Greetings, fellow filth fanatics.  I, Hamtackle, have decided to start a new segment on Popular Irony, the filthy five.  In it I will provide a list of five strange, offensive, or shocking things in popular culture.  I begin this segment with a list of five cult vengeance films that are superbly fucked up, and therefore are excellent for this venue.  The films are listed in no particular order, as they are all so very wrong in their own way.

5.) Dead Man’s Shoes

This film is all about an older brother to a mentally retarded boy that goes off to serve in the military, and leaves his brother alone.  He has always been his younger brother’s protector, but while he is away a group of criminals and drug dealers take him under their wing.  He serves as their personal mascot and plaything, subjected to horrible torments and ridicule.  When his big bro returns from the army, there is hell to pay.  Highlight:  When big bro doses one of his brother’s tormentors with a buttload of LSD and tortures him.

4.) The Proposition

I love modern westerns, and this one is great.  It takes place in the 1800’s in the australian outback, and follows Charlie, the middle brother in a three-man family gang that is raping and murdering their way across the desert.  Charlie’s older brother is a psychopath and a sadist, and his younger brother is a simpleton and a soft-hearted boy who is mostly along for the ride.  When Charlie and his younger brother are captured he is presented with a proposition.  Either find and kill your older brother, or watch your younger brother hanged.  Highlight:  This is the only film that features a rape scene in which the rapist sings a beautiful rendition of “danny boy” while in the act.  On Christmas day, no less.

3.) 13 Tzameti

This is a french film that is presented in black and white.  The protagonist is a laborer that works for an anonymous old man who lives in a beautiful house.  He discovers the secret to the old man’s wealth when he dies suddenly while the boy is working, and uncovers a letter that features a time an a location, with no other directions.  The boy decides to take his chances, and ends up an unwilling participant in a competitive game chance with fatal outcomes.  Needless to say, his life takes an exciting turn for the worst.  Highlight:  When the protagonist first appears at the location of the competition and receives a t-shirt with the number “13” written in thick black ink, then walks into a room with two men facing each other, guns pointed at each other's heads, with a bare lightbulb dangling between them.

2.) Freeway

Some films are so brilliantly shocking that they can never be mainstream, but are interesting enough to draw big names to appear in the cast.  This film stars Reese Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland, and is a modern retelling of little red riding hood.  Keifer is the big bad wolf, a serial killer that picks up young hitchhiking women to rape and murder.  Reese is little red riding hood herself, a streetwise girl that show the wolf that sometimes the prey can bite back.  Highlight:  When little red riding hood has the tables turned, and mocks the disfigured wolf.  “Well, look who got beat with the ugly stick!”

1.) Oldboy

Some of the finest works in shock cinema is coming out of south korea these days.  If you haven’t watched Oldboy, then you are missing out so badly that I pity you.  The main character is a degenerate drunk, and a horrible father.  One day he is abducted from the streets during a rainstorm and spends the next 15 years imprisoned in an apartment without windows, his only link to the outside world in the form of a television set.  One day a gas cloud floods his room, and when he awakens he is on the roof of a building with one mission- to find out why he was imprisoned, and who did it to him.  Highlight: When Oh Dae Su finally corners one of the men responsible for his suffering, and questions him by tearing out his teeth one-by-one with a claw hammer.

Recently I have been having a difficult time finding suitably cruel and horrific films to review for this series, but I am delighted that at least I can always count on the japanese to come through. Tonight I watched Shogun's Sadism, also known as The Joy of Torture 2: Oxen-Split Torturing. No matter the title, the cinematic intent is pretty clear. This movie consists of two short stories, the first of which I will discuss here. My hopes are high for a romp through the high grass of offensive asian shock cinema.

The setting is Edo in the Shogun era, when christians were being persecuted and killed in a variety of inventive ways. The film opens with a woman being boiled alive, then another hanged before being sliced in two at the waist by a katana. The plot is almost nonexistent, with a thin storyline involving a forbidden love between a traditional young man named Lori and a christian woman after their chance meeting at a riverside snake bite incident. Then the persecution of the christians is detailed in a few scenes of rape, men being burned inside a cauldron, and a man's foot being battered into pulp by a giant hammer to the point that his bones are neatly pulled from a mass of torn flesh. Classy stuff.

Predictably, the lovestruck boy is torn by his feelings for the young girl after she is discovered and subjected to awful sexual abuse, eventually made into the shogun's personal concubine after a rather crude test of her virginity. First impressions are: There is a disturbing amount of rape in this movie, and in true japanese fashion, the penetration is blurred to prevent any, you know... obscenity from tainting the frequent depictions of forcible sexual violation amid a chorus of female screams. It also seems ambiguous whether the intent of the film is to depict a shameful period of cruelty in japanese history, or just to make a lighthearted casual flick about the "good old days". You can never be sure with japanese cinema.

The troubled young concubine is ultimately made to betray the identities of her fellow christians in a desperate move to stop the torture of her younger sister, whose eyes are burned out with a red hot poker, and she is made to watch them all face the fitting end of being crucified and pierced with a long spear. Then more torture and rape. lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually Lori becomes disillusioned with his master's horrible ways and is banished after suffering humiliation in the form of having his hair sliced off (shocking, I know), and vows to rescue his love to prevent any further abuse. He is able to intercept her from her captors during transport, granting him a night alone with her. Unfortunately they are discovered in the morning and Lori is unceremoniously cut down in a brief sword fight. But once again we see that men had it much easier than women in those times, as the christian girl is sentenced to die by having her legs torn in opposite directions by an elaborate system of pulleys and oxen. And credits roll on the first short story as we are informed that the shogun is later promoted to minister of religion. How fitting.

My final conclusions are lukewarm here, as I was turned off by the misogynistic imagery and frequent rape scenes. I counted about nine acts of rape and sexual abuse in around 40 minutes, putting it far in the running for most tasteless film yet. The special effects are decent, save the cut aways that spare the viewer from seeing the awkward transition from unmarred human flesh to tattered raw pork shots, but the real disappointment is in the final ox splitting scene. The young girl's lower torso is clearly hidden through a hole in the platform, sloppily masked by white rags as her legs are torn asunder. Not that I was hoping for any real depiction of violence. I mean, only a real sicko would seek THAT stuff out.

Welcome again to Films For Fiends, where I, Hamtackle, watch the most disturbing, controversial, and violent films ever produced so you don't have to! It's been a long time since I have weighed in with another installment, so I hope you haven't had to look elsewhere for you gorno fix. Enjoy!

The Guinea Pig series is a notorious collection of japanese horror films that are famous for their themes of sexual sadism and torture. I already reviewed the first film in the series, "The Devil's Experiment", and now bring you a run down on part 2, subtitled "Flower of Flesh and Blood". It claims the background of a video sent to prominent manga horror cartoonist Hideshi Hino by a misguided fan, who viewed it and then turned it over to the police before reproducing it in this gem of shock horror cinema.

As with any japanese horror, the film begins with an ominous sequence of a young woman being pursued and abducted by a masked man. Come to think of it, this is also how most japanese pornography begins. Maybe I downloaded the wrong file. The only way to know for sure is after her abductor applies electric shock, he will either stab her with a knife or a dildo.

Ok, this is clearly the horror version. The drugged girl awakens tied to a table, and a man dressed as a samurai stands over her and decapitates a chicken telling her "This is your fate!" as if that wasn't obvious by the act itself. Of course, in his defense, she might have just thought he was cooking her dinner. Japanese courtship rituals often mirror those of serial killers. Luckily for her the man keeps drugging her with some unknown injectable cocktail, and let's face it: if you are going to be rape/killed by a wacky mustachioed samurai, you're going to want to be as far from sober as possible.

And after a half-assed explanation of the artistic merits of his fetishistic torture, he gets right down to the nitty gritty by cutting off both of the girl's hands. I must admit, the effects are quite realistic, complete with grasping fingers after detachment. He then cuts off her arms at the shoulder with equally impressive effects. You see the cutting close-up, with minimal cutaways. He even employs the use of a carpenter's chisel to get through the shoulder joint.

It seems pretty clear now that this guy's plan is to disassemble this girl like a thanksgiving turkey, as he gets to detaching the legs at the knee with a crude, rusty hand saw. This flick would almost be believable if it weren't for the dramatic and shitty acting by the killer and the total lack of nudity. Pretty much any serial killer is going to be masturbating into the viscera of their victim eventually. It's kinda the point of the whole thing, I think. This guy doesn't even sport so much as a half-chub as he opens her stomach and removes the intestines. But then again, he is japanese, so who knows? The special effect guy gets bonus points for using animal guts al-la dawn of the dead. They make for a much more authentic experience.

The girl is then shown some mercy as the killer literally drops the axe on her, separating her head from the body (or is it the body from the head? I'm not sure.) We are then treated to a close up eye removal via spoon, and their seductive kissing and licking by our psycho, and then the film cuts to him sitting on the bloodstained table smoking a cigarette. Maybe he jerked off into the corpse off-camera. Good thing. We showed up to watch hardcore violence, not disgusting and taboo sexuality. The film ends with the killer showing off his collection of severed limbs and preserved eyes, along with some additional half-assed poetry.

If you are familiar with the original Guinea Pig film, then you know what to expect from this. But there is one noticeable difference, and that is the unconsciousness of the female lead in this one. Personally I like it better this way, as the frantic screaming of a young japanese girl is always welcome, but only in short measures. The first film was like watching tentacle porn with sandpaper suction cups, and not in a good way. These films are one of the first series to attempt virtual snuff films, and gave birth to the "torture porn" genre. And given it's brief vignette style of filming and complete lack of any plotline or redeeming social value makes this film the perfect way for a seriously sick individual to get a short fix of violence to beat back the urges to dismember your coworkers. If that sort of thing is not your bag, then you probably stopped reading this after the first few paragraphs.

Hello again, filth hounds! Welcome to another installment of Films For Fiends with your dear Hamtackle, where I watch the most offensive and vile movies available, ruin the plotlines, then give a brief review. Today I bring you August Underground's Mordum. It strikes me as an incredibly cheaply made indie goth shock film, but let's not judge a book by it's cover.

The film is entirely shot with what looks like a handheld VHS camcorder, and begins with a man catching his girlfriend fucking another man, who we later find out is her brother. When confronted the woman uses a transparently fake special effect to "cut" herself, and her boyfriend tries to let off steam by tracking down a random man and attacking him with a hammer. Afterwards the couple searches the man's house to find disturbing evidence of a household of junkies, complete with maggot-ridden food and overdose victims, before settling in to cut apart the body of the hammer victim.

Then cut to another home, where our duo inexplicably have a pair of people tied up and locked in wooden chests. They pull one woman out and rape/sexually assault her, and torment a man with a knife and scissors, forcing him to castrate himself. This leads to further sexual torment for the female prisoner as the pair shove the severed cock into her vagina. Classy, I know.

The next ten minutes or so consists of throwaway footage of the couple aggravating a store clerk and eating in cheap restaurants before returning to their lair to further abuse their captives, which still have yet to have any backstory explained. The woman proceeds to abuse the prisoners, leading to disgusting footage of a chunky emo girl laughing and puking on two other chunky crying emo girls. Forget gore, this is the most disturbing aspect of this film and will probably be a lifetime boner-kill to everyone but the actors involved. Oh yes, and now there is another man in the video, who we see brief glimpses of as the camera is passed around. This goes on for around twenty minutes until the dark haired fat chick is disemboweled, and the light haired fat chick is suffocated and beaten. The scene ends with one of the men having sex with the stomach wound of the recently dispatched dark haired woman.

There is quite a bit of cinematic body exploration in the middle of the movie, from the men showing their tiny, flaccid penises to the woman rubbing her pussy on everything within reach and playing with one man's toes. And not surprisingly the filmmakers don't miss the opportunity to show off their musical skills, you know, since they are making a movie that no one but me will watch. And can you guess what kind of music they play? If you guessed "incompetent death metal" then you get a cookie!

We are then treated to disjointed scenes of the group getting piercings and having fake fistfights, punctuated by additional close up shots of them flashing their genitals. The off-putting woman seems to have an amazing talent of vomiting on command, and they take the camera on a tour of their home which is by now littered with rotting body parts. These people must know someone with actual skill in prop making, as the body parts are passable effects considering that the quality of the film leads you to expect paper mache or something equally cheap.

Tragically the group suffers from increased infighting, resulting in more shrill screaming and hilarious arguments before ending abruptly with the insinuation that they all killed each other. The end is quite welcome, as is the implied death of all characters involved since they are not developed into any kind of story and inspire no emotions other than contempt and pity. To say it was pointless would be an understatement.

Now I feel like I should offer a brief warning for this movie, as if you intend on watching it you will have to put up with some of the most annoying performances ever captured on film. The female lead shrieks constantly, the male leads giggle like retards, and there is an overwhelming odor of chubby, unwashed emo throughout. Make no mistakes, this movie was made for the expressed purposes of shock value and overall it tries WAY too hard. I suppose that when the "filmmakers" finished this work they were pretty convinced they had produced one of the most shocking movies of all time. But all they had done, in my opinion, is create an unwatchable, poorly edited, steaming pile of shaky camerawork filled with self indulgence. It is clear that a group of social reject friends got together and decided that instead of cutting themselves and writing shitty poetry they should make a movie.

From what I have read there was a decent amount of uproar following the release of this film as many thought they were watching genuine torture-porn, but from what I can tell this is mostly because the acting and camerawork are so terrible that many might conclude that it must be genuine. Bravo, shitty producers. Bravo. Overall I would say that these people tried so hard to be dark and "edgy" that it is like Marilyn Manson and Criss Angel had a baby, got it addicted to meth, beat it into retardation, then filmed it's dreams.  But in a hilariously bad way. I fucking hated this movie, but unfortunately I downloaded two others by these filmmakers already so I might as well review them in a future installment of Films For Fiends.