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Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood
Directed by: Hideshi Hino
'There has probably never been and may well never be again, a film that has courted so much controversy as Hideshi Hino's Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood. In fact, the film has gained legendary and dubious status of being a 'snuff movie.'
'There has been many stories circulating about the film, mostly as fake as the film. The most famous of the stories concerns Hollywood star Charlie Sheen who reported it to the FBI after viewing because he believed it to be real. To this story, there is a shred of truth, which is more can be said for the rest. Even though I know the actual true version of events, I will not bore you by repeating it here, instead, I prefer to concentrate on the movie itself, that is, if you can call this a movie.
'Movies have beginnings, middles and endings all centered around a plotline. Though this has a beginning of sorts, arguably a middle and what looks to be an end, there is definitely no plotline as such. Instead, this film is a non stop assault on your senses from start to finish.
'The concept of the movie is that in April 1985, Hideshi Hino received a package through the post claiming to be from an unidentified 'enthusiastic fan.' The package contained an 8 mm film, 54 still pictures and a 19 page letter. The letter told Hideshi that a horrible crime was being committed by a person of aethetic paranoia in a very secret place. The film showed an obviously psychotic man, wearing a Samurai helmet, slowly dismember a tied up woman and then add the pieces to his collection. Hideshi turned the whole package over to the police. Neither the woman or man was ever identified nor the man caught. Haunted by these images, Hideshi decided to recreate the 'snuff film' he had witnessed.
'Though this is the synapse that was released to promote the film, it is fake, there never was a package or a murder. Not that it matters, the effects are that good and that realistic you cannot be helped but be drawn into the illusion that what you are seeing is a genuine murder, a bona-fide 'snuff movie.' As such, it makes for very uncomfortable viewing. Again as such, This makes it probably the sickest film you will ever see.' -- Castle Dracula
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Cutting Moments
Directed by: Douglas Buck
'What the hell just happened? That was my initial reaction to the conclusion of Douglas Buck’s bizarre and unsettling stab and suburban bliss. Cutting Moments brings the viewer into a nightmare of insanity and mutilation as a married couple come apart at the seams.
'From what we gather, something is definitely wrong in this household. 27 minutes and there’s barely five lines of dialogue. There’s a reference to some board coming to take away the couple’s son and the husband is completely mute through out. As he sits watching a baseball game on TV he ignores her attempts at seducing him. She leaves, goes into the bathroom and begins mutilating, then cutting off her lips. Segue into the couple naked on their bed, with the husband chopping at his wife’s breasts then his genitals with pruning shears and you’ve got my initial reaction.
'As we all know the myth that all is happiness and sunshine in suburbia has been dead for a long, long time. With angry wives chopping off their husband’s dicks on the news and so-called affluent kids shooting up their schools, there’s little to take away from this film other than a “ho-hum, oh yeah.” What does work is the gory execution, that’s not something you’ll see on the 11 o’clock news.' -- Film Threat
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Aftermath/Genesis
Directed by: Nacho Cerdà
'So, you want "extreme horror" cinema, huh? Well, you got it, bub. You should know, however, that even the most extreme, horrific, and disgusting horror film can be a beautifully realized work of art, with all the complexity and emotional depth of, say, a film by Truffaut or Bergman. This isn't as easy to do as it might seem. By nature, horror is an exploitative genre...and exploitation tends to preclude art for art's sake, for the most part. However, I can say with total confidence that Nacho Cerda has achieved something quite remarkable with this collection of short films. He's taken the exploration of death...specifically, what happens after death...to new heights, much like Jörg Buttgereit did nearly two decades ago with his sicko-classic Nekromantik.
'Aftermath: Opening to the sorrowful strains of Mozart's "Requiem" Mass, Aftermath shows us, in montage, the surroundings that will be our home for the next half hour. The camera gracefully swoops and glides over the sterile, medical surfaces of a morgue, and finally, we focus on the path of a young morgue attendant, who pushes yet another unidentified corpse down the cold hallways. Along his path, he stops to briefly watch the activities of a pair of morticians, who are deep in the throes of preparing two bodies for burial. Then, our point of view shifts again to that of one of the morticians, as he dutifully performs his grim, disgusting tasks with workmanlike detachment and precision. Every detail of the process of preparing a body for burial is shown in unflinching detail, and it ain't pretty. Still, as gross as it is, it's still pretty much business as usual for this pair of morticians, and they perform their duties with all the skill of, say, an electrician or an auto mechanic. Finally, one of the morticians completes the process on one body. He ritualistically cleans up his workspace, hoses down the morgue slab, and carts his body away, leaving the other mortician all alone. It's here when the already nasty proceedings take a turn, from the methodical and clinical to the extremely perverse. The second mortician finishes his work, and then goes down the hall to retrieve the fresh corpse of a young woman, who was apparently killed in a car accident, but whose corpse is in relatively "good" shape, considering it's a corpse. Slowly...perversely...the mortician undresses the body, as if he were undressing a large doll, and the really gross stuff happens. I'll leave the details of this "movement" (and a "movement" it is; Aftermath is structured very much as an opera or at least a symphony of mayhem) for you to discover, but be warned...you will never feel the same way about morticians...
'Genesis: Like Aftermath, Genesis is structured and presented as a symphony of pain. But, whereas Aftermath seems to be concerned with the indignity of being the cold hunk of meat that is the human corpse, Genesis seems more concerned with how the living cope with the death of a loved-one. Our story here revolves around a sculptor, who having lost his beautiful young wife in some unknown event (though, it might have been a car accident), is deep in the grieving process. He starts work on a life-sized sculpture of his wife, in an effort (we assume) to pay homage to her. He pours his heart and soul into the piece, and works day and night on it. Instead of being a therapeutic act, however, it only seems to make his pain and grief intensify. Late one night, during a violent storm, natch', he is awakened by something, and he goes into his studio to check on his work. Upon examining his sculpture, he notices a trickle of what appears to be blood coming from near her left clavicle (the area near her stony collarbone). Confused and concerned, and more than a bit dazed, he hoses the sculpture down with water, but the "wound" just keeps bleeding. Soon, more "wounds" appear in the cold surface of the sculpture, and as more blood begins dripping from it, and more of the surface begins chipping away, the artist finds himself slowly starting to decay...or perhaps to even turn to stone himself. This culminates in one of the most beautifully realized and emotionally stirring final shots I have ever been lucky enough to witness on film.' -- Atrocities Cinema
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Audition
Directed by: Takashi Miike
'Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) is the owner of a video production company. He has been living a solitary life, raising his teenage son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki), since the death of his wife seven years ago.
'When his son suggests that he should re-marry, Shigeharu and colleague Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) use a casting session to audition for potential wives. Amongst these, Shigeharu finds his ideal woman – a delicate 24-year-old ex-dancer by the name of Asami Yamasaki (Eihi Shiina).
'Despite continual warnings from Yoshikawa that the girl’s background is a mystery and that she is not to be trusted, Shigeharu finds himself enchanted by Asami and pursues a relationship regardless. It soon becomes clear, however, that beneath Asami’s submissive and withdrawn fasade lies a past steeped in horror and abuse, leaving her with her own twisted desire to take vengeance on those who cross her path.' -- Suite 101
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p.s. Hey. I can't remember the last time the blog transgressed the boundaries of good taste. Well, unless Bernard's weekend post counts, and maybe last week's slave day. In any case, Creative Massacre generously and gloriously pushes it for us today, and please accept the dare and tell her how it felt. Thanks. And major thanks to you, CM. It's cleaning/ exile day at the Recollets, and, seeing as how I can hear the dreaded cleaners making noises in the hall, this p.s. is sure to be interrupted and then show up late, but I'll be speeding along just in case they take a lengthy lunch break before my door gets the knock. ** David Ehrenstein, Well, it certainly deserves being seen when in its native tongue, so I will at some point. ** FreeFox, Hey, FF. How are you doing? I didn't get that far into the movie, but I like spoilers. I like when movies become formal exercises. I do. I think it's my Francophilia. Anyway, I sure wasn't grabbed. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks, man. Sure, please do do a potpourri for the blog if that strikes your fancy. I'd love it. And the Keiji Haino post would be totally amazing, of course. Yeah, thanks a lot. That's sweet of you. No, I never saw Borbetonmagus. Don't know why. I just never lucked out, I guess. ATP sounds great. I'd love to see Charlemagne Palestine. I was just listening to CP yesterday. Novel's maybe two days from completion now, fingers crossed. Holy shit. ** Alan, I can't remember the blurb, hm, and I don't have that horrible little book here with me. I only remember it was a slight rewrite of a blurb on a John Ashbery book. Wow, about the advance HP promo. Did I say that about it? Yikes. ** Sypha, Hey. That's great about the Ligotti Day! Thank you so much, man. I'm excited. You know, I still have never read him, so the post will be really great and instructive for me. ** Steevee, I hope the new med gives and takes exactly as you wish. I've talked to two, or, make that three people now who have the serious hots for Assange. ** Trees, Hm, well, if you ever get asked to interview McGuire or Emeralds again, get Peter Rehberg to intervene. He'll sort it out. Yes, yes, pix of the shack, yes, please. For the blog, awesome, yes. Solo video ... oh, you mean porn? A porn solo? Whatever will you do in this porn solo? Ha ha. Yeah, sure, I'm following the Wojnarowicz thing. Awesome that it's moving copies of 'Close to the Knives'. See, there you go, as you said, exactly. ** C.P., Yeah, it sounded a little good to be true. Alas. Well, I guess follow up on the greatly more limited option and see what flies? Worst comes to worst, England's not a bad place at all, obviously. You're thinking London, I assume. ** Steven Trull, Yeah, and it's doing it again. ** Jheorgge, Hey, man. I liked the Shadow Ring. I'm not sure if I've heard Lambkin's solo stuff. But, yeah, the Giants stuff is really gorgeous, really sneaky and subtle. Yeah, Peter liked my work. There's a Coil song dedicated to me somewhere on one of the later-ish albums. That's why he and Jhon agreed to do the score for that horrid 'Frisk' movie. In fact, the last time I saw Peter I apologized for inadvertently drawing him into that project, but he was cool about it. So, yeah, we were mutual big fans, I guess you could say. ** Misanthrope, The Euro vs. dollar battle is everlasting, but the dollar is the Undertaker of that duo at the moment, yeah. Fare thee well to your tooth. What are you going to do with it? Make a hash pipe? I know someone who did that. Talk about an annoying little finger burning pipe. Enjoy the drugs and good sleep, man. ** Syreearmwellion, Yeah, CBTG is really nice. That last album is a stunner. And These New Puritans have really grown on me. The early comparisons to the Klaxons and that lot warded me off, but they're really very interesting. I'm try to finagle my way into their sold out concert here at the moment. Oh, Titus Andronicus, nice. I'm on the hunt for GO stuff. ** Bill, Yeah, Xavier Le Roy is new to me. My pal Ishmael asked me about him, so I've been investigating. He used to be Gisele's favorite choreographer, but she says his newest stuff has been a little obvious or something. The recent Joe Colley stuff is very good. He's still doing that really meticulous structuring and using CD packaging as clues and things. Good stuff. If he played in Paris, I missed it. Man, glad you've survived your annual Xmas mishap and that it was just a scraper. Or so I'm imagining. ** Andrew, Yeah, they took their name from the title of Charles Atlas' documentary about Michael Clark. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Again, your day was very nice to hear about. If it was a spiderweb, you spun gold. Or something. Wow, that was weird. Fangoria's gotten thin? It seems like every magazine that isn't a big fashion magazine has gotten thin. It's sad. My day wasn't much to talk about, but it was good for me. I polished off chapter 5 in one day. Now I'm working on chapter 6. I might just have this novel finished in the next three days, which would be amazing. Then it'll be nachos and cake and alcohol for me. And cleaning off my desk. And reading books and, oh gosh, real life again. Anyway, I feel better. So, I did that. What else? I had a visit with Kiddiepunk and Oscar. We checked out this Xmas market at the Gare de l'Est where people from Alsace are selling Xmas-y Alsace stuff like cheeses and cookies and wine and etc. Then we had a coffee. We decided to see Harry Potter this afternoon, so that'll finally be a done deal. In the evening, I don't know what I did. Wrote a bit, did a blog post, hung out with Yury, watched some TV documentary about Gerard Depardieu. Ate what I always eat. Not much to tell today, I'm sorry. But I can at least give you my Harry Potter review tomorrow. How were your last 24 hours? ** Colin, One of the other first things I'm going to do post-novel is write your blurb. Just so you don't think I've forgotten. Not that I think you did. Thanks about the post, man. ** Nick Hudson, Hey. It's The Marbled Swarm, not Marble. A small but very important difference. If Harper Perennial, who are awaiting it, like it, they'll put it out in the States. There's a very vague possibility of a UK edition, but it's not a done deal at all. You could try me tonight, but I might be in a movie theater watching the Harry Potter movie. If so, tomorrow? Take care, bud. ** Squeaky, No, I think they're better than a guilty pleasure. They're pretty smart and calculating about what they're doing. TNP, I mean. My pleasure. 'Magot' would have been more appropriate word verification for today's post. Maybe. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Good, it's not just me about the young Demarinis. Yeah, I would have been his puppy dog without the puppy play implications. Just puppy dog. Happy to be there. Thanks a lot for the Bonzos tip. That sounds like just the ticket, and I don't know that site, Excellent! You're so right there when I need you, man. ** Adjoun, I was going to say I like the idea of real blurbs on fake books, but then I realized that happens all the time. ** Wow, if I can proofread this p.s. quickly, I will have beaten the cleaning crew to the punch. Dig on the gore and snuff. See you tomorrow.
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