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The Blog to rule all Blogs!!  Rescued from the wreckage of the utterly abandoned PopularIrony.com, wiped down, imported and born anew!  Same old filth, new coat of shit!

Posts in "film review"
Films For Fiends: Shogun's Sadism Part 1

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.

Films For Fiends: Guinea Pig 2

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.

Films For Fiends: August Underground's Mordum

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.

Films For Fiends- Guinea Pig: The Devil's Experiment

Welcome one and all to another installment of Films For Fiends, where I, Hamtackle, review the most foul, violent, and disturbing films of all time. Tonight I bring you Guinea Pig: The Devil's Experiment by Satoru Ogura. This is a somewhat legendary film that was released in 1985, and it was rumored to be a re-enactment of a snuff film that was sent to the director. He apparently watched it before sending it to the Tokyo police, but it dominated his thoughts until he reproduced it for our viewing pleasure. It consists of very little plot and a whole lot of brutal torture, and gave rise to the term "gorno". So let's see if it's worth a violence boner.

The film is only 43 minutes long, and centers around a group of three guys who decide to carry out a horrible experiment. They will capture a random woman and torture her until she decides to accept death, then send the results to the police. Charming, I know. It is all shot very amateurish to add to it's authenticity, and begins with a clean-cut lady tied to a chair being slapped repeatedly by her captors. They dip their hands in water and coat them in salt for further brutal effect, and beat her mercilessly with a coin-filled sock. The only saving grace to the disturbing scene is that it is clearly fake, and the woman takes the beating like a champ.

I imagine this might be where most real women would check out in real life, but this tough gal endures a three man texas-style boot party followed by a thorough pinching administered by pliers without appearing very impressed. The thugs take her toughness as a challenge, but again fail to break her when they inexplicably decide to spin her in an office chair to the point of unconsciousness, then force feed her liquor. Not much of a torture if you ask me. I did this same thing to myself two weeks ago.

Moving on to psychological torture, the men play computerized static to her through headphones for twenty hours until she screams like a banshee then appears to go comatose. But still she persists. It is at this point that they ratchet up the violence, tearing out patches of her hair and peeling away her fingernails. For me it would be at this point that I request a bullet, but not her. I am starting to like this lady.

Now the men liberally apply scalding cooking oil to her tender bits, starting with the inside flesh of her arms, to sizzling effect. Cue the maggots. The foul worms are applied to her burns and go to town on the necrotic flesh, although the girl seems too out of it to properly digest the horror of the situation. Strangely, the captors then decide to giggle like retards while they throw rotting meat at their prisoner. Entertaining? Yes. Torture? No.

But then the trio begins to truly test her bounds. They cut her hands with a scalpel and batter them with a hammer in what is actually a pretty convincing special effect, and then shove a needle through the side of her head and out her retina. Talk about escalating the situation. The film ends rather abruptly with a shot of the dead woman suspended in some kind of net.

So overall, how was it? I spent most of this film wondering what all the fuss was about. The majority of the torture is rather mundane and not particularly disturbing, but the ambiance and tone of it is quite menacing and downright mean. But the gouging of the eye was definitely cringe-worthy, even for someone as desensitized as myself. Overall I felt like I was cheated out of the gruesome promises the film made on the internet, probably mostly due to the acting of the victim. I am a big fan of japanese gore films, and they are generally much more inventive and unconventional than american slasher flicks, but the stoic submissiveness of the japanese woman lends itself better to pornography than torture, I guess. At least it avoids the transparently dishonest attempt at redeeming morality that tarnishes films like Cannibal Holocaust, although it is more likely to lull a gore-hound to sleep than inspire frantic masturbation. But I understand there are like six other brutal short films in the Guinea Pig franchise, so perhaps they will still live up to my expectations, assuming I can track them down. Until then, my blood lust will be left wanting.

Films For Fiends: Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Holocaust is an italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato that was the center of much controversy when it was released in 1980 due to it's horrifically graphic portrayal of tribal violence and sexual torture. This is one of the first films to use the "found footage" concept to add realism, and is clearly had influence on later work like The Blair Witch Project. Apparently many thought the effects to be so realistic that they believed the film to be an actual documentary, which makes no sense as it is full of shitty acting and is clearly fictional. But this did not quell the controversy, and the film was widely banned amidst rumors that some of the actors were actually murdered on film to add to it's authenticity, and the film's producer was arrested on obscenity charges.

The plot centers around a group of American filmmakers that descend into the jungles of the amazon in search of indigenous tribal people that have been segregated from modern society. They predictably don't return, and an adventurous anthropologist takes up the task of hunting them down to determine their fate. Aided by a group of paramilitary guerrillas, the doctor is led into the heart of the jungle where he witnesses savage acts being performed by the cannibals.

They first discover a female being raped with huge wooden dildo before having her vagina packed with mud and bludgeoned to death. The jungle guides explain this is "an adultery punishment ritual", which seems pretty unlikely. Another dead giveaway to the fictional nature of this film is the absence of armpit hair and the well-manicured pubic hair of the "native" women, but then again morons never let logic get in the way of a good urban legend.

As the group encounters the tribal population they dazzle them with such modern technology as switchblade knives, guns, and music from a cassette player, and are pressured to join them in feasting on the liver of a long decomposed human corpse. They are able to get in the good graces of the natives and manage to recover the film record of the lost documentarians and return to modern society where they review the footage.

The lost footage shows routine horseplay as well as a gruesome scene of the group dismembering and eating a giant live turtle. As with all of these shock horror movies from the '70s and '80s the killing of live animals (including a later scene of a monkey being decapitated) is always the most disturbing aspect of the gore, and could never be done today without widespread outrage.

Things turn south for the group after their guide is bitten by a poisonous snake, prompting the group to hastily amputate his leg, killing him. When the group first encounters the tribal people, they shoot one of them in an attempt to slow him down and follow him to the larger population, setting off a chain of events that seals their fates. The dark side of the documentarians is revealed, and they strangely decide to kill as many of the natives as possible by lighting their huts on fire. Why they do this is never quite explained, and makes no sense since they continue filming it and apparently still plan on releasing this film on their return.

The doctor that retrieved the film becomes distraught when watching it, and becomes reluctant to release the footage publicly due to the atrocities being committed, and worries that the natives will be judged harshly for their cannibalism despite being provoked to violence by the ignorant outsiders. In an effort to convince his employers to never release the film, he shows them the worst footage in which the group captures and takes turn raping a young tribal girl, then impaling her on a huge wooden pole. In another ridiculous moment, the group pretends the woman was killed by her fellow tribespeople despite having just filmed themselves raping her.

At this time the tribe descends on them, killing their cameraman with a spear and cutting off his genitals. For some inexplicable reason the survivors decide to stick around and film as he is dismembered and eaten, and somehow are not discovered just feet away in the bushes. When they try to flee the female is captured and raped (of course the cameraman again decides to remain behind to film it), and they are all beaten to death and eaten. The doctor is successful in convincing his employers to never release the footage, and the film ends with him lamenting "I wonder who the REAL cannibals are..." How poetic.

I must say that this film was comically bad. The producers ignore countless continuity errors, the acting is some of the worst I have ever seen (especially the female documentarian, who seems incapable of delivering her lines without retarded facial contortions), and they try to deny their own blatant racism in the depiction of the natives by revealing at the end that they were provoked to violence by the inhumanity of the western invaders. The real inhumanity displayed here is by the producers themselves, as they kill about a half dozen live animals (a small rodent, a pig, snake, turtle and a monkey) simply for shock value. At least most of the other films I have reviewed were good for a laugh, I spent most of the time while viewing Cannibal Holocaust just waiting for it to be over. It seems like the whole thing was just an excuse to show simulated rape. If that kind of thing is your bag, then go for it. Personally, I deleted this from my hard drive immediately after watching it, not out of shock, but out of disinterest.

Films for Fiends: A Hamtackle Movie Review Vol 2

Good evening, fellow fiends. I have viewed another completely filthy and disturbing film for your reading pleasure, and this one is quite foul indeed. I watched

A Serbian Film

, the notorious and controversial 2010 flick by first time director Srdan Spasojevic, and it did not disappoint. Do not seek this one out unless you are prepared for sexual torture, rape, pedophilia, necrophilia and murder, because the over the top ending has them in spades.

I was well aware of all the hype surrounding this movie, but I must say that it went farther than even I anticipated. It is best described as being like the Eli Roth

Hostel

series if it were written and directed by The Marquis De Sade, and has been banned in several countries for tow scenes in particular that depict truly disturbing acts. And if you still intend to pursue this film then it is worth mentioning that I will be including spoilers in this review.

The story follows the protagonist Milos, who is a retired porn star who is known for gaining and maintaining a massive erection with very little effort, and is somewhat legendary among male porn stars. He now lives modestly with his wife and young son, but misses the old times and especially the money. One day he is approached by a former female co-star that tells him an unknown artist wants him to star in an unconventional and very secretive film and is willing to pay an obscene amount of money. Milos meets the director and his gang of para-military thugs, and reluctantly agrees to perform on film.

Early on Milos is just required to receive fellatio from a badly beaten woman while video of an underage girl eating a popsicle plays in front of him, and while he is very disturbed, he is assured the woman is just an actress. The next day he is again required to receive fellatio from the same woman, but the young girl is now in the room with him. When he refuses to perform the woman bites his cock and one of the thugs forces him to punch the woman a few times. Oh yes, this all takes place in an abandoned orphanage, as if it weren't creepy enough.

Milos decides to quit, but when he tells the director he is shown a video of an act so horrible that I am not comfortable writing about on this blog. Seriously. It is that fucking bad. If you want to see it go ahead, but you have been warned. At any rate, Milos flees from the director's home but awakens abruptly soon after, and we see he has lost several days of his memory, and is covered in blood.

Milos does some investigation and finds a video record of what has happened to him, where he finds he was unknowingly drugged with a cocktail of substances such as speed, viagra and a strange agricultural-grade aphrodisiac to make him a mindless fucking machine, and he watches himself being unleashed on a woman that is chained to a bed, beating her savagely until his captors hand him a machete, and he proceeds to behead her and frantically fuck her corpse. And if you consider that I am detailing this scene, just imagine how horrible the earlier one is.

Milos also sees that he was raped himself on camera while unconscious, and begins to piece together his memory of what happened over the last few days. He was pressured to have sex with the underage girl from the earlier scenes, but to his credit he held his penis hostage with a filet knife, knowing the director would never want to lose his penis which is the star of the show. After escaping, and still very much affected by the drugs he has been given, he ends up being attacked by a few men on the street when they find him masturbating uncontrollably in an alleyway, but is saved by the director's goons and recaptured.

He is then given further doses of the drugs and let loose on two anonymous bodies, anally raping them like an animal, but when another man joins in the raping he notices that it is his own brother (who has been secretly lusting for Milos' wife), and the two bodies they are raping are his wife and young son, who have both been similarly drugged. Milos and his wife both snap out of their stupor due to the gravity of the situation, and they brutally kill everyone in the room, with Milos literally skull-fucking the lead goon in the eye, killing him.

Once away from the scene Milos, his wife and his child are all so badly scarred by the incident that they have a group hug and accept a fatal suicide gunshot that kills all three. Then the camera pans back and we see that a new director has been recording their deaths, and commands a nearby goon to rape their corpses, starting with "the little one".

So there you have it, folks. A movie that no one will ever see unless they specifically look for it, like I have. I am amazed that anyone was convinced to bankroll the production on this flick, let alone willingly acted in it. This is definitely the most disturbing fictional film I have ever seen, and is a strong favorite for most distasteful film of all time. I fully expect this director to take on the theatrical release of "Three Guys One Hammer" or "The BME Pain Olympics" next time around. I know he would do it justice.

All things considered, this film is well-shot and well-acted, and seems like it enjoyed a healthy budget which is uncharacteristic of foreign shock cinema. I would fully suggest it to any viewer that enjoys having their boundaries tested, and is unwilling to heed my earlier warnings. Enjoy!

Films For Fiends: A Hamtackle Movie Review

As you may already suspect, Terlet is a kind-hearted, gentle and polite person with a humor that ranges from silly irreverence to downright filthy. Hamtackle (myself) share in his uncommon taste in funny, but I also am fueled by a sincere curiosity about all things horrible and taboo. My pursuits have led me to witness countless videos of atrocities, torture, mutilation and death, but only in the name of a good time. So I thought that I might perform a service to those like Terlet that have no stomach for the violent filth I have come to love, and begin a segment of film reviews for the rare cinematic gems that truly shed light on the darkest side of the human condition. In short, I watch them so you don't have to.

For my first review I have chosen the infamous 2002 Gaspar Noé film

Irreversible

, starring Monica Bellucci. I believe it is still available on Netflix, but you may want to check out the review before viewing as it has two scenes that rank among the most disturbing in modern cinema, leading Roger Ebert to call it "

so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable

"

The film is shot out of sequence (think "

Memento

") helping build a sense of disorientation and suspense, and begins with a chaotic sequence of scenes that shows a violent confrontation in a gay sex club where a man is beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. The event is displayed in a very graphic style, pulling no punches as the victim's head is literally crushed to oblivion. We are then introduced to the three main protagonists, Alex (Bellucci), her boyfriend Marcus, and her ex, Pierre. The trio experience the most nightmarish evening imaginable when they attend a party together, and Alex becomes upset with her boyfriend when he gets drunk, and leaves the party abruptly. While walking home through an underground tunnel she is attacked and savagely beaten and raped by a cruel pimp.

Once again the viewer is spared no gory detail, with an unbroken shot of the act for what seemed like ten minutes. He overpowers her and delivers such a brutal beating that it is hard to tell if she will survive, and the scene is perfectly cringe-worthy. I can only imagine the shock and disappointment of some poor lonely soul that searches for Monica Bellucci nudie scenes online and stumbles upon this mess, because it is a surefire limpness-inducer unless you are a truly depraved sort (I plead the fifth regarding my feelings on this). The rape is detailed in an unnecessarily long unbroken shot, but grants this film a solid showing in any serial killer's personal collection.

From there the two men who love her go on a mission of vengeance, employing shady criminals to track down their target in the aforementioned gay sex club, where a frantic Marcus attacks the pimp with reckless abandon only to be overpowered, but later saved by Pierre, who ends up delivering the killing blow. His aggression is so unrestrained that we are left with the impression that he is still very much in love with Alex.

If there can be any criticism of the format it is that the climax is delivered like a gut punch right away, and we work backwards to find out exactly why the headless gentleman was treated with such disregard, which leaves us with a somewhat slow progression to the ending which allows the trio of main characters to fade into a simpler and more innocent time before the horror. And some may take exception to the shaky and disorienting camerawork, which overdoes the jittering wobble particularly early on, but is clearly an artistic choice by the director. Oh yes, and if you are a fucking moron that can't watch movies with subtitles, it is worth noting that this is a foreign film.

Overall I would say this flick does well with the two most infamous scenes, and I respect the director's decision to include a level of detail that makes it inaccessible to any but the most hardened viewers, but it feels a little lopsided since the vast majority of the plotline is filled with much less violent, non-rapey sort of fare. The message of

Irreversible

to the viewer is one of the fragility of our pleasant lives, and how quickly they can intersect with the ever-present dregs of humanity, and how so often we let them drag us into the depths with them.

So if you are the sort that is only interested in the disturbing bits, you will probably have your finger on the fast forward button most of the time, and will ultimately be disappointed in the end. But if you are interested in a dramatic story of vengeance that unfolds in a unique way and aren't entirely turned off by the occasional involuntary anal sex scene with one half of the participants sobbing profusely, then give this one a shot. The rest of you should avoid it altogether.

I already have a doozy of a film lined up for my next review, but you are going to have to wait until next week. Until then... happy viewing, degenerates!