American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore (2014)

The introductory installment of the new, American-produced "Guinea Pig" series is pretty much just an extended remake of the notorious "Flower of Flesh and Blood" film from the original Japanese GP run. Those films struck me as over-hyped when I initially saw them - although I liked "Mermaid in a Manhole", which was pretty decent. Unfortunately, "Bouquet of Guts and Gore" is an inanely tedious example of 'fake snuff'.

Two women are abducted and drugged in some abandoned warehouse type of building before being brutally tortured and killed. During which, of course, it's all captured on several different types of recording devices (VHS, super 8...).

Effects-wise, they did a pretty commendable job with the gory mutilation work (though I can't say much of it looked real enough to be confused as authentic...) but that's clearly where all the 'energy' went. What it really boils down to is that this shit was obviously more effective and 'shocking' back in the '80s when 'faux snuff' material wasn't as commonplace as it is these days. I applaud "Bouquet..." for the same things I do "Flower of Flesh and Blood" and even "The Devil's Experiment", for going balls-out with bloody carnage and reasonably well done gore FX, but other than that there's nothing more to speak of with these one-note - and ultimately boring - over-the-top 'caught-on-camera' shock-flicks. As much as I love "extreme" and depraved forms of cinema, the 'faux snuff' shit never really tickled my taint, as I typically find most of them dull and limited, for the most part. Only so many limbs can be sawn off before I start looking at my watch. Also, having the two female victims rendered totally paralyzed from the start, yet cognizant, made for obviously ZERO reactions to their torture which I thought stifled some potential effectiveness.  I understand there's some more movies coming out under the "American Guinea Pig" stamp that are apparently different ( and hopefully better...) so I intend on eventually checking those out, but as far as this first foray into the U.S.'s take on the series, it was a miss.

I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance is Mine (2015)

I really didn't like the "I Spit on Your Grave" remake. At all. Not only did I never in my wildest dreams think that Meir Zarchi's 'rape/revenge' classic would be blasphemed with a 'revamp', I never, EVER would have imagined it would turn into a franchise. An incredibly shitty franchise. I guess I was naive cuz nothing is sacred. In all fairness, I haven't seen the second installment so I'm not totally 'caught up' (I could give a fuck...), but if it's any better than either of the other two I've seen, I'd be very surprised.

So the rape victim of the previous movies becomes friends with a man-hating, punk rock chick at her sexual assault survivors support group and the two decide to start striking some fear in the hearts of perverts targeting girls from the group. When her friend is suddenly murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Jennifer amps up the harshness on her perv-punishing to full-on sado-torture and murder...

Pretty dull stuff, here. This is actually more along the lines of "Ms. .45", what with it's more urban setting, just without everything that made that awesome movie so memorable. There's really no exploitation 'feel' - much like the initial remake - which makes the incessant feminist angle seem so contrived and laughable, as opposed to imperative, as it were in the original film and even the far inferior remake. As for the violence, there are a few rather 'graphic' kills, most notably a castration and a guy getting a pipe rammed up his ass with a sledgehammer, although it's nothing 'good' enough to make up for how weak and clumsy and half-assed the story is and how it has no business bearing the "I Spit on Your Grave" title. That's all I care to say. Avoid this bullshit and, while you're at it, avoid the rest of this putrid trilogy.

Train (2008)

The last time I saw "Train" was when it first hit DVD and I remember not really digging it all that much. Recently I gave it a spin just on a whim and I must say I actually ended up liking it a little more. I think it's mainly due to the whole "torture-porn" thing having since run its course, hence I've had some time to get over how burned-out I was getting on this type of 'over-played' shit back in the mid-to-late 2000s.

An American college wrestling team is competing in a European tournament where they end up boarding a train to their next match. Turns out, this particular train is a 'front' for a black market surgical business where unknowing American passengers' organs and other various bodily appendages are hacked off and sold to buyers. Needless to say, the Westerners are systematically harvested for their usable parts...

So, yeah, "Train" is a total and complete "Hostel" knock-off - right down to the 'tone'/greenish-brownish color-scheme, brutal torture scenes and, of course, the bald, sadistic Ruskies in aprons. Gotta have those. These movies were definitely not shy about painting Eastern Europeans as torture-happy mother fuckers. At least it took the stigma off the American south (another  region that's been branded "deadly" by the horror genre...) for a little while. Anyways, "Train" is a watchable enough flick with a healthy amount of gore - involving eyeball extraction, eviscerations, castrations and even some necrophilia. Again, expect "Hostel" on a train, but it's I still found it mostly enjoyable in a mindless, familiar sense, overall.

Broken (2006)

Pretty standard and dull torture flick. I remember quite a few other reviewers speaking highly of this one when this came out so I picked up a copy and gave it a spin back in the day. All I really recalled about "Broken" was kinda digging the last 15 seconds or so, so recently I revisited it and realized why that was all I remembered... The rest of the movie consists of virtually NOTHING.

A woman and her young daughter are kidnapped and separated deep in the woods by a psychotic survivalist whose objective is apparently to break her down and make her into a slave of sorts...

Apart from the initial "game" where the guy ties his captives to a tree by their neck with a razor blade sewn into their abdomen that they have to extract in order to free themselves and the aforementioned "surprise ending" - the bulk of "Broken" is incredibly slow and forgettable. Too much so to really strike me as all that 'disturbing' or 'sick'. It just seemed like a slapped together and heavily padded cash-in of the time. Weak.

Killing Brooke (2012)

I would definitely rank this among one of the shittiest "Texas Chainsaw" knock-offs I've seen. I'll say for certain, I haven't been this flat out annoyed by a film in quite some time.

A couple of newlywed lesbos land a drunken three-way with a twerpy hitch-hiker who happens to be a serial killer. When they want to ditch him later, he kills the less attractive rugmuncher and chases the other one through the woods and to a farmhouse, inhabited by a family of hillbilly killers where they're both held captive...

"Killing Brooke" doesn't contain at least one reasonably convincing line of dialog, an even SOMEWHAT decent gore effect, or any semblance of a fucking POINT. What it does is meander along with innocuous torture scenes and constant screaming. Not only is the screaming too overboard and obnoxious, but it was the incredibly poor sound quality that made it so much more headache-inducing than it should've been, otherwise, this would typically be a non-issue for me (especially, when I'm not hungover...). Fuck, I was constantly having to adjust the volume just to keep my eardrums AND my TV speakers from rupturing. Just some dickhead with a digitgal camera and no sound-mixing skills... In all, there is nothing good about "Killing Brooke". Terrible acting, no atmosphere, shitty effects and a barrage of worthless noise...

The Human Centipede 3 (2015)

I'm pretty much with the majority on this one - "Human Centipede 3" sucks. I found the first two enjoyable as gimmicky "shock" for the online message board masses with a neat idea from a seemingly self-aware B-film maker. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Six topped out with the second installment, as far as the 'zany' gore goes and got a bit too swept up in his "hater"-directed cynicism this time around. Part 3 just seemed completely phoned in.

The loud, sadistic warden of a desert-based correctional facility gets the idea from his accountant lackey to keep the inmates 'in line' by sewing them all into a human centipede...

... But, before that happens... in the last 10-15 minutes, a lot of non-centipede stuff goes on in an arbitrary, episodic fashion - involving the warden torturing prisoners. An arm snapping; boiling water boarding; testicle removing/eating... So much of the movie is just Dieter Laser screaming unintelligible bullshit at everybody (often nobody...) in his office. When the human centipede (and human caterpillar...) are revealed, that's pretty much it; aside from Eric Roberts having a change-of-heart on the whole thing.

In the same token, one must ask themselves: what can be done with a 500-person centipede that can not or has not been done with the previous 12 or 3-count centipede? I don't know. Perhaps bigger is NOT always better. They kneel in a row and shit down each other's throats - like before - and then the movie ends. In the second film it was more about the 'journey' than the 'destination'. Seeing a rotund wacko collecting people, knocking their teeth out, stitching their cheeks to their o-rings, etc. Babies being killed, barb-wire rape, bugs up people's asses... All the marbles. Needless to say, I think part 3 was a little 'light' on ideas and attempted to compensate for this by just having its lead scream all of his lines and get blown by Bree Olson.

It's a shame the "Human Centipede" trilogy had to conclude on such a lame note. I don't know if it was Six sabotaging his own film out of some kind of spite, a lack of ideas, a joke or a complete accident. I don't know. Fuck, or all of the above. It just seemed incredibly slapped together and weak. Let's hope Six reinvents himself after this.

A Fucking Cruel Nightmare (2010)

There's some truly bad German splatter flicks out there, but "A Fucking Cruel Nightmare" is fucking BAD. This makes "Violent Shit" and "Das Komabrutale Duelle" look masterful and I can't even believe I'm saying that...

A guy is having a nightmare that he's walking through a maze of plastic tarps, peering into rooms where random people are being brutally tortured and killed by sadistic masked men. About halfway through this boring shit, the victims come back and exact revenge on their killers.

The movie is just comprised of dozens of scenes of torture and mutilation, strung together in an endless... nightmare of self-indulgence and pointless, cheezy gore. Absolutely no plot, no dialog and some of the most brain-splittingly irritating dubbing and sound mixing imaginable. The movie is so repetitive and dull and just poorly made that it fails at being even mildly "shocking", despite it's obvious efforts to be so 'balls-out crazy'. If there's not even the framework of a story or anyone at least savvy enough to doctor up some decent gore FX for the nonstop scenes of nails pounded into skulls and spines, babies being bashed with hammers and various cock mutilations (all of which feature the most unconvincing looking plastic dildos on the market...), then all of that shit has absolutely zero impact. This one just blows...

K3: Prison of Hell (2009)

"K3: Prison of Hell" is some pretty straight-forward exploitation-sleaze from Andreas Bethmann - at least it looked that way, considering I couldn't completely understand the German dialog.

The inmates at a female prison, located deep in the jungle, are subjected to cruel, sexual experimentations and brutal torture...

That's basically the bulk of what the flick has to offer and, based on my own particular preference in film, it felt a bit odd being so bored with something like this. I guess I couldn't help but expect a little more. It's literally scene-after-scene of blowjob-by-gunpoint, which gets a tad tiresome when dealing with a 100-minute runtime. Also, maybe if these scenes were a little more on the "rough" side it would've played out a little better for me, but it all seemed too "tame" for my liking (aside from a painful fisting attempt...). The final ten minutes or so DOES depict a nasty scene of gory torture, which was alright, but the majority of the film drags on too much without anything of interest once the third or fourth BJ comes and goes. The few decent scenes don't really make up for what a bore this one is. Bethmann has some better sleaze flicks that I've seen, but I gotta say I'm not his biggest fan, overall.

Carver (2008)

Based on the set-up and SOV approach, I wasn't expecting all that much from "Carver", but I'll be damned, it actually wasn't that bad. It's a competently directed, acted and shot backwoods-slasher flick that doesn't skimp on the grisly violence.

Your average 'clique' of body-count reserve are on a camping trip. After stopping at a small town restaurant, they agree to run an errand for the owner in return for a night of comped drinks, which leads them to discover a stash of brutal snuff films. Believing them to just be home-made slasher movies, they ignorantly stumble into the clutches of a fat hillbilly psychopath who takes great joy is slowly torturing and killing people with rusty hand tools...

"Carver" is nothing new, plot wise, but it's an easy flick to enjoy if you dig copious amounts of sadistic gore. We're talking bloody handsaw decapitations, testicle crushing and protracted sledgehammer bone smashing. It's definitely taken a little further than your regular low-budget "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" imitation, which is enough for me to make an exception when it comes to this type of typically redundant 'modern'-slasher fodder. Not to say this is libel to rock your world, but it's got decent enough performances for what it is and it's obvious that they were at least TRYING. So, my hat goes off to the ultra-violent material and the reasonably adept way in which it was shot. Recommended.

Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts (1997, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri)

I'll hand it to "Kichiku" - this flick offers up a pay off that indemnifies the viewer for quite a slow and chiefly ineffectual build-up. If you stick it out to the final act, I'd say it's well worth the haul...

Some kind of commune of criminal college kids are getting by while their leader is in jail. Apparently, his chick has been placed in charge so she takes full advantage by slutting around the grungy domicile and fucking all of the dudes. When they eventually discover that their leader committed suicide in his cell, they begin turning on each other - especially targeting those who they feel were second-guessing their ruler behind his back. They end up traveling to the mountains where all bloody hell breaks loose.

Like I said, it takes a while for the "action" to really kick in, but "Kichiku" ends up providing some nice scenes of graphic, splattery gore. Involving - but not limited to - brutal beatings, various forms of penis removal/vaginal mutilation - including a shotgun blast in a woman's twat. Aside from all the gruesome goods, the overall tone of the movie is captivatingly grim and unpleasant. All this, despite the run-time exceeding what I feel it probably warranted - the lead-up is not completely without it's aberrant quality and sordid character interplay. Problem is, it goes on a bit too long, I thought. That said, I gotta give a "Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts" a solid recommendation for lovers of bleak and 'extreme' Jap-gore cinema. Nothing too 'stand out' as far as I'm concerned, but there's enough here to satisfy the sickos.

Pervert Ward: S&M Clinic (1989, Hisayasu Satô)

I wasn't able to really follow this one's premise too closely due to the lack of subtitles on my copy, but from the looks of it the plot was a bit 'minor' compared to the arrant visuals. Based on those merits I was able to still enjoy this one for the most part.

Some sleazy doctor has a 'thing' for sexually torturing his female assistant/nurse/lover (whatever she was suppose to be...). I guess she has enough of this and splits, so her identical twin shows up to take her place...

"Pervert Ward: S&M Clinic" is a pretty rough pinker from Hisayasu Satô who actually pulls off a very stylistic aptness that adds a relatively 'disturbing' harshness to all the bondage play. Again, didn't look like much going on, plot wise, between the chick getting strung up, grazed with blades and abused in a variety of ways. At one point he sucks on her eyeball, puts a prism of mirrors on her head (I don't know why either of those things happened...), and violates her with her shoe before he angrily 'dogs' her in a bathtub. In all, it's a dark and twisted S&M flick and, for that, it ain't bad.

Omnivores (2013, Oscar Rojo)

I had heard some pretty positive remarks about this one so I made a point to bump it up a few notches higher on the 'to watch' list. I don't know what people are seeing in this, but "Omnivores" pretty much sucked.

A prominent restaurant critic/writer is commissioned by a publishing house to sample the culinary wares of a new wave of "clandestine restaurants" - highly exclusive, underground dinner parties featuring extremely exotic and expensive meals. He catches wind of one that is supposedly serving human meat to knowing guests who pay big to partake of such rare 'delicacies'...

It's basically the same set-up as "Hostel" - involving rich pricks who 'get off' on human peril and bloodshed and even go so far as to bid on it. The violence and gore is incredibly subdued to the point of being pretty much nonexistent. The opening scene and a somewhat 'graphic' throat slashing were the only standout moments of 'carnage'... Other than that, the acting is fine but all the characters are wooden as all hell and painfully boring. As far as the plot, everything is incredibly heavy on lead-up - such as the bearded butcher collecting and preparing the helpless victims and the critic's admittance into the cannibalistic supper club - which, in particular, builds up for a very boring and predictable outcome. It's so brief and underplayed that it's impossible to derive any satisfaction from the big conclusion.

"Omnivores" is a boring, pointless 'torture porn' retread. Very disappointing on all levels.

The Green Elephant (1999, Svetlana Baskova)

I'm not really sure what to make of a movie like "The Green Elephant". I found it somewhat entertaining, while at the same time it was a rather tedious and boring mash-up of 'arthouse' and gore flick.

Two Russian soldiers are forced into a military prison cell together - which looks like a janitor's closet with a sewage leak. The one guy keeps babbling incessantly about fucking men and the time he was forced to eat his own feces. As the other guy gets more and more annoyed, his roomie becomes more mentally unhinged, going so far to shitting on a plate (as well as smearing it on himself) and trying to feed it to his cell mate while spouting rapid gibberish. This goes on for about the first 45-50 minutes before they're extracted from the room and basically forced to torture each other to death...

The interaction between the two guys is pretty funny at times, but just goes on for too long. By the end, it turns into a full fledged gore film with cannibalism, man-on-man buttfucking, self mutilation, disemboweling, etc. I'll admit I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but it was suitably nasty in the last 15-minutes or so. Still, there's nothing at all remarkable about "The Green Elephant" as it's pretty dull for the most part. Also, I couldn't figure out if it was suppose to be a 'fake snuff' style of film or not. It was shot like one, but the camera man is never addressed. Oh, well.

If you've seen stuff like "Psycho: The Snuff Reels" or the "August Underground" series, "The Green Elephant" is nothing new or all that 'shocking'.

American Mary (2012, Jen & Sylvia Soska)

For a while now, I haven't been very interested in newer horror flicks, due, primarily, to the undeniable stagnancy of the genre, but there's been a few titles that have been mentioned to me that I figured I should check out. I need something to rejuvenate my appreciation for horror and "American Mary" had the potential to do so, but it ultimately stumbled into an Eli Roth-influenced fuck-fest.

A medical student decides to take up stripping to pay her phone bill, which leads to her involvement in some kind of seedy shit going on in the basement of the club where they promptly require her surgical knowledge for a guy who appears to have been all cut up. She's thrown a wad of cash on the spot and, the next day, gets a visit from some Joan Rivers-faced, squeaky-voiced, plastic surgery-freak who wants to hire her to provide her Barbie doll-looking, freako friend with the necessary anatomical alterations to complete her inhuman image. Things go well and, eventually, she starts making a name for herself in the world of underground body modification surgery, working out of the sleazy strip joint where it all started...

This one kicked off in a fairly intriguing manner - doling out a suitable dose of weirdness and unnatural characters having unnatural interactions about doing unnatural things to themselves. So the premise there was enough to rope me in early on and I was able to enjoy the film, for the most part. Problem I had was the pacing seemed a bit odd and clumsy. Too much happens way too quick to the point where the story's structure seemed way too confused and arbitrary. Things happen and there's really no reason given for them, which CAN be fine in the right context with the right film narrative, but it didn't really work with this, I thought. A lot is just glossed over really fast. The script just seemed like it could've used some tightening so things could've had a better "flow". The film is dedicated to Eli Roth, which didn't surprise me as the whole 'tone' of it oozed fangirl reverence. Filmmakers... please. For the sake of the genre, do NOT take pointers from that guy!

Fetish Dolls Die Laughing (2012, David Silvio)

I don't even know what to say. The title sounded alright, but when all was said and done, "Fetish Dolls Die Laughing" sucked a colossal pile of rancid warthog balls. This flick pretty much did every conceivable thing wrong that one could do when making a meager-budgeted horror movie...

Some small, bearded, bald guy runs around kidnapping and tying up various women who provoke his rabid foot fetish. He likes to tickle them (while referring to himself as "The Tickle Monster") until they bleed out and die... Ugh. There's also a pair of detectives looking for him.

The biggest problem with this thing is that it's TOO fucking LONG without enough plot or interesting material to support or justify it's length. It's really just the same thing over and over again and I started getting annoyed watching this guy sucking on the toes of average to unattractive-looking chicks in a greatly redundant sequence of pointless scenes. There's basically no gore to speak of, aside from the usual, half-assed squirt-bottle of fake blood just off screen. Clearly, this movie was going for the 'intentionally campy', look how crazy we're being, Herschell Gordon Lewis-influenced appeal, but it all just sucks and looks like countless other digitally shot, DIY horror flicks out there. And the "silliness" of the fetish killer didn't mesh too well with the equally boring scenes of the two cops adding the 'serious' element to the "story". One thing I would like for you indie horror hack film-makers to quit doing is trying to incorporate detectives and crime-solving motifs into your already shittily structured low-budget bore-fest. You're not David Fincher, you imbeciles! Stop it!

So, yeah... There's nothing about "Fetish Dolls Die Laughing" that's worth checking out. It's total shit.

Megan is Missing (2011, Michael Goi)

Here we have another addition to the exhaustingly recurrent "found footage" genre that has officially stopped progressing, but still tends to pop up here n' there and cover a few more redundant bases. So here, "Megan is Missing" incorporates online sexual predators with the whole formula that revolves around modern technology to really get WE, the viewer, "connected" with what's going on... Yeah... Eh... It's just not cool anymore, guys. All the Blair Witch and Fred Vogel shit that came out over a decade ago did what you aspiring indie horror guys are trying to do now with your digital cameras, but it's just not affective anymore... Can we please just go back to putting forth an EFFORT instead of shaky, ad-libbed, POV, trying-to-look-realistic-but-failing bullshit? It's just embarrassing now...

Sorry about that, but I had to get my plea out of the way before I officially start this. So "Megan is Missing" does the whole "based on true events" gimmick and follows two 13-14 year old girls who seem to devote a lot of time to web-chatting; eachother and other dumb sounding girls. One of the girls, Megan, is a notorious party girl slut who likes to attend high-school parties and blow her brain dead classmates for free drugs. There's numerous times where she regales her nerdy friend, Amy, of all the times she was raped as a very small child. Which... made her a whore, I guess. Psychology 101. She starts conversing with a fella by the name of SkaterDude online. She goes to meet up with him behind a diner and is never heard from again. Her friend Amy then starts chatting with SkaterDude (a.k.a. Josh) and when she starts giving the cops and news media some information on Josh, Amy goes missing too...

This all leads up to the last 22 minutes on Amy's video diary following her abduction, in which the film becomes a pretty over-the-top exploitation/torture film in the most shameless sense. What's really confusing about it is that the movie credits itself as being something meant to spread awareness of online predators... The cover features a quote from Marc Klaas - the guy whose daughter was kidnapped from a slumber party in their home and found murdered back in '93 - which reads: "A powerful, important film that deserves both attention and discussion". Did he actually fucking watch this?! Calling "Megan is Missing" a film that deserves attention and discussion is like saying that "Niku daruma" deserves public praise for addressing the reality that women HAVE, in fact, been kidnapped, dismembered, gutted and raped. If you sit your teenager down to watch "Megan is Missing" in hopes that they'll discuss it with you after, you're gonna look like the most idiotic parent in the world, plus your kid is gonna think you're fucked in the head. I really don't think that Mr. Klaas saw this movie, though I'm sure he heard it contained the topic of disappearing children and was misled into thinking it was a reputable "wake up call" film. Not the case, sadly...

First of all, the majority of this flick is dull as shit, consisting mostly of these and numerous other teenagers acting like how out-of-touch adults THINK that modern teens act and talk like. I mean, I know they do to a degree, but just listen to the dialog and watch just a few scenes outta this and you'll see what I mean. "You want us to invite HER? But she's, like, totally fucking lame and doesn't even dress like us!". Yeesh... Like After School Special dialog but with more cursing... After Megan disappears, they show some funny faux-news footage and a hilariously dramatic reenactment of the abduction, complete with lightning strikes every 4 seconds. Then, the friend is kidnapped and... of course... the antagonist records it all on her camera for the sake of "found footage" (shitty fucking genre!) At this point, it becomes "The Poughkeepsie Tapes" or "Hostel" (whatever) showing her locked in a dungeon and also including a lengthy rape scene. Not "opening peoples eyes" to the potential dangers of online interaction, but straight-up BRUTAL horror flick. Plain and simple. And I wasn't all that impressed. Yeah, they took the violence overboard and got controversial, which is something I typically tend to appreciate in cinema, though the whole "found footage" angle just ruined it for me. I'm so sick of it...

Hate Crime (2012, James Cullen Bressack)

It's hard for me, at this point, to be thoroughly even-handed when dealing with the exasperatingly homogeneous 'found footage' genre. I wouldn't say that I'm one of those people that has a comprehensive dislike for this style of horror film-making - I just feel that it's been heavily reduced to a medium in which indie 'up-and-comers' can simply discard 'traditional' (for lack of a better term) movie-making components and, above all, STYLE, and just sorta... wing it. I don't typically see a lot of artistry and 'character' within the 'found footage' mark since I can't help but feel that it has run it's course. That's not to say I can't find this type of thing enjoyable from time to time... It's just getting harder for me...

James Cullen Bressack's "Hate Crime" details the home-invasion of a Jewish family by a trio of masked neo-Nazi's who wish to "welcome" their new neighbors. It kicks off with the dad recording his kid's birthday party on their home camcorder when they are suddenly ravaged by the bigoted maniacs. The film follows the torture and ruthless torment the family endures throughout the course of the night as the camera captures it all.

My main gripe with "Hate Crime" is a complaint I have with a lot of 'found footage' films and that would be that more of them should apply a mixture of POV and 'conventional' film-making elements. This, of course, isn't specific to HC, but with many of these kinds of flicks, it stops making sense WHY we're seeing what we're seeing. The first 3-5 minutes of HC bothered me for the fact that the dad positions the camera with he and his wife PERFECTLY in frame while they quietly bicker in the kitchen. Why would he want the birthday celebration home-video broken up with marital squabbling? And when the Aryan Brotherhood goons come barging in, the dad takes off running - camera still in tow. Break it over the fucker's head, dude! This is followed by a lengthy scene in the basement where the family is tied up, raped, FORCED to rape and brutalized while the aggressors now record their tomfoolery. This actually made more sense up until a point - kinda like the "August Underground" films (of which this reminded me a LOT of) where the killer's are the ones who actually bring the camera into the situation out of a general love of documenting their heinous crimes. Still, there came a certain point where I felt that even these vicious hate crime thugs would abandon the whole video-recording thing, but... eh...

On the plus-side, the performances are mostly strong. The big body-builder guy (named "Three" - all of the bad guys code-named themselves 1, 2 and 3) was good as the real unpredictable SICKO of the group, even as he was occasionally over-the-top.

So, like I said, "Hate Crime" reminded me a lot of the much more violent and disgusting "August Underground" series as well as the awesome Spanish film "Kidnapped". I don't think the POV shit really worked with this film. However, I know there are people out there that really dig brutal 'faux-snuff' themed films who would probably like to check this out.
http://www.psykikjunkypictures.com/

The Loved Ones (2009, Sean Byrne)

Intrinsically, "The Loved Ones" fits the 'torture flick (porn)' mold adeptly, though it still manages to come across as surprisingly fresh and sufficiently entertaining. It's a cool, gory, "Carrie"-esque Australian joint...

A teenage male cutter shoots down the nerdy girl's school dance invite so he can go with his hotter, sluttier girlfriend. The day before the dance, while he's climbing some rocks out of teenage angsty frustration, he is snatched up from behind by some dude with a Chloroform rag... He wakes up all bound and captive in the home of the girl he snubbed and her psychopathically coddling father, as well as some old bitch with a hole in he forehead. Daddy seems adamant on showing his little girl (whom he watches get dressed into her new gown with creepily incestuous eyes) a good time at the expense of her unwilling "date", whom they ruthlessly torment all night...

This is nothing great, by any means, though it's a fun, simple little torture film with some crazy, gruesome concepts and quirky characters. Power drills to the head, knives pounded through feet, forced urination. There WERE a few things that I didn't quite "get" aside from the initial kidnap/torture angle as the main focus which included the incidental scenes of a high school pot dealer taking the shy goth girl to the dance... Yeah, her brother was previously killed by the sadistic father/daughter killer duo and her cop father gets involved later, but it was still a pretty pointless and all too frequent 'sub-plot' tossed in there, I thought. Also, the trap door leading to a cellar full of cannibalistic savages was kinda outta nowhere and seemed unnecessary, though it didn't take away from the film all that much since the premise wasn't all that elaborate. That's fine, I guess. Doesn't hurt to throw in a little 'creature'-like element. Again, there's some silly gore, a guy getting a power drill chucked at his face and there's some flesh-eating. "The Loved Ones" is worth checking out.

The Bunny Game (2010, Adam Rehmeier)

Finally checked out "The Bunny Game" after getting word from a few reliable sources that it would be right up my alley and I'm happy to report that they were right. This is one depraved and nihilistic little film with some truly unapologetic misogyny and mean spiritedness...

It begins by establishing the dismal and debasing routine of a coke-head prostitute who is consistently brutalized and robbed by her degenerate 'johns'. She is eventually picked up by a capricious trucker who fondles her a little bit before throwing a Chloroform rag over her face and chaining her up in the trailer of his semi. He parks his big-rig in the desert and subjects her to sadistic torture rituals for several days. One thing the dude is really 'into' is putting a leash on her and yanking her around by the neck outside... He also likes licking and suffocating women (and himself) with plastic bags. The title of the film pertains to a "game" the guy likes to play where he puts a rabbit mask on chicks and a leather, gimpy pig mask on himself and then chases 'em around...

I must mention, first off, that "The Bunny Game" isn't the be-all-end-all of "extreme" cinema. Still, it's a rough and fairly uncomfortable movie simply for the dark and intransigent realism you get with this one. The tone and general composition of the film switches from rapid and chaotic-style editing to slower, more drawn out scenes and this really works well, I thought. The contrast of calm to hectic somehow made a pretty one-note premise, such as this, much more 'gripping' than you'd figure. The trucker character is AWESOME. Definitely a nasty and deplorable person who is old, uncharismatic, not witty or smooth-talking - just a fucking perverted, woman-hating scumbag. You don't doubt for a second that this guy is a REAL fucking serial killer, which I really loved. And speaking of realism, all of the violence and cruelty - though not all that gory or particularly "jaw-dropping" in terms Hollywood horror standards - comes across exceptionally genuine, again, because of the trucker and the fact that the hooker (as well as some other women shown in flashbacks) really looked like she was getting roughed up at times. Kudos! And the ending leaves ya with a few questions... Plus, there's a decent black/death metal soundtrack.

Hell, I really dug "The Bunny Game". I would certainly recommend it to the more "hardcore" film fans. Casual film-goers are advised to steer clear since it IS pretty fucking harsh.

9 Days (2011, Samuel M. Johnson)

Not the worst thing I've had Chemical Burn Entertainment send me. Nothing really "special" about "9 Days" in the slightest, but I've had some real TURDS come my way thanks to this particular distributor, so when I get one that's at least watchable, then consider me pleasantly surprised.

A teenage foster home runaway is hitch-hiking to L.A. when she's picked up by a clean-cut looking smart-ass who brings her home and insists she stay the night. That night, he wakes her up and drags her to the basement where he chains her up and explains that she's going to be put through nine days of harsh torture as a way of pulling her into his religious fanaticism. He crudely implants a shock collar device into her spine so he can zap her at will, pours moonshine down her throat, makes her sit in a bathtub of ice, etc...

In terms of 'torture flicks', "9 Days" is FAR from disturbing and offers nothing new. The guy who played the psycho Jesus-freak did a decent job, overall, though I didn't find him all that menacing. Just goofy and laughably annoying. The almost-attractive female lead sheds her clothes here-and-there which was another mild perk, I guess. Still, there's not a whole lot to get enthusiastic about when talking about this flick. Again, when you're talking Chemical Burn releases, you can do a lot worse than this one, but I still wouldn't recommend it...