AKA a tepid creature feature rehash that left me bored, annoyed and surprised – surprised that it got an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 75% audience score. I was also left with a bitter aftertaste of confusion – how did the same guy behind the fantastic ‘Don’t Breathe’ have made this forgettable frolic into a Florida hurricane.
2/5 Screams
MATURE CONTENT AND SPOILERS AHEAD:
I had high hopes for this summer alligator romp, having loved Sam Raimi’s first delve into the mysterious world of gritty, postmodern psychological horror. But, I was already doubtful about how captivating it was going to prove to be because it seemed to give every single important event in the story line away in the bloody trailer. And I mean everything.
For those of you unfamiliar, this film follows a young woman called Hayley – we learn she is a struggling child swimming prodigy, lazy foreshadowing if you ask me, along with ‘apex predator’, wince – who tries to track down her father in amongst a vicious Florida storm. She tries to find her Dad as her street floods and suddenly alligators have infested their crawl space. The next 87 minutes are just man vs predator. There’s no real intelligence to their survival, no passion seemed to be injected into this project. It came across as if the producers and creators were themselves bored whilst making it.
Side note: Kaya Scloderio really doesn’t suite blonde. The whole film lacks pzazz, creativity and inspiration. There’s no real gore nor jump scares. The CGI is pretty good but the alligators are just hurdles, minor bumps in this pointless story. There’s barely even any characterisation or connection with the father and daughter – they could have done so much with that relationship and tugged at the heartstrings, but they didn’t. They just made them somewhat estranged and aw now they’re all patched up, I mean he had to lose an arm for that but okay.
The attention to detail wasn’t even very good, for example: she would have winced when lowering her very injured leg into the water. And her CPR on her dad at the end is far too fast. Honestly, the scariest part of this film is the horde of spiders crawling – ha, double meaning – all over her face. Nope, nope. My worst nightmare – give me hungry ‘gators any day. The deaths such as Wayne don’t rouse any reaction from the audience because, you guessed it, we’ve seen it all in the trailers. Her arm being bitten? In the trailer. Wayne’s death? In the trailer. Baby gators? You get the picture. Her trapped in the shower with a gator? In the trailer. I could go on.
My lasting impression once the credits rolled to the hilarious ‘See ya’ later alligator’ was that this film was a waste of time, good thing it was short. And…I really have nothing else to say because this film as so bland it was like Rivita crackers trying to be bruschetta. Sorry, Raimi – try better next time. My question for you guys is: would you rather be trapped in a house with a blind, serial killing psycho (all I have to say is turkey baster… yuck) OR trapped in a rapidly flooding house with a group of alligators hunting you? Let me know in the comments below:))
AKA A lot, and I mean a bag load of, WTF moments. Spurting blood from every angle and every oriphice, this film is a work of art in the shock for shock’s sake factor department, to an extent that it makes this film very funny yet so disconcerting too. I’m still trying to boggle my brain about what this film was trying to convey.
3.5/5 screams.
SPOILERS AND MATURE CONTENT AHEAD:
Hello again friends, foes and figments of my imagination. It’s been a while. I finally have my trusty laptop back, and BOY do I have some reviews coming at you. I was hit, like a bird in the sky flying over a large estate house, with a horrid stomach virus and so had a week of watching horror films (as well as a vast number of Netflix shows). It’s been a productive week…ha. But the silver lining is that I have notes for the next five reviews coming at you so yay for my sickly, tired noggin’.
Anyways, let’s delve head first into some serious J-body horror to take our minds off of Brexit, shall we? The dawn of October is nearly upon us and you know what that means, sweets galore and gore galore. I’m actually not a big Halloween fan…I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s an American, pointless import to support commercialisation. BUT I do love eating some weirdly wrapped sweets, turning down the lights, watching a shit tonne of horror movies and getting no judgement for it – people seem to judge me when I’m watching Craven or Kronenberg or James Caan or Tom Six in July. In October, we can get our freak on!
Right off of the bat the opening is odd, it just feels uncomfortable for seemingly unattainable reasons. The backstory is shown well, not forced but also easy enough to understand motives and exposition early on in the narrative. I also enjoyed the camera lingerings on the faces, it adds to the uncomfortable atmosphere. And, damn, if you think the mood and tone are the most uncomfortable things about this film just you wait, just…you…wait. Actually, no, I take that back – don’t destroy your night’s sleep with girls with teeth for nipples, men with pipes for eyes, girls slicing and slicing their own arms (oh, yes, they went there – I’ll get to that!), enough blood spurting out of cut off limbs to last you a lifetime. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Self-harm. We need to talk about self-harm in this movie. I said I’d get to it. Self-harm is an incredibly serious, sensitive and personal problem that affects an awful lot of young people, children, adults and even older adults. It is stigmatised in the media and by word of mouth (not aided by psychiatric reports from the 90’s etc.) and this meant that it is known as a method to gain attention. Whilst this may be true with some people, it is definitely not the general consensus. I don’t mind films dealing with sensitive topics such as this but they have to do it in a manner that respects the issue – this film did the complete opposite. There are scenes of the girl slashing and slashing repeatedly at her own, scarred arm and wrist. It is gruesome, fairly realistic and f***ing unnecessary! It was made in 2008 for Christ’s sake, not the 80’s or 90’s where I could give them a bit of slack for misunderstanding being even worse in those days. I would rate this film so much higher if it weren’t for this issue! Bloody hell film makers, if you’re going there go there with style and pathos and awareness and maybe, even, a little bit of humanity.
Phew, sorry about that tangent. Back to this splatter fest. The overall feel of this film was like Robocop meets the Texas chainsaw massacre meets Brain Dead. It’s a fascinating premise and, in my opinion, actually does a fairly good job of speaking about technology and power, morality and motor, rational and robot. Whether this was the main drive for the, admittedly twisted, writer I don’t know. I haven’t researched the matter because, frankly I need to spend the rest of my night (home alone) looking at puppy videos to cleanse myself of far too much shock-horror. For those of you who don’t know, this, urm, special movie is a body horror slash sci-fi action feast of flesh, the love child of ‘The Fly’ and ‘Kill Bill’ is one way to view it. It follows a policewoman in a futuristic, dystopian version of Tokyo where injuries miraculously become weapons. Yes, weapons. Due to genetic experimentation – it’s always down to shit like this, please guys in the white coats I know we’re all curious as kittens but, please, do us a solid and stop messing with our genomes. Otherwise, well, stuff like this happens. The privitised policeforce hunt down the ‘engineers’ who are a special breed of evil (the ones who grow weapons). And that’s pretty much it for plot, besides Yoshihiro’s revenge mission against the assassin who killed her father. But this film isn’t about plot. It doesn’t need to be. It’s honest and raw about what it is – a shocking, humorous delve into the Lovecraftian extremes of merging with technology. The line where human advancement halts and malfunctioning hybrids begin. I was curious about what the key shaped tumours could mean symbolically, a key to knowledge, opening doors – technology opens doors, contains wisdom, there are secretive and speculative parts of tech. Maybe it is just a simple key and I need to stop going full ‘English degree’ on it.
The film is rife with little nods to dystopian fiction in general – repetitions of slogans and advertisements like in George Orwell’s seminal ‘1984’, this film has its own type of newspeak and a focus on commercialisation being the death of morality and even the death of rationality. Despite the grotesque nature of this odd little film, it’s impossible to stop watching. You instinctively want to see the next awful, stomach-churning hybrid that these whacko designers came up with. I must admit that the strange, gimp-mask-wrapped, ‘pet’ with machetes for limbs is excellently designed, beautiful in this horrible way that I don’t want to look into any further.
The sex scene is creepy. Got to love the fetishism of innocence. The bottles with the blood spurting into them instead of out of the body is oddly effective. Creepy yet intriguing. The imagery throughout is that concoction, to be honest. Mysterious enough to peak your interest but disgusting enough to make your make strange faces whilst watching it. The ‘Heaven’s Punishment’ necklace is pretty evocative in itself. The music is also a fantastic part of this film’s tension.
One of my particular favourite notes I made whilst watching this: ‘Um, what? Why is he peeling off his own scalp and turning himself into a fountain?’. Haha. Also, this film centres around humans who can instantly grow metal from injuries, out of nowhere, and yet their mobile phones look like they’re from the late 80’s. A part of me thought this may be intentional, some contrast to the advancements. Then again, it’s probably me overthinking again. Oops. Occupational hazard of, well, being alive.
Surrealism is a large part of this film. In visuals, in sounds, in logic. Logic is a dirty tissue thrown out of the window in this mess of organs, tin and (very lightly coloured) blood fountains. The dialogue is actually the most bewildering part of this film for me personally, it’s nonsensical and commercial and intentionally antagonistic. It’s almost assaulting. The ‘Remote Control Exterminate’ is hilarious, I just had to put that somewhere in this review. The dialogue even shifts to poetry in some parts, ‘the snow of death falls and accumulates.’ The overhead voices singing bizarre sentences that would make Edward Lear jealous – ‘Older brother licked me so my eye has a sty’. *Shudders*. Seriously, how much acid were the writers on?
You do have to hand it to the design team, the make-up department, the amount of hours sat in chairs having gruesome body mods plastered all over you. Back to the creatures, the scene that had me saying ‘what?’ the most was the half human half chair – yes, you did read that correctly – pissing on strangers, followed swiftly by a girl with teeth for nipples biting a man’s penis off. You see the crudely amputated penis just kinda flop on the floor. It’s bound to make most men wince and cross their legs. And, just in case it doesn’t, they’re a second penis amputation scene. Two for one. I personally thought it was hilarious. There’s some serious girl power in this movie. Another very integral part of this film is its cultural heritage – anime esc. production and bizarre scenes such as a girl with alligator jaws for a vagina, of course – only in Japan, folks, only in Japan.
Overall this film is assaulting, strange, funny, bewildering, metaphorical and intriguing. A fun film – if you enjoy bizarre body horror – with some important underlying messages. I enjoyed it, I got cross with it, I laughed with it. Just watch it and you’ll understand why it’s actually rather hard to summarise in a few sentences. Go watch it and you’ll understand. Or save yourself a headache and don’t. Your move, boss.
AKA a very stupid, yet perversely enjoyable celebration of zombies and Britishness. Although it is basically a shitter version of ‘Shaun of the Dead’. 2.5/5 screams.
SPOILERS AND MATURE CONTENT AHEAD:
Here we are, the last horror comedy I’ll be reviewing for, hopefully, a while. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed changing the sort of horrors that I instinctively punt for; but I have predominantly been reminded about why I never had much time for this sub-genre. In my experience, they seem to try to hard yet somehow, paradoxically, be underdeveloped and steer more towards yawn-fests than straight up, shaken not stirred, horrors or comedies.
But that’s by the by. This Matthias Hoene, boisterous zombie flick basically does what it says on the tin and never seems to extend any higher than the material used in the trailer. The laughs certainly don’t seem to surpass then scene involving Richard Briars’ character – oh, how the mighty have fallen – utilising only a slow moving zimmerframe to evade the bloodthirsty undead. Granted, this scene was comedy gold but lost all the magic and spontaneity necessary for such a sketch to really hit the high notes because it was such a focal hook in the trailer. That, an aged Pussy Galore and a spirited Michelle Ryan are the main titbits that grab you from the trailer. That may be one of the best sentences that has ever left my noggin’. Also, Pussy Galore in a zombie movie? Is this something I, unknowingly, desperately needed in my life?
A few tangents later, we’ll get into some tangible points that I actually made notes on. Eventually. I was, ignoring my better instincts, quite excited about this film (I know I say that a lot, for a cynic). Despite the fact that it has been staring at me from the abyss that is Netflix for several years. But I was excited for a gritty, exuberant and unflinchingly British, zombie horror that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Granted, this is exactly what I got – I suppose some points should be handed to it for living up to expectations. The sad thing is that it could have been so much more if it hadn’t been lazy about it, It could easily have ranked up there with ‘Zombieland’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’. yet it does fall short, primarily because, well, it’s not that funny.
She is pretty badass, you have to admit.
The premise is simple. A group of Cockney runarounds attempt a pretty amateur bank robbery which happens to coincide with the collapse of the East End as it fills up with animated corpses. Corpses that still seem to maintain gang mentalities and football hooliganry… why not? I did appreciate that some of the zombies were little more than disintegrating skeletons. It’s a big pet peeve of mine that so many zombie blockbusters have these plump, human-looking cadavers despite the natural processes that would disrupt their physicality such as starvation, muscle deterioration, lack of blood supply etc. (Although – these are new zombies so i’m unsure how much dystrophy would actually have taken place. Frankly, if we’re going super scientific – if rigor mortis were setting in…how are they moving? And, now my head explodes). Moving swiftly on before I have an aneurysm, these sorts of zombies are less intimidating than the fleshy, quick boys and gals but there is more of a hint of realism about the decomposition which I appreciate. This decaying subgroup hark back to the sort of 80’s cult walkers like in ‘Return of the Living Dead’.
I did really enjoy the gore in this film, it was effective without being corny, overtly grotesque nor laughable. My only problem with it is that, I think, there should have been more focus on the gore. Seeing as the film itself is self-awarely pretty low budget and low quality therefore I think it could have benefited from being more visceral, more intuitive and grittier. One aspect I think that nailed the plucky and mettlesome tone is the dialogue. The writers did a bang up job making the dialogue humorously hyperbolic yet still maintain an interesting cultural integrity that I liked. Screw the idea of swish Brits with RP accents, sipping tea out of bone china cups with extended pinkies! You want to know what England is really like? This! Intense swearing, twats in backwards caps, drunken shouting in pubs that always seem to have at least one old ‘geezer’ sat at the bar, sounding like an incoherent farmer. Oh and an awful lot of ripping the living shit out of each other (pun very much intended). Really, take a few lines for example: ‘You yuppy twat’, ‘let’s fuck up some fuckers’. Welcome to London, ‘fuckers’.
I found a lot of the nuances funnier than the outright mayhem, like how rapidly and calmly they accept that it’s a friggin’ zombie apocalypse. I think it’s take me a few more minutes to adjust. One other stand out scene that was pretty entertaining is how the jaw of the zombie just locks onto the man’s arm like a decapitated pitbull. Strangely, details like this are biologically fairly realistic but then there are bits and bobs that are so far away from any sense of realism that they may as well be the love children of Tinkerbell and Freddie Kruger. For example, unless you’ve somehow slipped into a Kronenberg creature feature, it would never be possible to decapitate somebody with your bare hands.
Final notes: Moral of the story = Guns are great, kids! also…can we just mentioned the fact that the guy drop kicks a baby. You…ugh, don’t see that everyday?
I’ll just leave this here…
Overall, I guess the easiest summary for me to put forward is that it’s a bit of fun. Don’t take it too seriously, don’t expect it to forever change you with some existential reason for being. It’s exactly what you should expect from it – it’s Cockneys and zombies. Bish bash bosh. Now, don’t you want to book your holidays to come see drizzly ole’ England? You don’t? Huh.
AKA a run of the mill teen scream, annoying, (secretly) enjoyable and annoying – oh, I already said annoying? Exactly.
1.5/5 Screams
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Hello strangers, first of all I have to say a very big, scary SORRY. I’ve been a terrible blogger lately and my only excuse for being MIA for the past few weeks is that I’ve been immersed in writing my novel which I have, finally, cracked. So It’s been all about the book and so blogging had to take a back seat. But, in between planning and plotting and scribbling, I did have time to watch three horrors. So, without further adieu, here’s the first.
Looking back at the notes I made on this 2018 horror is pretty amusing, I wrote ‘Oh, come on!’ and ‘What?’ multiple times. In CAPS LOCK, no less – so ya know I was really unimpressed.
I’d seen the trailer for this one several times as it was fairly intensely marketed as the new big one to see in the cinemas. The trailer had stuck it in my brain but without any lasting impression, apart from the plastic-lined, stretched out grins that reminded me of the masks in ‘The Purge’.
The beginning is intriguing, nothing remarkable nor terrifying, cliche jump scares and predictable violence. Basically, it starts like any run of the mill teen scream. One of the first things that struck me was the milking of the selfie culture in this film. It’s infuriating and, if anything, conveys the target audience as pretty young preteens. I suppose this film would be okay as a first watch, an initiation into the horror scene for thirteen year olds, but not for people who can identify any tropes or classic scenes that are common in horror. Not to mention the fact that these characters act like they’re fifteen or so, highschoolers at the most, rather than university students – not that i’m saying all university students are the epitome of maturity. Believe me when I tell you that that’s far from the truth. But the characters in this flick would definitely have suited a senior school setting more than university. Especially as the cheap jump scares really are just that, cheap and foreseeable.
Another note that, looking back makes me laugh as i’m so picky, is that some of the exposition and backstory are just lazily implanted into the film. For example, we find out that the protagonist’s best friend’s dad committed suicide through the line (from what I can remember) ‘since dad killed himself’ or something of the sort. This is just unrealistic dialogue, the characters know how he died; the only reason to be mentioning it in that way is to tell the audience. Lazy, lazy, lazy. It’s almost as bad as going: ‘Oh yeah, i’ve been feeling really terrible since dad died of complications from puerperal fever from the…….’. Ugh. Read your dialogue back people!!!
One thing I was curious about in this film is what its point is. Is this just a synthetic, cheap Halloween watch or is there a larger theme? I thought perhaps the whole thing could be an allegory for peer pressure but that may be my English student over-analysis!?!?
Another stand alone note that made me laugh in my notebook: ‘Neck break = Lol but good’. My bullet points are very eloquent, right? Who did the bloody dialogue again – ‘I looked like a Snapchat filter’. Seriously? Again, they’re talking like children. It’s infuriating and because they’re such bland characters you don’t actually care when any of them kick the bucket, thus rendering the entire film emotionally uninteresting and severing any connection with the audience that’s more powerful than ‘Oh, look – he snapped his neck on a pool table. Shame’. Another bone I have to pick with this film is less to do with this film in particular and more to do with the entire sub-genre of teen screams. Specifically, the gaslighting involved. The classic is the main character realises there’s some supernatural forces at work or a serial killer on the loose and everyone around her makes her/him feel like they’re going insane and it’s all in their head. And, quite honestly, this trope is neither effective nor appropriate anymore. It’s just dull and, not to get on my feminism high horse or anything, but this tends to happen to female MC’s more than male. Just my humble opinion.
My second high horse to clamber up onto is to do with the way Penelope’s character is explored, she’s referred to as ‘day-drinking Penelope’. STOP USING ADDICTION AND MENTAL HEALTH AS A LAUGHING POINT! Jeesh, this does my head in in these movies. It’s one thing to romanticise binge drinking and recreational drug abuse but to actively use it as a comedic character arc without exploring it any further than the surface is another. Please, directors and writers, just stop using these serious issues as comedy.
Moreover, the characterisation in general is just meh. None of them are likeable, interesting or more than just obvious cliches. Marki (also, who the hell is called Mar-k-i?) is selfish, Olivia is nothingy and bland etc. And realism is shoved aside with the dust and the lint, for example – nobody would be able to talk even somewhat rationally after over a litre of vodka downed like water. Her death is also infuriating. One plus, this film has a surprisingly okay sex scene – despite the fact that Lukas literally tells Olivia he doesn’t love her whilst he’s still inside, I mean…wow – for what is otherwise a seemingly PG13+ movie.
Final point: Sky Cinema rated this movie 1.5/5 stars and I can seriously see why. The ending was just like the rest of the movie, obvious, unintelligent, easy; leaving me exclaiming to my dog, ‘Oh for f’s sake, come on!’.
AKA where I do a list, a rant, a poem – basically anything goes on Freaky Fridays. And when I get more of you lovely people following my blog you can give suggestions for what YOU’D like on Freaky Fridays.
SPOILERS AHEAD!! AND VERY MATURE CONTENT.
Soooooo, first one. I’ve been thinking about this over the weekend, I decided I wanted to do a list for the first post. Then I spent a while mulling it over, the best villains? No, too ordinary. The best zombie movies? Gosh, not yet, that will take a lot of thinking – like, months. You know I love me some zombie flicks. So, I have decided on *drum roll* the most disturbing horror films of all time. In my opinion of course. I’m not going on gore or blood, i’m going on films that you will never forget, that are forged into your memory and branded onto your nightmares. Here we go.
#10Goodnight Mommy (2014) This is an Austrian horror movie that follows the lives of a mother and her twin boys after she’s undergone cosmetic facial surgery. The premise, leaving the mother’s face always wrapped in gauze and bandages, has a sort of ‘Eyes without a face’ ring to it. But the atmosphere is just unsettling throughout, paranoia seeps in and you become just as perplexed and fearful as the boys and – eventually – the mother. The utter cruelty that comes from a nine year old is a cause for unease as it is, he glues – yes, glues – his mother to the living room floor. He glues her mouth shut. He burns her face. He cuts her lips with scissors. He is just a little psychopath, basically. It turns out his twin was a hallucination all along. The ending is disturbing also, the three of them all embracing with these fixed, strange smiles in a freakin’ cornfield. I just cannot with this film. Something about children being evil is petrifying enough but one that has hallucinations, access to sharp objects and cockroaches (that was a tough and bizarre scene).
#9 Scrapbook (2000) Jeesh I had honestly forgotten about this film until about ten minutes ago. Possibly my preteen brain blocked it out. I remember watching it illegally in about four sessions on the bus to and from school, hiding it towards me so nobody saw the horrific, sadistic sexual violence. This film has a fairly simple presence; girl gets kidnapped, gets repeatedly raped and beaten for several days. But it’s just the production of it is so gritty, so realistic – you could seriously believe that the ordeals were truly happening to this poor girl. It goes beyond just being hit once, it’s constant beating and various ways of raping and he even urinates on her. The only saving grace for this daring film, literally the only saving grace, is that in the end she manages to kill him and put it in his awful scrapbook of murder and blah. But otherwise this film is honestly a test to watch, if you can make it to the end – congratulations! You have no soul. 🙂
#8 The Sacrament (2013) I’ve actually, recently, reviewed this film as I’m making my way through Eli Roth’s repertoire, and it’s a fantastic film – it’s done brilliantly, acted amazingly but damn is it disturbing. Watching a mother slit her own daughter’s throat, hundreds of people drinking the poison and the “painless” death becomes agony and the gasp for breath and beg you to help them. It’s a tense, somewhat slow burn. But it’s just somehow just effective. It barely has any gore or guts but it still manages to be disturbing so, bravo, you sick people.
#7Mother! (2017) No, just – no freaking way with this bloody film. Nope. A baby gets freakin’ torn apart and eaten like a freaking fried chicken. I just can’t with this piece of evilness. Honestly even thinking about this film hurts my heart a little bit. Don’t get be wrong the premise is bizarrely and horribly intriguing and original and the acting is fantastic. But just f**k off Darren Aronofsky! Â
#6: 120 Days of Sodom or Salo (1957) Why am I doing this list? I’m just mentally revisiting all of this devastation in one hit and it’s a strange mix of fear and just ‘nahhhhhhh’. Anyway, this film. Again it’s just a real test to watch, I barely managed to get through it and I’m good with shiz like this but holy hot guacamole. It’s so realistically done, filmed so naturally. And it’s just so brutal. We’re talking rape, all kinds of rape, forced marriage, murder, made to eat faeces, having to have orgies, being whipped and beaten. This film is scarring, cheers Italy.
#5: Requiem For a Dream(2000) The second Darren Aronofsky appearance on this list. Okay, hands held up, the eagle-eyed amongst you will note that this isn’t a horror movie. Correct. If i’m admitting to the struggle of the mid-numbers for this category, I had to steer slightly off of course for this number slot. It dawned on me that I had a fairly clear image of the first five films and the top two but the middle numbers stumped me for a week or so. Apologies, but I had to put this one in here. For those of you who haven’t witnessed this sharp, muddy and honest portrayal of the rock bottoms of various drug addictions, crazed utopias that devolve into this sickening, beautifully eerie spiral. Four people, four interwoven story lines all set into motion by the haunting piano piece of the title. I was about fourteen when I first saw this film and, a while before discovering my particular penchant for violent horrors, I remember finishing it with this atmosphere of unease and discomfort thick around me. I’ve been planning in rewatching it lately as an adult, to see if I find it just as viscerally unsettling as I did then. Personally I think this movie is a piece of art, it is just phenomenally produced, shot and acted and it doesn’t shy away from the gritty subject matter nor does it romanticise addiction, quite the opposite in fact. For those of you nineteen years late to the game you may not understand what I mean by the ending! For those of you who do, there’s nothing more to say. And, despite it being more of a psychological drama than anything else, it does maintain the mood and craftsmanship of any great psychological horror – it’s minute detail, its shocking visuals, its uncomfortable dirty realism all combine into this murky, itchy disturbance. Personally this film effects me more, emotionally and pictorially, than any horror. It doesn’t rely, until the end anyhow, on massively shocking visuals or gore, it’s more about in-articulation, losing your humanity, losing everything to this living inferno dreamscape.
#4:The Human Centipede2 (Full Sequence) (2011) I’m unsure how old I was when I first endured this film. I remember being fairly nonplussed with the first instalment in this body-horror franchise. I thought it was over-hyped and sometimes just a bit dull. In fact the only scene that stuck with me, and still makes my stomach churn a little, was the infected staples image. On the flip side of the coin, the second movie was too much. Strikingly meta, albeit over-relying on monochrome camerawork – be honest with us, Tom Six, was this just so you could save some dosh on fake blood and use chocolate sauce instead? – it follows a repugnant man, Martin, in the same world as us, a world in which the first film exists, who obsessively studies it. Even more meta is the inclusion of Ashlynn Yennie, who played Jenny in the first film, playing herself. The main difference between this fella and the sick b***ard from the first time round is that this one has zero medical training and so his – much larger scale – centipede is haphazardly constructed and even involves a pregnant woman which, to be fair, was a step too far. Pregnant women and infants do not belong in these films (but, then again, wait until #2 on this list) can we just universally agree on that? That put aside, there are certain scenes in this movie that really are sickening for no other reason than to get people talking – sexual and physical molestation of children, masturbating with sandpaper, the severing of the knee ligaments, removal of teeth with a hammer, anal exsanguination, removal of tongues with pliers, laxatives (‘nuf said), barbed-wire-wrapped-rape (a sentence I never thought i’d write), a newborn’s skull being crushed by an accelerator pedal and a live centipede being inserted into Martin’s anus. Blimey, what a list.
#3/Honorary Mention: Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Okay, this 1980 Italian found-footage film didn’t make it onto the actual list because, unpopular opinion, I don’t actually find it disturbing. I’m not sure why, maybe as it’s dated now? Who knows. But I had to at least mention it because it involves the actual slaughter of animals such as turtles, monkeys and fish. I find that more disturbing than any on here! DO NOT MESS WITH THE ANIMALS!!!
#2: A Serbian Film (2010) This is one of those exploitation horrors that if you’ve never actually watched it, it’s likely that you’ve heard about it. It follows an ageing porn star who becomes embroiled in one last hurrah, as it were, but what begins as a last assignment in the adult industry soon becomes a grotesque extended metaphor for life in Serbia – that the country ‘screws its inhabitants from the moment they’re born’. Soon this flick becomes all about the shock factor, it’s filthy and bloody and just perverse. It’s no coincidence that I always see this film at the top of most banned and disturbing horrors lists. I can’t remember exactly how many countries banned this one for, I may be wrong in thinking it’s over 10? Correct me in the comments if you know. Anyway, this film includes necrophilia, incest, newborn-rape (you don’t entirely see it, thank God!) and lots of just…uncomfortable feelings. It’s not even that it necessarily makes that much of an impression on first or second watch, it’s only when you start questioning the whole morality of it that it starts to f**k with you head.
#1: Martyrs (2008)
Here we are, number one. The big uno. This French horror film is many things:
unnerving, grotesque, haunting, scaring, banned and has even been associated
with being responsible for the New Wave French Extremity movement. The plot
follows a young girl escaping from a year’s worth of torture and abuse, then
sees this young girl’s, Lucie’s, hallucinations of a ghost figure. Years later
she arrives to a family’s house as a young adult and shoots them, believing
them responsible for her miserable childhood. Anna is there (her childhood
friend) and Lucie subsequently kills herself. Anna finds a strange cellar under
the basement with a woman, Sarah, who is emaciated and translucent, with metal
bolted to her temples – her eyes in permanent darkness. This proves Lucie was
right about the family and Sarah was the ghost-like, psychological
representation of her guilt. Anna sets Sarah free, after pretty hard to bare
attempts at removing the metal. plates. Then people arrive, gunning down Sarah
(cry – seriously this film is so messed up) and kidnapping Anna (Like, what the
frick did Anna do?). It’s revealed that these people are a sort of academic,
philosophical cult who believe that by inflicting the most extreme systems of
agony and torture on the human body a person could “transcend” to a
utopia-esc post-heaven. They flay Anna alive, again incredibly disturbing to
watch, and she survives, in a euphoric type state. The leader of the
organisation, Mademoiselle, eagerly returns to hear of Anna’s revelations. Anna
whispers in her ear. She proceeds to kill herself. The film ends on Anna’s face
in a catatonic state. It had really mixed critical response, unsurprisingly. I
just remember feeling so violated afterwards. The physical horror of it all is
just too much.
Don't Scream 