( miramax - 1996 ) starring william baldwin , angela jones , bruce ramsay , mel gorham , lois chiles , daisy fuentes , barry corbin screenplay by john maass & reb braddock produced by john maass and raul puig directed by reb braddock running time : 94 minutes curdled is a deliciously dark and witty black comedy , but its humour won't appeal to everyone . to be specific , let me give you an example . do you know in pulp fiction where jules and vincent go on brain detail after marvin and his head accidentally get separated ? if you thought that was completely tasteless and unfunny , don't see curdled . on the other hand , if you found that sequence to be pretty funny , you have the sense of humour that curdled is aimed at . our film's heroine , gabriela , played by angela jones , is a woman obssessively curious about murder and serial killers ; she even keeps a scrapbook of news articles . luckily for her , miami is being plagued by a serial killer rampage - her scrapbook is getting pretty big . the killer's nickname in the press is the blue blood killer , because he preys on older rich socialite women , and he's played by william baldwin ( this is not a spoiler ) . one particularly striking m . o . on the blue blood killer is his propensity to decapitate his victims . gabriela is watching television one day when she spots an advertisement for a firm whose line of work is perfectly attuned to her interests . she immediately quits her job , and signs on with pfcs , which stands for post-forensic cleaning service . no points for guessing what they do . her workmates are confused by gabriela's fascination with murder ; to them , it's just a day job . there's a hilarious locker room scene where they debate whether decapitated heads can talk , and what they would say . gabriela's partner , elena , played by mel gorham , is particularly perturbed by gabriela's wide-eyed fascination , and becomes really upset when gabriela volunteers them to clean up the blue blood killer's latest scene - they're the messiest , you see . unbeknownst to them , the last victim left something on the scene which would id the blue blood killer , so he's also heading over there . . the comparison to pulp fiction earlier on was not accidental - quentin tarantino executive-produced this film , which began life as a short film he saw at a film festival . apparently tarantino was so impressed that he helped braddock convert this into a feature-length film . there are other parallels - the star of curdled is angela jones ( the top billing goes to william baldwin , but really , jones is the central character ) , who's probably best known for her role as esmerelda villalobos , the death-obssessed taxi driver in pulp fiction . that role was written specifically for jones based upon her similar character in the aforementioned short film , curdled jr . jones is great in curdled - she's wonderfully funny and maintains an amusing wide-eyed naive curiousity about murder without compromising her character's innocence or likeability . she can express so much with one lift of her eyebrow . it's a great performance . reb braddock's direction is extremely sharp and clever , toeing the line between black humour and bad taste . the best scene in the film is an outrageously funny sequence involves jones and dancing - any more than that would be a spoiler . the opening credit sequence is also inventive and amusing . of course , it's impossible to really take this stuff seriously , but then again you're not really supposed to - braddock knows the audience is in on the joke , and makes it a fun little romp as a result . the one drawback of curdled is that it was based on a short film , and it feels like it ; the material is just stretched too thin in order to fulfill a feature length running time , and some parts just seem to drag . while its running time is already a short 94 minutes , it could really stand to lose twenty minutes or so to give it better pacing . curdled seems destined to be a nice cult film for miramax . it'll be interesting to see if it will appeal to mainstream audiences as well . 
