are
pleasantly disembodied exposes and pure poetry. A book-group discusses
a self-help volume called I’m not a player, I’m a bachelor written
by an author who admits that his childhood was wrought with low self-esteem
and Freudian symbolism: “I grew up having to hear my mother call
my father a motherfucker all the time.” A daytime talk show discusses
the effects of Hip-Hop on heterosexual relationships: “I blame
Hip-Hop,” says one guest, “they make women look like prostitutes.”
And finally, Imani writes in her poem notebook after adopting her gold-digger
killer mentality: “I am what you get for using your dick as a weapon.”

It seems, finally, that no one can bear
the entire burden of healthy relationships. Hip-Hop should keep misogyny
in check, women should abandon gold-digging as a means to power, men
shouldn’t fuck-and-forget. But until these issues are resolved, enjoy
the tastefully corrupt one-liners and slashy-go-lucky blood trail of
Gold Digger Killer: