Tag Archives: Extreme

Capsules

CAPSULE: VISIONS OF SUFFERING (FINAL DIRECTOR’S CUT) (2006/2016)

Leave a comment

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

Visions of Suffering is available to watch on video-on-demand in either it’s original 2006 version or the 2016 “Final Director’s Cut.”

BewareWeirdest!

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Anastasia Asafova, Andrey Iskanov

PLOT: A necrophilia-obsessed man is haunted by demons.

Still from Visions of Suffering (Final Director's Cut) (2016)

COMMENTS: Ominously titled, as if to warn potential viewers, Andrey Iskanov’s Visions of Suffering is available both in an original 2006 cut and in a shorter 2016 “Final Director’s Cut.” Given the option of watching both, it seems obvious that 90 minutes of Suffering is preferable to 120 minutes of Suffering. Without having seen the original, I feel confident in saying Iskanov made the right decision to cut out 30 minutes of Suffering.

While the movie is extremely abstract and opaque in its details and methodology, playing like a feature length music video for an industrial noise/death metal crossover band, the basics of the thin plot are not especially difficult to comprehend. Sasha, our bespectacled protagonist, wanders through a misty yellow forest until he encounters a guy wearing a burlap sack on his head (the synopsis explains that this is a shaman and that Sasha interrupts an occult ceremony, perhaps thus bringing a curse on his head). Of course, it was all a dream, and Sasha wakes up and immediately screens a necrophilia porno flick before discovering that his phone is on the fritz. He leafs through books on Jack the Ripper and an anthology of murder scene photos while waiting for the repairman to arrive. While the repairman fixes the phone, they talk about dreams, and the guest casually drops some vampire lore. Phone fixed, Sasha calls his girlfriend (?) Vika, who’s busy shooting lesbian cutter porn. After hanging up, Sasha sees some vampires loitering about outside, and one of them stabs him in the earlobe through the keyhole. Then Sasha has some visions of suffering, and Vika’s car is possessed as she drives to his apartment while wearing iron cross sunglasses. Sasha has some more visions of suffering and calls an exorcist type (played by the director), who explains that Sasha has likely riled up some demons through his desecration of the dead. The director offers to fix the problem for 7000 euros, but that’s too steep for Sasha. So he has some more visions of suffering until the demon Golgatha shows up in his apartment with a sword and starts hacking up the furniture. Then he wakes up, and everything’s OK.

It’s a familiar old story, but Iskanov films it with some genuine style, if not taste or discipline. Much of the film is shot through hazy green/yellow filters that turn cheap costumes and effects that would probably look ridiculous in the full light of day into creepy nightmare fuel. (At times it’s like a less-effective Begotten, without the mythological resonances.) The sound mix is thick, dripping with ooze, spooky noises, and shrieks and moans off one of those atmospheric Halloween sound effect compilations. There is a lot of shock imagery: mutilation, autopsies, explicit sex, implied necrophilia. There are also a lot of superimposed image, especially in the fast-cut opening credits sequence that shows off Iskanov’s gift for montage. But all of this artistry is in service of a juvenile morbidity that seems to arise from listening to too many Marilyn Manson albums under the influence of too much hashish.

Suffering earns the rare and, in some quarters, coveted “” + “” tags. That’s not a recommendation for most folks. The Beware is for content—explicit sex, grotesque real autopsy footage, and some sick stuff that made even me cringe—but even excepting those, the film will prove a bit of a slog for most viewers because of its nonlinearity, tonal monotony, and humorlessness. Still, although it might have worked better chopped up into a series of easily digestible shorts, thanks to some memorably spooky imagery and resourcefulness in disguising his budgetary limitations Iskanov’s movie is not as much of a trial as it sounds like on paper. Fans of experimental extreme horror will eat it up. But please, don’t force me to watch the 2-hour version.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The movie is really about an endless stream of colorful cinematography and visuals, head-trips, nightmares, atmosphere, bizarre creatures, etc… the plot and characters never really develop. In other words, too undisciplined.”–Zev Toledano, The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre

(This movie was nominated for review by “Josh.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: VASE DE NOCES (1974)

2 Comments

AKA Wedding Trough; The Pig F*cking Movie

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

Beware

DIRECTED BY:Thierry Zéno

FEATURING: Dominique Garny

PLOT: A young farmer embraces his animalistic side as he romances a sow.

Still from Vase de Noces (1974)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Vase de Noces is an under-appreciated classic of surrealist cinema. Not only it is full of extremities but it remains enigmatic, inviting us to ponder on  possible interpretations.

COMMENTS: The opening shot, somewhere in between the lyrical and the grotesque, the poetic and the nonsensical, sets the tone accordingly. Our protagonist attempts to dress two pigeons with doll heads, in the first of a series of segments where animals fall prey to his whims. The monstrosity he strives to create recalls a pair of malformed angels, and his perverted, personal view of the angelic. And this layered and disturbing—if purely symbolic—act is just the beginning of our tale.

The film is simple from a narrative standpoint. We follow our protagonist, a young peasant, in a series of extreme and illogical acts. He seems at times a pure, innocent, childlike soul, flying his kite without a care in the world and praying before lunch like a proper Christian. He is also capable of the grossest barbarities, like the infamous act of bestiality mentioned whenever this movie is discussed.

What exactly his nature? Is he a real yet disturbed person, a simpleton, and  the film a realistic character study? Or is he purely symbolic, an allegorical personification of the wildest impulses of the human psyche: the id, the beast lurking inside each and every one of us? Probably the latter. Our protagonist is a being of pure emotion, full of contradicting desires, yet always eager to embrace his bestial side.

He seems to find some sort of happiness through bestiality—at first. The female pig gets pregnant and gives birth to three beautiful piglets. It’s almost wholesome. Yet the young man is still unable to find comfort. Unable to help himself, he wreaks havoc through a series of repugnant acts, culminating in a tragic finale. Fully embracing your wild impulses can only bring destruction and self-annihilation, our tale seems to say.

Vase De Noces was Zéno’s feature debut, his second movie after a short documentary portraying schizophrenic artist Georges Moinet. His main interests here are not dissimilar. Zéno once again studies humanity apart from its logical “civilized” aspects, depicting people as amalgamations of impulses, emotions, depravity, and nothing more.

That’s why words—a product of reason—are completely absent from our tale. Instead, we have a rich soundscape full of playful tunes imitating animals’ voices or natural sounds, with classical melodies adding a hint of lyricism. There are also piercing and alarming noises at the most intense moments. The soundscape perfectly aligns with the film’s hypnotic black and white photography.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…this Belgian-lensed art-dirge is one of the most foul and pretentious pics ever made. It’s so damned bizarre that simply detailing the plot can’t even come close to conveying the unique combination of utter disgust and absolute boredom you register while viewing it.” – Steven Puchalski, Shock Cinema

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MELANCHOLIE DER ENGEL (2009)

2 Comments

Beware

DIRECTED BY: Marian Dora

FEATURING: Zenza Raggi, Carsten Frank, Janette Weller

PLOT: Two middle-aged men, an old artist, and some women embark on a series of depravities.

Still from "Melancholie der engel" (2009)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It is not only one of the most disturbing movies ever, but an incoherent mess that most of the time does not make any sense.

COMMENTS: German extremism has a rich cinematic tradition stretching from ’s infamous Nekromantik in 1988 until today. In the 21st century, where extreme cinema has developed as a distinct genre worldwide, even more disturbing works of dubious artistic quality appear. And in the extreme horror landscape of our day, Buttgereit is no longer at the forefront. A new voice has emerged, as out of our worst nightmares. The name of that voice is Marian Dora.

Melancholie der engel (The Angel’s Melancholy) remains Dora’s most widely known movie, considered by many to be the most disturbing film to ever exist. We follow two men, seemingly with no purpose in life, who seduce three women and take them to an isolated building deep inside a creepy forest, full of dead animals, worms, and slugs. An old friend of theirs introduces himself as an artist early on, bringing another, handicapped, woman with him. And the depravity begins.

Many scenes of violent torture, mostly of a sexual nature, take place both towards the women, and towards living (or even dead) animals. The violence persists from the first moment of the movie, even when its narrative function is not always clear. Rapid editing and many close-ups create a sense of disorientation, while grotesque imagery attacks the viewer from every direction. No coherent story emerges. In the tradition of contemporary extreme cinema, as we read in “Extreme Cinema: Affective Strategies in Transnational Media” by Aaron Michael Kerner and Jonathan L. Knapp, we have something more akin to an episodic structure, with the disturbing events being the episodes.

What kind of extreme imagery are we talking about? Images of decay, mostly, in its many forms. Worms, corpses, and decomposition are always in the background. However, the cinematography maintains a painterly quality, especially in its blurry landscapes. The dreadful forest that engulfs our characters reminds us of the forest in ’s Antichrist (2009), if it was even more extreme and perverted. But the real evil remains inside our protagonists, the three men, and their disgusting acts.

The women are not always the typical female victims of a slasher flick or torture porn. Sometimes they seem to enjoy the depravity around them, which makes the movie even more disturbing and difficult to watch. The exhausting duration,  around two and a half hours, does not help either. It is surely a weird movie, but it is recommended only for hardcore fans of extreme horror. Everyone else, stay away from this.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…once we reach the house, that’s when everything starts getting progressively weirder. And filthier… If you like art films as well as scatological torture of young women (you have to like both), and you can handle pretentious dialogue and depictions of real animal death, AND you’re a fan of Marian Dora’s work (a lot of criteria to fill here), you might want to try and hunt down Melancholie der Engel.”–Sean Leonard, Horror New Network (Blu-ray)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Dee Coles.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: A HOLE IN MY HEART (2004)

1 Comment

Ett hål i mitt hjärta

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Björn Almroth, Thorsten Flinck, Goran Marjanovic, Sanna Bråding,

PLOT: A son watches as his father and a pair of actors shoot an increasingly violent and depraved amateur porn movie in their small apartment.

Still from A Hole in My Heart (2004)

COMMENTS: Lukas Moodysson has had a strange career. He began as a poet and novelist before moving into cinema with his debut, Fucking Åmål [AKA Show Me Love], a realistic lesbian romance. After another crowd-pleasing drama, the commune-set Together, he went into darker (but still realistic) territory with Lilya 4-ever, a bleak drama about a Russian girl sold into sex slavery. After this well-received trio, Moodysson was a critical darling with a large home-grown fan base. Seemingly, he decided to blow it all up with the deliberately off-putting experiment A Hole in My Heart.

There’s not much story to Hole. A young man lives with his dad. He rarely leaves his room, partly because the father is using the rest of the apartment as a set to produce a series of amateur porn films with his two live-in actors (one male, one female). In between shoots, the three principals dance and party as the son hangs out alone in his room, tending his earthworms and listening to industrial music on his headphones. The porn scenarios begin as normal sex acts but escalate into pseudo-rapes, force-feeding, and vomit play (the latter somewhat reminiscent of the commune orgies from Sweet Movie.) At one point, the female actor angrily abandons the group, but soon returns to pick up where they left off, acting as if nothing had ever happened. Some character development occurs: the son and father discuss the boy’s dead mother, the actor and male director bond when the latter reveals he has a serious illness (a hole in his heart?) that causes him to occasionally pass out, and the actress flirts with the son, falling short of a seduction but nevertheless producing a bond. Everyone seems to be seeking love, but not finding it. The film ends inconclusively.

The material here is disconcerting enough—the three porn producers block out upcoming scenes using barbie dolls, who sometime lose limbs in the process—but Moodysson deploys infuriating formal tricks to discombobulate the audience. The soundtrack barfs up a lot of grating, staticky noises at random moments. Though the story is ultimately told mostly in chronological order, the editing is often non-linear, crosscutting quiet conversations with sex scenes. There’s a dream sequence featuring crop circles. Moodysson interrupts the flow with snippets of real surgery footage, of both the labiaplasty and the open-heart variety. The entire things is shot faux-documentary style, with indifferent framing, unflattering lighting, and with both product labels and faces of extras fogged out. (At one point, the main cast’s faces are digitally obscured, too, suggesting the characters’ shame and lack of consent to be filmed under these degrading circumstances).

The overall feel of Hole in the Heart is of one of those nihilistic experiments of or . At its best, it approaches a provocation like The Idiots (1998). But Hole fails to generate empathy for the characters inhabiting its squalid setting, leaving little impact other than a dyspeptic stomach. The one thing that saves Moodysson’s experiment from total failure (and a rating) is that the screed does have a particular target, the adult entertainment industry, and it does suggest, through pornographic poetry, how that commercial concern sucks in the vulnerable and distracts humanity from making healthy connections. That’s an intellectually thin message, however, and one that’s largely drowned out by the rivers of blood and vomit on screen.

Moodysson followed up this effort with the even weirder (but less disgusting) Container, an abstract avant-garde movie that nearly cost him all his remaining supporters. Her returned to realism with 2009’s Mammoth, then won fans and critics back with the heartwarming nostalgic coming-of-age story We Are the Best! in 2013. All seven of his features are collected in Arrow’s “The Lukas Moodysson Collection.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…not so much about story as moods, atmosphere and symbolism. At times, its use of sound and flickering images recalls films like ‘Eraserhead’ and the symbolism of early Bunuel. From the beginning, there is a sense of dread and uneasiness, and this feeling only gets stronger by the minute until it feels like the film itself will explode.”–Gunnar Rehlin, Variety (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: PERIOD PIECE (2006)

2 Comments

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

BewareWeirdest!

DIRECTED BY: Giuseppe Andrews

FEATURING: Bill Tyree, Giuseppe Andrews

PLOT: Intertwined stories of a number of absurd characters including a French dwarf who has rough sex with a teddy bear and a perpetually naked old man who has sex with an imaginary woman.

Still from period piece (2006)

COMMENTS: “WARNING: This film contains senior citizen nudity and dead pigs.”

Now, geriatric nudity is no big thing (although when the octogenarian attempts to holds pork rinds between his buttcheeks, you may disagree). That dead pig, though… we’ll get to it.

Period Piece is a series of absurdist sketches that rarely rise to the level of jokes, and never to the level of insights. They aren’t planned out, they are just passing spurts from the brain of director Giuseppe Andrews, whose mind is not filled with classical allusions like a or scathing anti-bourgeois fantasies like a , but mostly with dirty words, bodily function imagery, and trailer park culture. The result is arrested development surrealism, like something made by if he were a complete psychopath.

You get segments about two guys who siphon gas to get money to shoot heroin in a car wash. Two other guys mime eating each others’ farts (which they slice with a plastic knife and eat with a fork, in about the closest the film comes to eliciting a chuckle.) Stop-motion tater tots have sex in front of a shrine to Charles Manson. A guy eats raw hamburger. That kind of stuff. It’s shot in camcorder glare, and the editing is deliberately bad, as if a few “good” fifteen second takes were assembled to make a scene. Sometimes the same line repeats with slightly different inflection. It’s unpleasantly disorienting and visually unflattering, so Andrews does achieve the Americana nightmare feel he’s going for. And just so you won’t be fooled into thinking you’re watching something with socially redeeming value, it opens with a bit where a guy wearing a fake mustache and speaking in a Pepe le Pew accent sodomizes a teddy bear with an industrial sized can of calm chowder. (The repeated, graphic molestation of the stuffed sex slave is an ongoing motif.) Also, a lot of people shoot themselves in ineffective mock suicides. It’s as disgusting as it sounds, and much of the time, it’s repetitive and tedious, but it’s capable of holding your interest—against your better judgement.

Although the climactic dead pig is explicitly named “Society,” the main target of the film’s ongoing and pervasive anger has been women and scarcity of sex. The teddy bear who “likes it rough” seems to stand in for woman as sexual objects. In one vignette a man threatens to kill a “whore” for cheating on him. A father and son leaf through the gynecological displays in well-worn stroke mags, and the son dreams of scoring someday. The naked old man delivers obscene, scatological monologues about vaginas. Although Andrews had  a girlfriend at the time, and there is a woman in the cast, the whole project gives off the vibe of something conceived by poor white guys who’ve lost all hope of ever getting laid. Therefore, when Andrews’ attempt to top Pink Flamingos in the grossout department has the naked old man hack at the pig’s head with a hatchet while screaming insults at it, I was put more in mind of incels releasing sexual frustration than outsiders taking revenge against a system that has marginalized them.

The ending of the film disclaims that “no animals were hurt in the making of this film… they were already dead!” This is not strictly true. What about the human animals in the audience who had to watch it?

proudly (?) picked up Period Piece (and some other Andrews movies) for distribution, despite the fact that it’s much darker (and even cheaper) than their usual fare. The DVD features an incongruously cheerful introduction by , a Kaufman interview with Andrews, trailers for other Andrews movies, an obscene misogynist poem written by Andrews and read bumblingly by Tyree, and the entire 70-minute bonus feature Jacuzzi Rooms— which is literally just an unscripted chronicle of four rednecks drinking heavily in a motel room. Fun stuff, for people for whom nothing matters.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Take John Waters at his shock heights, a sizable helping of Harmony Korine’s Gummo, and a completely amateur visual aesthetic you have a vague idea as to what kind of film your in store for… From frame one you are forced into its full tilt bizarro world. You either get on for the ride or reject it completely.”–Infini-Tropolis (DVD)

(This movie was nominated for review by Tally Isham, who said “Not sure if I recommend seeing it, but it’s zero-budget weirdness.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)