Shock Movies: A Guide to Controversial & Disturbing Films
Date: 2013-04-26 04:00:00+00:00
Description: Shock Movies is a global survey that looks at some of the most controversial and disturbing movies ever made. From graphic gore to rique subject-matter, these are the movies that pushed boundaries and were designed to take viewers to the very edge, and then pseudo-snuff, Cat III, 'Video nasties,' true crime, etc. 130 titles are covered and put into historical context with analysis and details on censorship. There is also a chapter on Scapegoat Cinema, in which the media blames horror movies for real-life violent crime, an essay on the history of Christian controversy in the cinema, and an inte
Publisher: Bad News Press

SHOCK MOVIES: A GUIDE TO CONTROVERSIAL AND DISTURBING FILMS

Phil Russell

A Bad News Press book

First published by Bad News Press in 2013

Shock Movies: A Guide To Controversial And Disturbing Films

Text copyright © Phil Russell

This volume copyright © Phil Russell 2013

Design & layout: Phil Russell

Cover image courtesy of Grindhouse Releasing

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, whether you're smoking crack or raping yo mamma in the arse with a spatula, without prior permission in writing from the author/publisher.

The following reviews were first published at Horrornews.net: The Baby of Macon; The Bride of Frank; Crazy Love; Dead Girl On Film; Feto Morto; Hardgore; Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies; The Honeymoon Killers; I Never Left The White Room; Nekromantik 2; Sweet Movie; Thesis; Urban Flesh; Wedding Trough (Pig Fucking Movie).

Author’s acknowledgements: Thanks to Giulio De Santi at Necrostorm and Johanna Muñoz for her time and patience, and her sterling work in translating Italian transcripts into English for me. Stephen Biro at Unearthed Films, Mike Bohatch at Horrornews.net.  And special thanks to my good friends, Alan Trent and Chad West, for their help in sourcing some of the films discussed in this book.

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1481891387

ISBN-10: 1481891383

SHOCK MOVIES: A GUIDE TO CONTROVERSIAL AND DISTURBING FILMS

Phil Russell

CONTENTS

Introduction 7

Reviews  13

Scapegoat Cinema  249

Interview with Stephen Biro  331

It’s Blasphemy!  343

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome. This book is a global survey looking at some of the most shocking and disturbing films ever made. Many of the big-hitters are covered here, such as Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Irreversible, the Nekromantik movies, CAT III shockers and so on. Additionally, there is also coverage of lesser-known films that are no less deserving of their place in these pages, such as Kiss Or Kill, Wedding Trough and Der Fan. For mainstream critics, many of the films covered here represent the movie world’s equivalent of vermin; the pointy-eared, diseased life-forms that scurry in the bins and sewers of moviedom, freaking out the unsuspecting passers-by. And though I try to give these movies a fair judgment overall, some are so bloody awful that I couldn’t resist some harsh criticism here and there (I have zero patience since I quit smoking). And, in case you need reminding, these films are obviously not for everyone.

There has always been an intense, fanboy attitude to the horror genre as far as fandom goes. The popularity of the genre has a strange characteristic that sets it apart from other types of films; it's a genre which is restricted to connoisseurs and aficionados, and also complemented by a total rejection - People tend to watch horror movies obsessively or not at all. Fanzines in the 80s and 90s were always preoccupied with finding the uncut versions of video tapes and listing in great detail the footage that had been snipped out by the censors and distributers. In the UK, this concern and disdain for censorship was mixed with the hatred for the state-imposed censorship embodied in the Video Recordings Act, and the desire to see the films which were prosecuted and banned as 'video nasties' under the legislation.

An early 90s publicity poster from Vipco Video announced the re-release of a number of titles that had vanished in the wake of the 1984 Video Recordings Act, or had been prosecuted under it, and the poster made it pretty clear what was at stake here: "In 1984 Big Brother wouldn't let you watch them!" the poster announced. "Now it's your decision." And while the poster listed some of the tapes as "Previously Prosecuted," it never once mentioned 'video nasties' or the Video Recordings Act (which just so happened to come about in a year firmly associated with the triumphs of totalitarianism); no, the poster just assumed that the potential customers reading it would know all about it, and ultimately, be in opposition to it. This is a good example of the 'us vs. them' opposition that is at the heart of cult culture, where 'us' represents those wanting to see forbidden movies, and 'them' representing those who disapprove and forbid this type of thing. Here the state, 'Big Brother', and the socially conformist values it supports.

Shock Movies serves as a kind of self-help book. Will it enable you to win friends and influence people? Probably not. Will it help your dick to grow an extra couple of inches? I doubt it. Will it allow you to eat anything and everything you want, and still lose weight? Dream on, imbecile. But what it will do is present many concise film reviews, detailing plot, analysis and background of the movies discussed. Also, where possible I have included details of censorship, even though many of these films can be easily found uncut on the internet nowadays. In addition to the 130 or so reviews, there is also a chapter on Scapegoat Cinema, which looks at the media’s obsession with blaming horror movies for real-life violent crime, such as the James Bulger case and the tabloid furore that surrounded Natural Born Killers and Severance. At the back of the book, there is an interview with the President of Unearthed Films, Stephen Biro, who I’m sure you’ll agree, remains just as wacky, ambitious and passionate about fucked-up movies as he was thirteen years ago when he first set up his label. And to cap things off, there is also an essay called It’s Blasphemy! which looks at the history of Christian controversy in the cinema, from The Last Temptation of Christ, The Passover Plot, and Mary Whitehouse, to Dogma, The Life of Brian, and Jerry Springer: The Opera, all of which caused much scandal in the press at the time.

And let me take this opportunity to make it clear: Any filmmaker whose work I have criticized - no I couldn't make a movie, not a chance, not even if my life depended on it. Filmmakers do something that most of us can only dream of doing. Yes, I have lambasted movies in this book and elsewhere with a nerd rage which borders on psychotic, but I remain genuinely amazed that anyone can get a film made at all. I've been on film sets and witnessed the struggle and the chaos of filmmaking first-hand, and the sheer headache and logistics of making sure that everything doesn't go tits up on the first day are frankly astonishing. Having to rely on so many people to show up for rehearsals and filming each day would be a recipe for disaster if I was in charge; the whole thing would drive me insane. A movie in production is like a ship on the verge of mutiny, and once the project has set sail, the director's job is not to create an artistic masterpiece, but simply to bring the whole thing to port without the loss of lives or money (unless you're Ruggero Deodato or Umberto Lenzi).

British novelist–turned–filmmaker–turned–novelist-again, Clive Barker, arrived on the set of Hellraiser to find the assembled cast and crew standing around awaiting his instructions. "Ok. So... what do we do now?" he asked. This was the first day of shooting, and at which point he realised he was the only person in the room who was not supposed to ask that question.

As far as my own personal tastes go, if I was asked to pick a favourite film director, I would have to mentally construct one from various parts of other filmmakers. I’d take the left brain of David Cronenberg, and the right brain of Luis Bunuel. I’d infuse it with the phobias of Lars Von Trier and the tenacity of Uwe Boll. I’d take the hands of Peter Jackson for practicality purposes, and take an eyeball each from visionaries like Dario Argento and Brian De Palma. And after many bloody incisions and re-ordering and stitching, my frankendirector would be just about ready to be unveiled on the operating table. Except, Wes Craven would be the cock and Michael Bay the arsehole.

God I hate Michael Bay. He has dragged American cinema into a ditch, pulled down his pants, and took a great big steaming turd all over it, all the while SMILING AS HE DOES SO. It infuriates me. There’s nothing wrong with making money and earning a living, but Michael’s sole purpose is to squeeze every last dollar from the public by destroying cinema. We all scoff at Spielberg and Lucas and co for making ‘target driven’ money-spinners that are custom-made to hit the jackpot at the box-office, but at least they’re genuinely passionate about film. To exist purely in the pursuit of wealth, while destroying a much-loved art form in the process, is disgraceful. Only an absolute cunt would do that. A Michael CuntBay. For chrissakes, you’re already rich. If you want to duplicate your money at the expense of everything else, go into property development or something; buy a building, have it refurbished into apartments and then sell them at extortionate prices. That’s what other penny lickers do. They go around turning everything into ‘flaaats’. ‘Hey, let’s turn everything into flaaaats and eat sushi!’ Those cunts won’t be happy until the entire planet is stacked with tiny, neutral-coloured ponce holes with laminate flooring. Why don’t you go and join them in wrecking our buildings and heritage instead, Michael? When there’s no more room in hell, the cunts will walk the earth. And when there’s no more room for any more flats, you could always rent out your bumhole to a small family. Because that’s what you’re doing to cinema, Michael. Is that what you want? To turn cinema into ‘flaaats’? Dank, smelly little Bay flats that resemble your arsehole? Yeah? You’re a bit of a cunt, aren’t you? Eh? A bit of a cunt. Aren’t you? You’re a bit of a FUCKING CUNT, AREN’T YOU MICHAEL?

Ah, let me get my breath back. With this book I’ve tried to lighten things up a bit this time around; but having read the text again once more, I realise my attempts at humour are nothing but childish asides and nerdish rants. I have to concede the fact that I’m not funny, just a grumpy, miserable bastard who probably hates everybody and everything. So there you go. Around a dozen or so reviews here were first published at Horrornews.net, and a few of those were taken down from the site for being “too insulting.” Those reviews were for Urban Flesh, Lake Noir, Hardgore, The Awakened, and maybe another but I can’t remember. Barricade was another. I actually thought I was being quite lenient with those particular reviews, but I’ve included them all in this volume – without asterisks on the naughty words this time - so you can decide for yourself. If you do find any reviews here to be offensive or insulting, then I’m really sorry.

I tend to watch movies incessantly in large batches. Sometimes I watch mainstream films too, but more often than not, it is a horror movie you will find by my Blu-Ray player. Nothing pleases me more than when someone gives me information about a film they think I will like. If you want to share, get in touch.

Recommend movies to me. I ask every movie person, movie shop assistant, and vaguely strange person I meet what they consider the most fucked-up film they have ever seen. Many people get shy and apologise because they don’t think their 'shocking' movies will be odd enough for the likes of me. I will admit that I have had a lot of people recommend Martyrs and Cannibal Holocaust and The Girl Next Door. Those three come up a lot. But I still like knowing what registers as odd, violent, strange, perverse, and disgusting to people even if their collective zeitgeist runs to the same few movies (and frankly, Martyrs and Cannibal Holocaust are a nice springboard to weirdness, so I feel those who tell me they are the most extreme films they have seen are on the right path). So please, if you see something that registers with you as a disturbing film I need to know about, tell me, even if you feel it is not 'extreme' enough. You have no idea how many incredible movies have come across my radar because someone shared their tastes with me.

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive guide, but I am working on it. My next book is already underway and is called ‘1001 Movies That Shocked The World’. Hopefully it will be published sometime in 2014. In the meantime, if your favourite shock movie isn’t covered here, it may have been included in my previous book, ‘Beyond The Darkness: Cult, Horror and Extreme Cinema’. Since the publication of BTD, I have enjoyed a correspondence with horror movie fans from across the world and from all walks of life, including a lawyer and an Australian surgeon. I was amazed. I always assumed horror fans to be dorky like me. But even so, I’m not sure I’d relish the thought of being operated on by a fan of Last House On Dead End Street.

And while I’m here, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to write a review for Beyond The Darkness, even the bad ones. Don’t worry, those who wrote bad reviews have been earmarked, their IP addresses have been noted, and they will soon be hunted down and made into a human centipede… Yeah, you’ll find it pretty difficult to get all ‘censorious’ about a movie book, or quote some 18th Century poetry when your lips have been sewn onto the gaping arse crack of a total stranger, won’t you? Speaking of which, Human Centipede 2 is reviewed in this book, and I must admit it takes a radical detour from the first sequence, going places where I never imagined the sequel could go, and examining the effects of horror movies on its audience. But still, director Tom Six continues in his self-referential, tongue-in-(butt)-cheek style (the News of The World dismissed the film as “sickening garbage.” For a newspaper which thought it was perfectly okay to hack into the phones of murdered schoolgirls, that was some pretty harsh criticism right there). Also in this book is a look at Innocence of Muslims, hands down the most controversial ‘film’ of 2012, which caused mass riots across the Middle East where an American Embassy was torched and 75 people died.

So, ladies and gentlemen and sleazoids everywhere, it remains for me to remind you to switch off your mobile phones, keep your knees out of the back of my seat, stop eating noisy food, and keep it schtum as we dim the lights for some more of those feature presentations.

Phil Russell,

Spring 2013

phil.russell81@hotmail.com

REVIEWS

THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE’S OWN EYES (1971)

Dir: Stan Brakhage /USA

Stan Brakhage was the creator of Dog Star Man, a 75-minute avant-garde epic that was required viewing for anyone who went to film school in the 70s and 80s. Made between 1961 and 1964, Dog Star Man was an experimental art piece that fused various cinematic techniques, brazen colours, overlaps, and only a bare minimum of traditional photography – shots of Brakhage walking through the snow with his dog, for instance – This artistic masterpiece influenced the next generation of filmmakers and artists while Brakhage himself remained an underground figure, creating more than 400 films that varied in length before his death in 2003.

Around this time, Criterion compiled a retrospective of twenty six of his most important works for a double-disc DVD release entitled By Brakhage: An Anthology. Included were some of his most pioneering and innovative works, such as Desistfilm, a study of life and form through architecture and anatomy; Wedlock House, which was shot on inverted black & white, and shows Brakhage and his wife engaging in explicit sex; almost two dozen shorts that vary in length from 18 minutes to 9 seconds, including Black Ice and The Dark Tower. Dog Star Man is also included in the package and is split into five separate chapters. All very well and good. But for fans of extreme cinema, the real curio here is the notorious Brakhage film from 1971, The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes, a 32-minute delve into death.

Along with eyes and Deux Ex, The Act of Seeing forms part of the ‘Pittsburgh Documents’, a trilogy filmed in 1971. For eyes, Brakhage was given permission to film at the Pittsburgh Police Department. Deux Ex was filmed from within the West Pennsylvania Hospital, and The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes at The Allegheny Coroner’s Office. The title is a literal translation of the word ‘autopsy’, and this should give you an idea of where the film is coming from. This latter part of Brakhage’s trilogy has been an underground classic for decades (indeed, it is featured prominently on the DVD bonus features on the German release of Nacho Cerda’s Aftermath; both Cerda and Jorg Buttgereit discuss the film at length while clips are played in the background during an interview with Cerda). Filmed on handheld 16mm, it’s a sobering documentation of death without the crux of a voiceover or anything to let us know what’s going on. Just the dead bodies of the city’s recently deceased laid out in the morgue. The corpses are sliced open in a routine, unceremonious manner. The cold flesh is peeled apart to reveal the forbidden sight of organs riddled with tumours, hearts clogged up with fatty deposits, and layers of blubbery intestines, like something seen at the back of a butcher’s shop. Skulls are opened up, faces are peeled off, and brains are examined.

The first ten minutes or so shows the pathologists preparing for the procedure and arranging the cadavers and metallic instruments of dissection. This long build-up to the first autopsy is effective at instilling a morbid anticipation in the viewer. And when the scalpel first makes contact with the body, the effect is at once a feeling of pain and relief, such is the intensity of the film, despite its cold and clinical style. The close-up shots of the internal organs of human cadavers becomes a hypnotic – if disturbing – thoroughfare of colour and form, and recalls Brakhage’s other work which deals with light and texture, such as the aforementioned Desistfilm, and also Cat’s Cradle.

In a letter to a friend, the poet and author Robert Creeley, Brakhage explained how he had originally intended to insert soothing shots of “mountain ranges, moons, suns, snow, and clouds”, to allow the viewer a respite from the stark images of death. But once the lab had processed the film and he watched it, he decided against the idea, “one good look at the footage… and I knew it was impossible (for me at least) to interrupt THIS parade of death with ANYthing whatsoever”.

The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes may have lost some of its disturbing power over the years (after all, autopsies have been broadcast live on TV in the UK conducted by the eccentric German artist, Gunther Von Hagens), but back in the 70s and 80s this film sure had the power to freak people out, and is still heavy-going for most audiences to this day.

ADAM CHAPLIN (2011)

Dir: Emanuele De Santi /Italy

Italian genre cinema has offered up an array of colourful and stylish cult classics over the decades, from the works of Ricardo Freda and Mario Bava in the 50s and 60s, to Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci and many others in the heyday of the 70s and 80s. By the time the 90s had arrived, things had simmered down, and not even Michele Soavi’s masterpiece, Dellamorte Dellamore, could re-activate the kind of frenzied production rate the Italians had enjoyed in previous years. And with the deaths of Lucio Fulci and Sergio Corbucci, many had resigned themselves to the fact that Italian genre cinema was dead. The odd blip would appear on fan’s radars from time to time in the form of Argento’s Sleepless and Red Riding Hood, but often, those films failed to live up to the hype and turned out to be little more than a desperate attempt to re-ignite the spark. For the next decade or so, Italian genre cinema was a shambles, a shadow of its former self. In the late 00s, however, a new company came along called Necrostorm, and their mission was to revamp the state of cult production in Italy with the release of comic books, video games, animation and live-action cinema, all created in-house by a dedicated team of staff. Necrostorm’s first feature film was Adam Chaplin, an ultra-violent revenge story with a retro 80s feel which borrowed elements not only from American movies (like many Italian productions), but also embraced many influences from the Far East, too.

The plot of Adam Chaplin is quite simple: The muscle-bound title character summons a demon and stalks the fictional city of Heaven Valley, bumping off enemies and corrupt law enforcers in his search of Denny, an evil arch-villain who runs the city and who burned Chaplin’s wife to a crisp because she couldn’t settle her debt with him. Chaplin is aided in his quest by the little demon that sometimes appears on his shoulder, directing him in his mission.

The killings in this film are spectacular and extremely violent: Bad guys aren’t just neatly killed off as a convenient stepping stone to the next scene, oh no; when they’re attacked, their heads literally explode in a shower of blood and bone and gristle. Characters have their limbs blown off, heads severed, and mutilated torsos are impaled on poles which Chaplin carries around with him like living, suffering, agonized flags of vengeance. And this extreme style comes to a head in the finale set on top of a building for an all-out bloodbath as Chaplin battles on against Denny and his HVPD Death Squadron in extremely graphic fashion.

The demon looks like a cross between Gollum from Lord of The Rings and the Machi demons from Urotsukidôji, and is clearly an anime influence; having recently re-watched Legend of The Overfiend for a review in this book – which features similar otherworldly Machi demons with high-pitch voices and a perverse outlook – I was half expecting the demon in this film to pull out his mini hard dick and start masturbating into Chaplin’s ear hole while giggling like a Satanic child. Perhaps on the metaphorical front, the demon represents Chaplin’s trauma, his mental suffering following the stark images of his wife’s badly burned body. His eyes have turned a milky white, and he is basically blind. His entire mission to avenge his wife is channeled through his demon who works as his eyes and ears and brain. Chaplin can no longer make decisions on his own behalf, he is completely at the mercy of his all-seeing, all-wise demon. In metaphorical terms, his judgment is clouded by evil. So, of course, there can be no happy ending for him.

Very much an auteur piece, Adam Chaplin was not only written and directed by Emanuele De Santi, he also cast himself in the lead role and wrote the music score, too. The result is a crazy comic book
caper loaded with excessive violence, stylish set-pieces, and imaginative ideas. The film is visually astonishing throughout, despite the low-budget and the fact that it’s a directorial debut. There are also many gory moments, and these include tributes to Takashi Miike’s Ichi The Killer (severed face sliding down a wall), Tokyo Gore Police (the futuristic setting and gallons of arterial spray), the CAT III classic Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (heads crushed and splattered in eye-popping detail), and Japanese anime (when characters leap in the air to throw a punch, the background becomes blurry to give the impression of power and acceleration). Tributes are also paid to Western graphic novels and films such as Robocop and Re-Animator in the retro style future setting, and the glowing serum which brings back the dead.

Simple and derivative it may be, but in keeping with Italian cult tradition, that’s exactly what company owner and special effects wiz Giulio De Santi intended. “The general plots are simple and leave empty gaps,” he says, ”because it's what action Anime do, and we love that aspect: to leave unanswered questions. Even because we planned to create other products based on the same universe, like all Necrostorm's movies, they are linked by an invisible line, like ‘Castle Rock’ is always present in Stephen King's stories. In other products we will answer all the unanswered questions.”

Indeed, the city of Heaven Valley is a dark graphic novel come to life, thanks to the attention to detail shown throughout. If you look closely, you can see the agents of the HVPD Death Squadron all have deformed and mutilated faces, an impressive and painstaking detail considering it’s easy to miss because the agent’s faces are often covered by their helmet visors. With Adam Chaplin, the creators have constructed an entire world built on a love for the genre and their craft. But by all means, the makers of Adam Chaplin are not through with exploring this world in future productions. ”We plan to make a gang movie like The Warriors for Heaven Valley, where it's important to better explain the story of the city, it was just confusing to insert that in a movie like Adam Chaplin, where the protagonist is him and his powers. Exactly like Fist of the North Star does, everything is destroyed by nuclear bombs, but you don't know why on details.”

Sequels to Adam Chaplin are already in the pipeline, and also a sequel to Taeter City, another Necrostorm production this time directed by Giulio himself set in a nightmare future police state where dead criminals are rounded up and served to the citizens as human burgers by mega fast-food chains (Taeter City is also reviewed in this book). Here’s hoping that this marks the beginning of a new phase of Italian genre production, fuelled by the pure love of movies and keeping cult production alive. Visit www.necrostorm.com to keep up to date with the latest developments.

L’AGE D’OR (1930)

(The Golden Age)

Dir: Luis Buñuel /France

A man and a woman are determined to strike up a relationship regardless of the disapproval of society, the police and the Church, and they engage in strange and perverse romantic interludes.

After they had shocked the world with their previous short film, Un Chien Andalou, filmmaker Luis Buñuel and painter Salvador Dali collaborated on this, intended to be their first talking picture. However, the pair fell out during the making of the film, and Buñuel soldiered on alone, creating a blasphemous classic of surrealism boasting some of the most extreme imagery of his long career.

Buñuel’s dark humour cushions some of the more outrageous scenes (in the credits, one of the characters is billed as ‘Defenestrated Bishop’), but L’Age D’Or remains one of the most elegant and mischievous attempts to assault bourgeois sensibilities ever committed to film. The show kicks off with a scene of scorpions attacking each other and a rat (this footage was taken from a 1912 nature documentary called Le Scorpion Languedocien), then goes on to show human scorpions and evil churchmen. The film is supposedly set in imperial Rome, but this twisted tale of revolutionary love actually looks a lot like contemporary Paris where the film was shot. The man and the woman roll around in mud and shit; the police do all they can to break them apart; they suckle and nibble each other’s fingers; the man is distracted from snogging by a marble statue, so the woman begins to suck its toes in a sensual manner. Amusingly, the scene cuts to a ‘reaction’ shot of the statue’s face as she sucks away. She later declares such classic lines as “Oh, what joy in having killed our children!” A government official makes a phone call to the man, but he doesn’t give a damn about an impending scandal about to break. The minister shoots himself, and his body slumps on the ceiling. The most risqué scene is saved for the end, which is based on a scene from the Marquis de Sade’s outrageous book, ‘120 Days of Sodom’, in which evil aristocrats peel away from an orgy of sexual violence. Sade’s character Duc de Blangis is the leader, and Buñuel models him on Jesus Christ. An injured girl is stabbed to death by Jesus, and the scalps from his other victims hang from a crucifix.

During screenings of Un Chien Andalou, Buñuel is said to have put small stones in his pockets so that if the crowd showed their disapproval at the end of the film, he would go up front and start throwing the stones at them. For L’Age D’Or he would have needed to carry an AK-47 due to the hostile reception which met the film. It sparked organized riots in the cinema. The film was given a screening permit from the censors for the premiere at Studio 28 in Paris, in November 1930. Just four days after its initial screening, cinemas across the city were attacked by the right-wing followers of Ligue des Patriotes (League of Patriots), who did all they could to disrupt the showing of the film by throwing ink at the screen, and physically assaulting viewers who opposed their protests. Screenings often resulted in violent pandemonium. In addition, they also destroyed artworks by Dali and other surrealists, including Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró and others. During this time, the Prefect of Police of Paris, Jean Chiappe, requested that the censors remove the film from circulation. And soon after, L’Age D’Or was officially banned in France.

A Spanish newspaper condemned the film and Buñuel and Dalí, and described the content of the film as “...the most repulsive corruption of our age... the new poison which Judaism, Masonry, and rabid, revolutionary sectarianism want to use in order to corrupt the people”. In response, the de Noailles family (who financed the film) withdrew L’Age D’Or from cinema exhibition for more than forty years; nonetheless, three years later, in 1933, the film was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in a private screening. The film wasn’t legally exhibited in America until November 1979, where it ‘premiered’ at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco.

Despite the construct of the film being made up of a series of vignettes, L’Age D’Or has more of a narrative structure than the previous Un Chien Andalou. But it still feels more bizarre. This is because while Un Chien Andalou's surrealism is more locked within its own rigid formailities, offering up one bizarre image after another that forms a barely comprehensible link, the surrealism of L'Age D'Or, on the other hand, is much more detached, with the strange and bizarre moments standing out from the otherwise simplified, mundane form. Surrealism emphasizes the bizarre that can be found in a perfectly normal situation, and while Un Chien does this to a great extent, there is still very little normal or mundane in that film’s ‘plot’. Not to say that it is any less inspired than L'Age D'Or, quite the contrary, but ironically, it is the use of plot and the director’s attempts at a loose storyline that infuses the film with a stronger and more prominent feel for the bizarre and surreal.

The ‘plot’ of L'Age D'Or is about how we are forced to compromise ourselves in the society we live in, and more specifically, how we are forced to compromise our sexual desires. The man and the woman at the center of the film are trying desperately to overcome the social obstacles to consummate their love, but whether they are actually ‘in love’ is never made clear. But interestingly, they suffer the same barriers that couples find in society today. Much of the humour in the film comes from the way the couple disrespects this need to compromise, and the sexual weirdness that occurs when they are forced to abide by it (the toe fellatio scene in particular), and this does much to offer up a satirical and devilishly mischievous comment on the mores of society itself. Another recurring theme addressed in the film is that society is built on this compromise, and due to it, is always positioned on the edge of madness and hysteria.

L’Age D’Or was a film that dared to goad the upper class culture and depict them as a race of people too sexually inhibited and frightened by their peers to explore Bunuel's revolutionary ideas: that in order to have your own mind you have to free yourself of the church and its tightening grip. Bunuel's religious pessimism was the result of a strict childhood regime of daily worship and a rigorous religious education in school. It enabled him to have a derisive perspective on religion where he probably conjured negative surrealist ideas and thoughts from his troubled days at school, and the product is this authentic classic. It is through this film where he becomes the teacher of his own beliefs, the idea that the audience no longer needed to be told what to believe, but to make up their own minds, as opposed to Catholicism or any form of organized religion. The man and the woman (played by Gaston Modot and Lya Lis) symbolise Bunuel's radical ‘sacrilegious' thinking and are his model couple. Contrasting the original Man and Woman, (Adam and Eve) to his carefully chosen archetypes, we have a greater knowledge about the director's surrealist tendencies and his interest in not the images but the ideas they represent. When the film was first released, it appeared on the surface to lack morals, and this – combined with the sexual innuendo and overall anarchic nature of the film - was a topic of heated debate and all-out violence in the cinemas in 1930.

The couple are often separated, and the man is taken away by the police. This scene is quite funny because Bunuel and Dali (both co-writers) are implying that society would imprison the man for the most innocent of crimes: to be free and in love. The couple have to surpass the very obstacles that Bunuel faced in making the film: the church, society and even his - or their - own psychological problems.

ALTERED STATES (1980)

Dir: Ken Russell /USA

Tortured by the idea of God after the death of his father, Professor Jessup throws himself into researching the idea of altered human states by experimenting with hallucinogens and submersing himself in a sensory deprivation tank with the purpose of experiencing the de-evolution of his own body. He soon finds himself altering beyond prehistoric man and into a form unknown by human knowledge or science. Yep, even beyond Daily Mail readers and chavs.

Never one to allow gripping tension or convoluted mystery to get in the way of colourful frenetic tricks and extremely extravagant imagery, Ken Russell came across a tale that was seemingly tailor-made to suit his wild style, with its delirious excesses and blasphemous content. The story is based on Paddy Cayefsky’s novel (he also wrote the screenplay before disowning the film), and is quite frankly insane, but Russell earnestly delivers the movie version with such a gleefully outrageous style and aesthetic abandon it’s like a grand ode to Kubrick’s 2001 psychedelic showreel by way of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. The end result is a delirious head-trip with enough clashing colours to make your eyeballs vomit.

The idea behind this lunacy is that man will regress to a primordial state without the outward stimulants of companionship, love, science, or even God. William Hurt in the lead role remains completely po-faced throughout his performance, even while enacting the hilarious scene where he shifts about in his regressed state like a rampaging chimp. The mixing of the peyote with sensory deprivation is a recipe for a special effects light show bonanza in Russell’s eyes, and it still looks pretty ‘far out’ even after three decades. During this trippy sequence, Russell intends for the screen to serve as a representation for the outer limits of human experience and understanding, and yet Professor Jessup could have achieved the same results by simply watching Russell’s entire filmography on a loop.

Altered States is a horror movie at heart, with its religious iconography re-arranged and defiled before our eyes (including the sight of a goat with seven eyes). Even with such a ludicrous ‘science-based’ premise, there’s still much in this film that is likely to offend, especially among those who are in any way religious (many religious folks don’t believe in evolution anyway, and many have already regressed to the point of an ape-like existence, so this
particular movie won’t offer them any revelations that they’re not already aware of). During the moments when all is seemingly back to normal, director Russell can’t resist a devilish poke of fun here and there; the film ultimately stands as another in the long line of movies which depict doctors and scientists meddling with the forces of nature, and producing horrific results. The proposal scene is particularly funny as Jessup declares his love for his sweetheart in a psychiatric ward as a lunatic in the background is force-fed on hallucinogens. On the casting front, look out for Bob Balaban who went on to direct Parents (1989), Blair Brown who spends most of the film in the nude, and who basically plays a pair of naked tits. And also a tiny Drew Barrymore in her first movie role.

AMITYVILLE 2: THE POSSESSION (1982)

Dir: Damiano Damiani /USA

The Amityville Horror (1979) was supposedly based on fact, though Jay Anson’s bestselling paperback turned out to be a cynical, money-spinning pack of lies. It put many of the clichés found in spooky house TV movies up onto the big screen, and was a hugely successful theatrical hit. It wasn’t until a couple of years later when Stanley Kubrick adapted Stephen King’s The Shining for the big screen did we really see how powerful the old ‘possessed-father-in-a-scary-house’ scenario could be, but for Amityville, hack director Stuart Rosenberg simply wasn’t up to the task, and he delivered a rather lackluster tale of the Lutz family moving into a suspiciously affordable mansion (bargain of the century at just $80,000), the place where a previous tenant murdered his entire family, and the father is possessed by an evil, malevolent spirit.

Anson’s book concerned George and Kathy Lutz – and Kathy’s three children – who bought the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island, in the summer of 1975 and moved in later that year. They only spent a month living there before they upped and left, insisting that they had been driven from their home by an evil spirit. The story soon made the papers, and it became ever more strange and far-fetched as it captured the imaginations of millions, to the point where the family were offered publishing deals and a movie contract.

By the time the sequel was proposed in the early 80s, the Amityville story had become more complicated. The Lutz family had been sued by the new owners of 112 Ocean Avenue, who were fed up of being bothered by trespassers and ghost hunter tourists who would show up at the house all the time, day and night. Those who took an interest in the Lutz story also noticed some glaring differences between the hardback and paperback versions of the book, and even the Lutz family themselves would alter their version of events each time they were interviewed. William Weber, who was the defense lawyer for the mass-murderer Ronald DeFeo, also filed a lawsuit against the Lutz family for stealing his story; the story that would form the basis of Amityville 2: The Possession.

The DeFeos were a troubled family who lived at Number 112 prior to the Lutz’s. The eldest son Ronald was always up to no good, and after holding up his own father’s car dealership with a friend, both Ronald and his father came to blows during a basement row. Just a week later, on 13th November 1974, Ronald shot his entire family to death with a rifle. And that’s why the house was sold at such a reasonable price to the Lutz family the following summer. At first, Ronald told police that he had been asleep and knew nothing about the incident. He later claimed that the mafia was involved in the murders. On one occasion, he even boasted that he would be released in just two years if he pleaded insanity. He even had the gall to enquire how much of his inheritance he was entitled to. Six consecutive terms of 25 years to life is what he actually got instead.

The idea of a prequel to The Amityville Horror was met with less than an enthusiastic response from horror fans at the time. But producer Dino de Laurentiis somehow turned the prospect of a run-of-the-mill horror quickie into an exciting and disturbing film, thanks to his hiring of Italian director, Damiano Damiani. With a script loosely based on the DeFeo murders, and with the ghostly possession theme thrown in to keep it in synch with the original film, the scene was set for an American horror with a distinctly Italian vibe. Trust the Italians to add some nastiness and perversity to the proceedings. Amityville 2 offers a dark and moody atmosphere, and in retrospect looks and feels very similar to the work of Lucio Fulci, especially House By The Cemetery and The Beyond. Both of which were also penned by Dardano Sacchetti.

Whereas in the first film the menace posed by the evil force was manifested through financial woes and the dream of owning a home, a pattern that led to the destruction of the patriarchal unit. This prequel instead shows its teeth in the form of domestic meltdown and incest within a family that was already dysfunctional before they even moved into the house. The relationship between the father and son is especially volatile and resentful, with the father’s aggressive bullying causing a dangerous friction in the psyche of his unruly son. The mother of the house is a devout Catholic, the eldest daughter has reached the age of adolescent sexual awakening, and the two youngest children only adds to the tragedy that is about to unfold.

So, this troubled family move into number 112, the spooky old house on Ocean Avenue with its foreboding presence and eye-like windows. And within the first fifteen minutes we’re witness to blood gushing from the taps, crude graffiti on the kids’ bedroom wall (“dishonor thy father – Pigs!”), and people spattered with fecal matter. But the real point of interest in this film is the eldest son, Sonny (Jack Magner, who later appeared in Firestarter). We watch as his life falls apart due to an evil malevolent force that possesses him; he soon becomes increasingly alienated from his family, has sex with his teenage sister, and eventually goes on the rampage with his father’s rifle, shooting dead his entire family. The evil force communicates with him through the earphones of his Walkman, giggling and hissing murderous suggestions in his head. The film is so gripping and intense throughout the whole possession and murder sequences that it fails to live up to its lively promise in the finale. Instead, the movie blows its wad at around the hour mark when Sonny is led away from the house by the arresting officers.

The gun rampage starts with Sonny – in an ugly, demonic appearance – blowing his dad’s brains out (in a scene which was initially cut by distributers on its first release, and is still missing from many subsequent VHS and DVD releases). He then creeps through the house; mother is shot in the stomach. The kids see her bleeding on the floor and they start to scream. The youngest sister is then shot. The little brother tries to hide, but is spotted and shot in the back of the head. His incestuous sister is next; he catches up with her on the stairs, lowers the barrel of the gun between her breasts, and then pulls the trigger. The speed at which this household is destroyed is one of the most appealing – and disturbing – aspects of the film. Usually, haunted house movies take an age before they get into gear and start delivering the thrills and chills, but director Damiani manages to keep things moving at an exciting pace throughout, despite the final third running out of steam.

Unfortunately, once Sonny is arrested, the film descends into a lights and smoke special effects fest with silly theological nonsense and the usual Exorcist rip-off style as the priest attempts to wrestle the demon from Sonny by re-visiting the house and inviting evil upon himself in an altruistic self-sacrifice to save the kid, a rather pointless endeavor as Sonny is looking at spending the rest of his days behind bars, regardless of what the outcome is in this fight between good and evil. Even with the demon ousted from his body, Sonny will never be free again.

The Lutz story is nowadays treated as nothing more than a hoax. The truth is, the house was too expensive for George Lutz, even with the drastically reduced price tag following the DeFeo murders. He and Kathy tried to make a go of it but couldn’t manage, and ended up staying with relatives after leaving the house. And it was around this time that they concocted the whole haunted house story. The couple pestered William Weber for information about the DeFeo case and worked the killings into their story. Weber was particularly annoyed at this because he had planned to write his own non-fiction account of the DeFeo killings, and he sued the Lutz’s for snatching his story.

The Amityville movie franchise continued throughout the 80s, 90s and beyond; Amityville 3-D – The Demon (1983) is the one in 3D where Meg Ryan drowns. It was also directed by Richard Fleischer of The Boston Strangler and 10 Rillington Place fame. Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes appeared in 1984, The Amityville Curse (1990) was based on one of the paperback cash-ins and was the first in the series that was released direct to video. The next few sequels were based on accursed items that were purchased at an Amityville yard sale, such as a clock in Amityville 1992: It’s About Time, a mirror in Amityville: A New Generation (1993), and a dollhouse in Amityville Dollhouse (1996). An abysmal remake of the original Amityville Horror was released in 2005 and is best avoided, as is The Amityville Haunting (2011), an absolute stinker that attempts to base its plot on Anson’s book.

AN AMERICAN CRIME (2007)

Dir: Tommy O' Haver /USA

While The Girl Next Door (2007) was based on Jack Ketchum's novelized account of this horrifying true story, Tommy O' Haver's An American Crime goes straight to the court transcripts to present its version of events.

The film opens with the 1965 court trial before inserting lengthy dramatized flashbacks to tell the story. The parents of Jenny and Sylvia Likens leave their two young girls with Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener) and her six children - total strangers - for over a month for twenty dollars a week while they work at a travelling carnival. When Gerty's eldest daughter, Paula (Ari Greynor), is violently attacked by her married boyfriend, Sylvia tells him that Paula is pregnant, simply as a way of stopping him from beating her. But Paula is infuriated at Sylvia for letting her secret out, and goes crying to her mum, making up malicious lies to get her into trouble. And so Gertrude sets about making life hell for little Sylvia.

With the assistance of her children, Gertrude's mounting frustrations - laced with guilt at being unable to cope with her own kids - are taken out on Sylvia in the form of nasty and vindictive punishments. The abuse escalates until she is eventually kept in the basement where she becomes a torture victim, not just for Gertrude and her children, but for other kids across the neighbourhood, too. Early on in the film we're shown the story unfolding with the backdrop of 60s Americana, with the greased-back hair, old model cars, and girl group pop music, etc. And this warm nostalgic vibe is soon curtailed as the abuse becomes more sinister and dangerous. In addition to her financial woes and her boyfriend being shipped off to Vietnam, it soon becomes clear that Gertrude has severe mental problems. She whips the sisters with a belt when the cheque from their parents fails to arrive (it shows up in the mail later that day). It's interesting how the Baniszewski's go to church on Sunday like a decent pious family, and yet are capable of the most horrendous torture and humiliation on a defenseless young girl.

Gertrude's warped ways of instilling 'justice', and her ways of teaching her kids right from wrong are just an excuse for her to vent out her own frustrations. It would be laughably pathetic if it wasn't all so horribly true. This warped behaviour just has the effect of her own kids feeling free to do anything they please, and get into all kinds of trouble, knowing all they have to do to escape responsibility is blame Sylvia. And this has a snowball effect - Gertrude's kids can no longer do any wrong in her eyes, and all of their faults and misbehaviours are connivingly linked back to Sylvia, a scapegoat for the unruly kids and Gertrude's frustrated vagina. If someone slipped on a banana peel, this monster would find some way of blaming Sylvia for it.

Back in the 60s, physical punishment was much more commonplace than it is now, and parents would regularly beat and whip their children with belts, thinking it would do them good. And this kind of thing had other complications beyond the effects on the children; it also affects society at large. And this idea is hinted at in the scene where neighbours in the street can hear Sylvia's cries coming from inside the Baniszewski house, but ignore it, assuming her to be a bad kid in need of discipline.

The children of the neighbourhood learn from Gertrude's disgraceful behaviour when they keep Sylvia in the basement as their own little torture plaything. They beat and burn her with cigarettes, and dare each other to join in. Interestingly, the kids play along as though their actions are justified - the girl deserves punishment because momma said so. And the cycle of abuse continues. In court, none of the children can account for their behaviour - Mother's authority allowed them to act in the way they did, and that's all the encouragement they needed. And when asked why these little foot soldiers joined in the torture, they all drop their heads in shame and say "I don't know, Sir." With the right kind of influence, children can be led into partaking in any activity, good or bad (just think of Hitler's Nazi Youth, where youngsters got so carried away in their induction into the ideas of National Socialism, that many even denounced their own parents as traitors and enemies of the State if they said anything bad about Hitler or the Third Reich). Even the young lad Ricky, who fancies Sylvia, is roped into torturing her. Such was the ghastly spell Gertrude had on the kids around her. These children’s minds hadn't developed enough to see through to the root of what was happening in their midst.

Sylvia eventually dies of her injuries. In court, we see denial at work as Gertrude tries to deflect responsibility and calls her children liars when they testify against her. This is a woman who carved the words "I am a prostitute and proud of it" onto the torso of a young girl. She was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. She was released in 1985 and died five years later.

Killers are often glamorized in the movies – The Devil's Rejects, etc - but this film offers a good example of why they shouldn't be. These people aren't cool, they're scum.

ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE (1998)

Dir: Larry Clark /USA

Sex, drugs, and funky 70s rock drive this brutally beguiling walk on the wild side, directed by photographer turned filmmaker Larry Clark and based on the novel by ex-con Eddie Little.

Seductive guttersnipes Bobbie and Rosie (Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner) live for each other and heroin; they support their serious habits by reckless petty thievery. Stylish Mel and Sid (James Woods and Melanie Griffith) are life-long junkies and know the drug world inside out and sees them stealing, selling dope, running scams; you name it and they've done it. Fate brings the two couples together into a makeshift, dysfunctional family: Bobbie and Rosie, the products of violent, fractured homes, secretly long for benevolent parents. Sid sees in them the children she can't have, and Mel seems willing to play dad for her sake. The quartet drive around in Mel's Cadillac El Dorado, jabbing themselves up with heroin, stealing and sneering at people who work for a living, until the bubble bursts in the inevitable bloody debacle.

There's more than a little influence of Drugstore Cowboy here, but what makes Clark's film more than just another routine exploitation pic of sleaze is the superb cast. The youngsters are truly compelling, though much of that stems from their sheer youth and physical vulnerability. But Griffith and Woods are frankly mesmerizing as the older couple, all outlaw style and low-life sophistication; you can see right through to the physical and moral decay underneath, but at the same time you can see how two kids who aren't as street-smart as they think they are would be dazzled. The same pornographic prurience that permeates Clark's Kids (and also his later film, Ken Park) is sporadically in evidence here, as is Clark's usual style of photography, but the strengths of Griffith's and Woods' performances shifts the focus off the youngsters onto the complex web of relationships that bind the quartet together. The film's focus is small and mean but it's dazzling nonetheless.

AUGUST UNDERGROUND’S MORDUM (2003)

Dir: Killjoy, Fred Vogel, Cristie Whiles, Jerami Cruise, Michael T. Schneider/USA

Revolting. Nasty. Relentless. A bickering couple take turns at holding a camcorder while going on a murder and mutilation rampage. They break into a drug den and murder the occupant with a hammer before discovering a dead junky in the place with a needle in his infected arm. The couple bicker some more. They are then joined by Maggot, Cristie’s retarded brother, and they rape, torture and humiliate a trussed up victim, complete with a vile voiceover from the female evil-doer who mocks their captive. The victim’s boyfriend is also tortured and he has his dick cut off. The girl is then violated with the severed penis.

This is an ugly and despicable film that makes you feel ill, not just because of the vile antics on display, but also because for much of the time the camera is swung around freely like a key chain, making it difficult to see what’s going on in many scenes. Later, the evil trio has two kidnapped girls in a basement. They’re pretty much terrified and subjected to the usual humiliation and degradation, including being vomited on. As the camera scans the room there can be seen the mutilated body of a man in the background. This prolonged scene goes on and on, ad nauseam, and would have Lucifer Valentine jizzing for joy. One of the girls is disemboweled, and Maggot fucks her in the mutilated guts.

In a later scene, Maggot cuts off his hair in the bathroom, and it’s only now that we realize just how clinically retarded this man is. It’s around this point that the footage becomes haphazard, jumping from one random scene to the next. The trio go to a thrash metal gig and party for a while. They then prat around in the streets before invading another home. This sequence looks similar to the home invasion scene in Henry – Portrait of a Serial Killer (which happens to be one of Vogel’s favourite movies), but then it cuts to footage of Maggot having his nose pierced. And after Vogel’s character gives him a beating, they enter a lock-up garage to discover that the place is littered with human remains. Maggot giggles away as if he is responsible for the killings while the other two stand around vomiting due to the awful smell. He then adds to his sick joke by eating maggots from a headless body that rots in a tin bath. In another home invasion, Maggot fucks the corpse of a dead girl in the bath tub while Vogel screams at a couple of captives in another room. We see that the victims are suspended from the ceiling by their feet. Vogel and Crusty (Whiles) argue some more, and he looks to be on the verge of killing Maggot. Screen turns to static. The end, thank goodness.

Following on from the original August Underground (2001), this sequel keeps the verite style going, and for any viewers catching this without any prior knowledge of Toe Tag Pictures would be forgiven for thinking it was real, if it wasn’t for the hysterical and OTT performances. The characters lack all sense of subtlety and discretion; surely real-life home invaders would keep their activities hush hush, not scream at the top of their voices, and argue and call each other “whore” and “fag” all the time. Even for deranged psychopaths, the act of multiple murder is a serious business. Vogel as Peter is perhaps the worst offender as far as performances go. Aside from having a big round face that resembles a slightly cheeky potato, and a shriekingly irritating voice, his acting skills amount to a competition of ‘I can shout louder than you’. In the third part of the trilogy, August Underground’s Penance (2007), he cranks up the volume even more, and his incessant screaming is louder than ever. It’s only a matter of time before the word ‘Vogel’ enters the dictionary as a noun meaning “Irritable goon who mistakes volume for verisimilitude.” Or maybe it’ll become a verb. Years from now, drama school teachers will demand that their students stop “Vogelling” around when rehearsals reach the heights of hysterical bellowing.

Maggot’s character is so profoundly dumb he can barely utter words, let alone a sentence. God knows what’s in his head in place of a brain. I assume there must be some low-powered battery or something wired up to his nervous system, providing just enough wattage to blink his eyes and fuck a corpse. If you shoved him into a burning barn, he’d shuffle into the flames like a gormless cow. And when he caught fire, he’d spend his dying moments just standing there with saliva dribbling from his chin, not quite sure what’s happening to him. And Cristie While’s character, Crusty, is so disgustingly repugnant you’ll want to pop your head inside the screen and vomit blood down her eye sockets. Which is to say, she served her role well.

AU’s Mordum is one of the grottiest and most disgusting fictional movies ever made. It has a real nastiness about it, despite the overblown performances, and can only be recommended to those who are curious to see what all the fuss is about. I only watched it a second time so that I could write this review, but I sure won’t be watching it again. I’m not saying it should be banned or put on a high shelf where mankind cannot reach it. I’m saying the film serves its purpose only too well, because just like Last House On Dead End Street, you get the feeling that all the heartless cruelty needed to make a snuff video diary is right here oozing from the screen, in the ambience and the twisted smiles of the performers. I eventually realized the experience of playing this DVD was so relentlessly disturbing, I felt compelled to go and wash the dishes afterwards. You know, just for a bit of harmless escapism.

THE AWAKENED (2012)

Dir: Douglas Villalba & Lou Simon /USA

Miami, Florida. Three guys and two girls gather at a house to shelter from an oncoming storm. They partake in a silly game of ‘gypsy healing’ using candles and beer, and before you know it the lights have a mind of their own and the characters are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious, otherworldly assailant.

This is the worst film I’ve seen in a long time. According to the IMDB, this was filmed on a budget of $100,000, but to be honest, only a fraction of that looks to have made it into the finished product. Most of the budget looks to have been pissed away on the fancy opening title sequence in which the credits drift toward the camera through moody CGI rain clouds. It’s an impressive sequence, but this glossy opening has the bad side-effect of leading the audience to think that they’re about to see some slick, professional production. But when the movie starts proper, we’re dumped into a crappy bland scene in a crappy bland house with crappy bland characters recorded on a crappy bland video camera. The juxtaposition of the opening titles and the underwhelming mise-en-scène is like waking from a nice relaxing dream only to find yourself in some barren shithole with an awful hangover. Added to this is the ‘direction’ which is non-existent. Two people are credited with directing the film, but honestly, the camera barely moves, and the acting is as ropey as it gets. The ‘directors’ of this movie seem to have plonked the camera down on the table and let the actors get on with it. The script is piss-poor, and you can basically predict every little cliché it throws at you. If you’re going to set your entire movie within a couple of rooms in a house, at least make sure you write a decent script that grabs your audience by the balls early on. The makers of this film would’ve benefitted from a viewing of William Friedkin’s Bug, a superb low-budget thriller that proves you really can have a film set entirely in a room and still have it grab your audience thanks to its pacing and engaging script.

The characters are so cold and lifeless it feels like you’re watching a 15 hour fly-on-the-wall documentary about the world’s dumbest shop window mannequins. Out of the five characters, four of them are so bland they probably shit papier-mâché. Charlie is particularly empty and robotic; every time he opens his mouth, a ten ton ball of tedium rolls out, crushing everything in its path. There’s no escape.

But let’s not judge the characters by their profoundly inhuman blankness, let’s judge them by the colour of their skin, which is orange. Mostly. Except for Laura, who is Mexican. They all look unbelievably unreal, like nothing on earth. They have their sculpted bodies, sculpted hairdos, sculpted eyebrows. They don’t look to have any skin pores, either. They’re from outer space. Kevin, the liveliest of this sorry bunch, looks like some kind of orange synthetic alien creature that crudely mimics and disguises itself in the appearance of other life-forms, but only to an accuracy of about 21%. He’s seriously a spectacle to behold. Honestly, if he ever showed up on the intercom at Red Dwarf, Dave Lister would shit his own hips out.

In short, this is an absolute wretched piece of shit of a movie. See it if you must, but be prepared to saw your own head open with an angle grinder afterwards, so that you can scoop out the bad memories with a spoon.

THE BABY OF MACON (1993)

Dir: Peter Greenaway /UK

In the 17th Century, encouraged by a naive and sadistic prince, a play is performed about a miraculous child exploited by both his sister and the church. Soon enough, the play becomes all too real, and rape, death and dismemberment follows as the events take on the appearance of an actual religious ritual.

This cold, alienating and repetitive film starts with the ugliest woman in Macon giving birth to a beautiful baby. Those who witness the birth cannot believe that such beauty could be spawned by such a wretch, and begin to question god's ways. The woman's virginal daughter (Julia Ormond) has a scheme in mind in which she convinces the town that the child is her own, a "miracle baby," and pretty soon the child is hailed as a messiah and harbinger of miracles. However, the Bishop's scientifically inclined son (Ralph Fiennes) has doubts about the whole thing, and so the 'mother' invites anyone and everyone to take a peek 'downstairs' to prove that she really is a virgin. The following scene sees a queue of people eager to have a look for themselves, and this offers up some comical observations from the menfolk: "Errr... I don't know what I'm looking for," admits one. "Her anatomy is most charming," exclaims another.

The Bishop's son is still not convinced, so she lures him to a barn in order to prove her virginity once and for all by offering him the chance to take it. She undresses in front of him, and when he can no longer control his lust, he mounts her. But before he can sink it in and pop her cherry, the child shows up unleashing horrific, and apparently supernatural powers which causes the man's body to erupt into a bloody mess. The child reassures his 'mother' by reminding her that her virginity is the only thing that is keeping them safe from the wrath of the town. At this point, the back wall of the barn collapses, and behind it is the theatre audience shocked by the sight of Fiennes' dead body. The Bishop enters and accuses her of killing his son, but when it becomes clear that the murder was an act of divine intervention, all is forgiven.

The woman's tyranny and sense of self-importance continues to grow in proportion to the adulation which is bestowed upon the miracle child. But when the boy winds up dead - possibly suffocated by the 'mother' - the Bishop, still holding a grudge over the death of his own son, sees to it that she is punished in the most horrific way. She teases the Bishop, rightly pointing out that it's illegal for the church to hang virgins, so he simply orders her to be raped non-stop, 208 times in a row, by the most disease-ridden villagers and the dregs of the local prison. The Bishop forgives the rapists in advance ("You are forgiven, my sons, for making rightful vengeance"), so that all is 'above board' in the eyes of god. And while she screams in agony at her harrowing ordeal, the rest of her family are hunted down and hung from the rafters. The child's body is scalped and cut into pieces so that the mourners can take the body parts home as religious mementos ("Child, bless me with your little feet that walked the earth"), and his severed head is displayed for all to see. The play comes to an end when the 'mother' doesn't survive her ordeal.

The Baby of Macon takes place entirely on stage, and was designed as a puzzling and audacious film which caused outrage when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Having earned himself much art house acclaim for his previous hits like Prospero's Books and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her lover, director Peter Greenaway took a bit of a detour this time around by heading more towards the blurry line between artifice and actuality, by way of Artaud's theories on The Theatre of Cruelty. Are these actors being killed 'for real' or is it all part of the play? This is the question Greenaway's fans have been arguing about for the best part of twenty years, as the film simply refuses to clarify the most nagging of questions. All we can say for sure about The Baby of Macon is that the notorious and prolonged rape scene is very nasty, and the dismemberment of the child has kept the film rejected by many American cinema chains over the years.

Greenaway's favourite DP, Sacha Vierny, returns to point his exquisite lens at another visually stunning concoction. The set designs are amazing; a cathedral decorated and illuminated with thousands of candles that play against the darkness of the auditorium and the script. It was a massive production, with hundreds of extras, live choirs, and string quartets, all making the production seem much grander in scale than its low-budget would
suggest. In fact, the visuals and detailed choreography makes Caligula look almost modest in comparison. And the overall grand elegance of the sets and costumes are constantly at odds with the human players, whose hypocrisy and cruelties only adds to the uneasy mix. It's just a shame that composer Michael Nyman is absent; having made such a strong impact in classics like Drowning By Numbers and The Cook, The Thief..., he fell out with the director, and Greenaway was left to fill the musical holes with traditional classical numbers. It goes without saying that the end result sorely misses Nyman's magic, and both he and Greenaway still haven't collaborated on a film project since.

BAD BOY BUBBY (1993)

Dir: Rolf De Heer /Australia

Bubby, a 35 year old slaphead has been raised his entire life in a single, filthy, windowless room and used as a sex slave/whipping boy by his monstrous mother who tells him that the air outside is poisonous. He has no idea of what the world beyond his four grubby walls consists of, until his long-lost father, a fake clergyman, turns up one day. And after innocently murdering his parents by suffocating them with cling-film, this man-child ventures out into the open to experience the world outside…

The big, wide world proves to be a hostile and alienating place for Bubby, as he meets an assortment of characters ranging from helpful angels to hateful morons, and he finds himself partaking in various pursuits, including a stint as an off-the-wall nightclub performer. He also has a spell in prison and a disturbing encounter with a seedy priest.

The early part of this Aussie cult classic is a murky endurance test, but once Bubby breaks free from the horrid house, the film constantly sways between extraordinary and discomforting to hilarious and exciting. Bubby imitates others’ behavior, including the scene where he walks down a high street copying the movements of a young toddler; he’s fascinated, and he follows the kid down the street, jumping up and down, and seemingly amazed at how small the child is. But because of his life-long incarceration, he doesn’t realise that his behavior is beyond weird and downright unnerving for the toddler’s mother who is clearly very uncomfortable by this strange man’s peculiar interest in her little boy. His adventures out in the world bring him face to face with brutality, apathy, sex (including both seduction and rape), showbiz, infamy, patronage and friendship. He is even incorporated into a punk rock band who pay homage to his nonsensical rants. Meanwhile, the police are on the lookout for the cling-film killer, and things wrap up on the themes of love and salvation.

Dutch-Australian director Rolf De Heer uses a series of gimmicky tricks and techniques, such as using 31 different cameramen, apparently to give the film more of a schizo perspective. For some reason, he also insisted on recording the sound on tiny microphones concealed in the actor’s ears. But despite the disorientating effect of much of these techniques, none of them really distract from what is otherwise a wholly fascinating and deliriously insane story. In fact, the scene where Bubby the grown child hugs a handicapped girl whose love cannot be reciprocated is among the most heart-wrenchingly honest in the history of cinema. Nicholas Hope in the lead role is the star of the show; his superb performance carries the film from beginning to end. He remains alternately hilarious, sympathetic, weird and chilling from one moment to the next. Also, a major point of interest in the film is Hope’s forehead which seems to be expanding by the second. It’s massive. It’s an IMAX forehead. They could’ve beamed Coca-Cola ads on it from space. It’s such a stupendously tall dome it barely fits on the screen; De Heer would’ve had to rotate the screen sideways to fully accommodate it. Buy the DVD and see for yourself. You can’t really miss it, it’s huge.

Bad Boy Bubby picked up numerous awards at international film festivals, including awards for best director, best actor for Hope, best original screenplay and best editing at the 1994 Australian Film Institute awards, before it hit the shelves as an instant cult favourite. Unfortunately, the film wasn’t released in America for years, and had to make do with word of mouth to help spread its alternative appeal on the fan circuits. A shame, because this is easily among the best Aussie comedies of the last twenty years (for another little-seen dark Aussie comedy from the 90s, check out Bill Bennett’s Kiss Or Kill – reviewed in this book). Director Rolf De Heer went on to make other disturbing gems like Dance To Me My Song and Alexandra’s Project. And with this earlier film he maintains an assured command of his chosen medium; not for a moment does it stray into all-out silliness or gratuity. It will offend many viewers, especially those of a religious bent, but it never feels like you’re being shocked for the sake of it; everything in the film serves the plot which unfolds with an odd revelation in the final moments.

BAD TASTE (1987)

Dir: Peter Jackson /New Zealand

Wellington, New Zealand, 1983. The 22 year old Peter Jackson opens the oven door, but rather than taking out a tray of cakes or cookies, the young kiwi instead removes a baked rubber mask. In the living room, Jackson’s parents despair for their only child. With the cooker in use once again, it looks like another cold lunch for mum and dad. Peter remains completely oblivious to his parents’ looming starvation. He has a dream, and his home-made rubber masks are only a part of it.

It’s difficult to imagine now, but there was once a time when Peter Jackson wasn’t the billionaire brown-nose sellout of Lord of The Rings fame. Thirty years ago, he was just a typical horror and sci-fi geek trying to make his debut feature film with his buddies. Back then he wasn’t interested in shooting some silly saga based on an overlong ‘celebrated’ book. Hell no. The younger, thinner and less hairy Jackson was working on something much more interesting: An intergalactic sick-drinking home-made epic, appropriately entitled Bad Taste.

The plot goes something like this: When aliens arrive at a remote part of New Zealand with the intention of turning the human populace into burgers for their fast food restaurant, Crumb’s Crunchy Delights, the authorities send in the ‘boys’, a group of incompetent morons, to deal with the situation. A local door-to-door salesman has been captured by the aliens who plan on boiling him alive for lunch, and the ‘boys’ must try to rescue him and save the day before it’s too late.

Bad Taste is one of the finest home-made splatter movies of all time, a cult sensation with its sick, morbid humour, cross fertilization of genres, and an acute awareness of its own craziness. It was four years in the making, and only completed when it was thanks to financial help from the New Zealand Film Commission, whose chairman Jim Booth had been blown away by some of the early rushes. If it wasn’t for the grant from Jim Booth, who knows how long it would have taken to finish the film. When it was completed, Peter Jackson was still only 25 years old, the same age as Orson Welles when he made Citizen Kane… but um, comparisons get kinda blurry after that. The overall budget for the project is still not clear – various sources claim that it cost anything in the region of $17,000 to $150,000. But regardless, the end result is a remarkable achievement considering that most filmmakers couldn’t create anything even nearly as visually accomplished as this, even when they’re given several millions to spend. Jackson served as director, actor (two roles), producer, writer, cameraman, special effects supervisor, and he probably did the catering too. It’s very much an auteur piece, and as such, Bad Taste will tell you more about him than his entire Lord of The Rings trilogy.

For a start, it has a rampant, diseased sense of humour, and a true love for the stickier side of horror, in the same way as people like Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) and Brian Yuzna (Society). The film is anarchic, wild, bloody and gruesome; the movie equivalent of juvenile delinquency, with messy sequences trailing off to the bloody effects as quickly as possible. The early sequence set on the edge of a cliff where the alien swings at Derek wildly with a sledgehammer, is at once hilarious, intense and nerve-racking, all in one. It’s a scene which is also balanced at the very edge of plausibility – and kept there for quite some time – as Jackson keeps things at a knife-edge, precariously racking up the absurd feeling of suspense before the pay-off when the alien swings too hard, and misses, causing Derek to lose his footing, and then he tumbles down the cliff, crashing onto the rocks below.

The jagged rhythm of the film was necessitated by the use of a wind-up camera that could only film for thirty seconds at a time. But rather than hinder the shoot, it actually helped to create a fast-paced, action-packed scuzzbucket, with Jackson’s limited special effects coming at you too thick and fast for you to notice just how crude and amateurish they really are. The rubbery aliens (disguised as humans in the first half of the film) are in need of human meat, especially the ‘chunky bits’, for their intergalactic fast food chain. And when the aliens do show their true selves – as butt-ugly balding creatures with their bony bums tearing through the backs of their trousers – the gruesomeness really kicks in, and includes a scene in which a ravenous invader dines on human brains with a spoon, scooping the contents out of some poor guy’s broken skull (a scene that was later paid tribute to by Lucifer Valentine in his film Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, with the added bonus of having the brain-eater vomit the contents back into the victim’s hollowed-out skull. Ah, good old Lucifer Valentine, you can always rely on him to add a touch of class to proceedings).

The acting is stilted at best, but these weren’t professional actors, they were actually Jackson’s friends. One of them, Michael Minett, who played an alien as well as Frank, recalls, “It took us four years to make. That’s a helluva long while. We gave up every Sunday during that period. The worst thing of all was that we had to wear the same costumes all the time.” Indeed, the troubles of keeping the visual consistency going in scenes that were sometimes shot years apart became a major problem on set, as Pete O’Herne, who played Barry, points out. “The day I started going in front of the camera, I hadn’t shaved for a few days. So at the end of the day’s filming, Peter said to me, ‘Pete, you’re going to have to keep the look ‘til we finish’. So for four years, I could only shave once a week!” This reminds me of Jack Nance in Eraserhead who was requested to keep his iconic, anti-gravity hairdo in place several years so that director David Lynch could keep the ‘look’ of his leading man unchanged between shots that were also shot years apart. Jackson was lucky to have such loyal friends willing to sacrifice hundreds of weekends to help him put his demented vision up on the big screen. But he also asked a lot of himself, too. On the technical side, he basically did everything himself, and Bad Taste remains to this day the ultimate example of DIY filmmaking.

The ingenious Jackson also constructed his own ‘Steadicam’ for the paltry sum of $15. He created the film’s weaponry, too, from the simplest of materials. “I made guns out of aluminium tubing, wood and Fimo [modelling clay],” Jackson explains. “I made exact replicas of Stirling sub-machine-guns. The bolts worked on them – they were neat!” To this most hands-on of directors, invention and micro-budget improvisation was the lifeblood for the entire duration of the shoot. Following George Romero’s example in Night of The Living dead, where the director procured animal guts from an abattoir for his zombies to feast on, Jackson used sheep’s brains and guts acquired from the local butcher’s shop to be used in the gore sequences, which makes for an offal lotta fun. Ha ha, get it? Offal lot of fun? Oh, fuck off.

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of Bad Taste is in how it revels in brain-mush, bone fragments, gaping wounds, severed body parts and a big bowl of vomit. It’s absolutely gross in places, but viewers in the right frame of mind who are prepared to go along with it will be rewarded with a barrel of laughs, non-stop action, a gung-ho cast and lots of sick humour. In one scene, Jackson’s character Derek falls 100 feet down a cliff and lands on the jagged rocks at the bottom – He doesn’t die, but a large chunk of his brain falls out from the enormous wound in the back of his skull. He simply stuffs it back in and ties his belt around his head to hold it in place. And throughout the remainder of the film, Derek has to battle against the invaders while ensuring that his brain doesn’t fall out. If that sounds like fun to you then you’ll enjoy this film. But either way, there’s no denying the formative talent that was at work here, with its warped imagination, experimentation, difficult special effects sequences, interesting visual ideas, and the pervasive sense of fun to be had from watching a group of friends getting together to make a movie.

BAISE-MOI (2000)

(aka Rape Me; aka Fuck Me; aka Screw Me; aka Kiss Me)

Dir: Virginie Despentes & Coralie Trinh Thi /France

A couple of murderous outsiders team up and go on a killing spree. Pretty soon, they’ve wasted a woman at a cash till, numerous men they have slept with, and anyone else who dared to get in their way.

There have been several English translations of the title Baise-Moi, such as  ‘Rape Me’, ’Fuck Me’ and ‘Screw Me’, but none of them quite captures the nihilistic rage and venom of the original French. This is a film about anger, and yet the immoral and reckless exploitation of its style damages the overall message, and tends to shift its focus onto less relevant areas. The film was banned in France after just a couple of days of its release, due to protests about the levels of graphic sex and violence depicted. It was also banned in Canada and Australia, and was released unrated in the States. In the UK, the BBFC removed ten seconds from the graphic rape scene in which the victim looks to be enjoying the experience (a similar cut was enforced on Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs almost thirty years earlier). The British censors also removed a further two seconds from the DVD release. But even with the missing footage, it was a surprise to many when the BBFC allowed it to be released at all. But there it was in its sordid, punky, digital video style for all to see.

Large parts of the media did the whole ‘let’s pretend to be scandalized’ thing, such as the Daily Mail who attacked the film and called for a ban. And also in America, where Variety magazine slammed it as “A half-baked, punk-inflected porn odyssey masquerading as a movie worth seeing and talking about.” The New York Times described it as “A numbing alternation of pornographic scenarios and brutal killings,” which is actually quite a fair assessment. In the UK, the media feeding frenzy seemed to feast upon the fact that the film was written and directed by two women, just as much as they complained about the sex and violence.

Based on ex-prostitute Despentes’ bestselling novel, and cast with a pair of real porn stars in Raffaëla Anderson and Karen Lancaume, the emphasis here is on posing and bloodshed. And this allows the filmmakers to avoid addressing the more direct themes, and it also gives them the chance to avoid having to explain their overall motives. Had the film been a revenge scenario against men following their rape, then there would have been more of a purpose here, something to make viewers care about the characters. But this is not the case: It’s not just men who are killed, it’s women too. And it’s not just the men they have slept with who are murdered, either. So what’s the agenda? According to Despentes and Trinh Thi, the idea was to make a film that was “so in your face that we will end up in your mind.” The end result is as subtle as a bullet in the arse, which just so happens to be included in one of the film’s nastiest scenes. It’s basically an extreme version of Thelma & Louise, or I Spit On Your Grave meets Natural Born Killers, complete with real, unsimulated sex scenes and gallons of blood. The film works better when viewed as an underdog class-war rant, or an attack on the idea of bourgeois filmmaking (as was supposedly the case with A Serbian Film a few years later. But anyone with even half a brain could see it for what it was: a cynical way of provoking controversy in order to make a fortune at the box-office). The supposed sexual politics in Baise-Moi are muddied by the character’s indiscriminate killing of women, too.

But let’s not take this art house shocker too seriously. Goodness knows, many others have. When all’s said and done, this film is just a more extreme version of Natural Born Killers, complete with multiple layers of horror, sensation, tragedy and laughs. Only, this is a 21st Century update, which means there are also hardons, blowjobs, the odd drop of spunk, and subtitles. It may not sound like fun, but anything the Daily Mail hates so much must be worth checking out. Does it have any feminist credentials at all? Well, director Despsentes was raped as a teenager, and Trinh Thi is a former porn actress, but there isn’t much in the film that could stand up to feminist scrutiny, unless there’s a school of thought along the lines of ‘All men are bastards, so let’s kill ‘em, after we’ve noshed ‘em off.’ There’s nothing here that you won’t have seen before: anyone who has ever watched a porno will hardly raise an eyebrow at the close-up fellatio and cum-shots, and the violence is nothing that Quentin Tarantino hadn’t already shot in a mainstream movie. Speaking of which, Baise-Moi does have its moments of Tarantino-style, self-conscious dialogue, such as in the scene where the protagonists moan that their dialogue just isn’t cool enough.

Adapting her own book, Despentes creates a punk nightmare, a doom-laden horror show that sticks closely to its exploitation roots. We get the usual shot-on-video guerilla-style, with hit ‘n’ run visuals, and the two leads invest their roles with an assured manner, meaning that no expression is too big for them, whether it be explicit shagging, graphic violence, or being the victims of rape, the actresses give it their all with gusto. Lancaume in particular is exceedingly good in this film; she manages to convey the oblivion in her head in a difficult way, somehow expressing her mental damage with a swagger. Sadly, Lancaume (her real name was Karen Bach) took her own life in 2005 with an overdose of temazepam. She was just 32 years old. Anderson is also good, but her character is a bit clichéd and she doesn’t have much to work with. But together on screen they’re a force to be reckoned with, snatching weapons from the grip of patriarchy, shoving them up its arse, and pulling the trigger. This isn’t a sexy movie, but that’s the point. It isn’t misogynistic either. Just a raging, misanthropic rant. And I for one enjoyed it for what it was.

Given the film’s ferocious style, you’d probably expect Despentes and Trinh Thi to be loud, aggressive feminists, but they’re actually quite mild-mannered and soft-spoken, sharp and witty, and laid back about the controversy their film had unleashed. “In France there is a culture of tolerance, but it’s just an image,” claimed Despentes at the time on the film’s ban in her native country. The ban was brought about by the Ministry Of Culture and the right-wing religious group, Promouvoir. “I think it was an advertisement to all other producers that said: ‘Us French make pretty movies. We’re an intellectual country, we don’t need this sort of thing.’ They won’t be making another Baise-Moi soon.”

A word of advice to the YouTube community: if you want to complain about a movie trailer but can’t muster a more interesting way to express yourself than typing “OMFG BITCH YOU SUCK,” or “HA HA, YOU’RE DEAD!” then I suggest you close your laptop, punch yourself hard in the face and go sit quietly in the corner until your lifespan fades out.

THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (1983)

(Orig title: Narayama-Bushi-ko)

Dir: Shohei Imamura /Japan

A remarkable film based on the award-winning stories by Scichiro Fakazawa and previously filmed in 1958 under the same title. The story takes place in a 19th Century Japanese village plagued by famine. In order to ration food the village has ritualized the killing of redundant members of the community: newborn males are murdered, while the elderly are carried by their children to the top of Mount Narayama and left to die. Orin (Sumiko Sakamoto) is a 69 year old woman thus scheduled for extinction; her son (Ken Oguta) is reluctant to carry out the ritual, but the mother, bound to tradition, is adamant. After finding wives for her children she begins the arduous journey up the mountain, strapped to her son's back.

In deliberate contrast to the dreamy original, this remake is joltingly realistic. Director Imamura (who also directed The Eel and The Pornographers), began his career as an assistant to Yasujiro Ozu, and has a well-known flair for urban low-life; here he turns to rural brutishness with equally disturbing results. The film revels in the indecorous (dead babies and a ritual gang-bang are highlights), but everything is rendered with a visual beauty that is probably intentionally incongrous. Winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1983.

BARFLY (1987)

Dir: Barbet Schroeder /USA

Not a film for everyone, but the unrelieved squalor of Barfly offers its own peculiar fascinations. Director Barbet Schroeder, the man behind Maitresse and Reversal of Fortune, explores the grungy world of cult writer Charles Bukowski, and puts that world under the microscope, giving the viewers a sordid glimpse of low-life.

Mickey Rourke plays Henry Chinaski, a slovenly, hard drinking, fist-fighting scribe who's taken with Wanda Wilcox (Faye Dunanway), a haggard but attractive drunk he meets in a bar. Chinaski's work is admired by wealthy, pretty, self-assured publisher Tully Sorenson (Alice Krige), and that provides the film with a romantic triangle as Wanda and Tully battle for Henry's attentions. Rourke, who turns in the finest performance of his career so far, takes a character who could be seen as pathetic and despicable and makes him, if not a likeable hero, at least an understandable one. Dunaway gives an exceptional performance, and Krige is also perfect in her role.

The making of Barfly was almost as extreme as anything in the film. Producer/director Schroeder had originally commissioned Bukowski to write a screenplay for $20,000, and then struggled for years to get the film made. In desperation, he eventually entered the office of Cannon president, Menahem Golan, and threatened to cut off a finger unless Cannon agreed to give the project the green light. After initially refusing, Golan realised Schroeder's obsession with Barfly and eventually gave the project the go-ahead. The result is one of the highlights of 80s cinema but is also the kind of film many will strongly disagree about.

BARRICADE (2007)

Dir: Timo Rose /Germany/USA

This film kicks off with a bunch of German campers being murdered by a mysterious assailant (including a death by acid in the face, which is really well done). Michael, an American living in Germany, is joined by Nina, his female friend who is also American. He’s attracted to her, but nothing is going on between them, and their relationship is strictly ‘platonic’ despite him drooling on her tits at every opportunity. They are joined by David, who is Michael’s German friend, and he serves as their guide for a planned weekend camping trip out in the wilderness. Meanwhile, there are more killings in the woods, including a young couple who are butchered in their tent. And soon enough, Michael and his bumbling, idiotic friends find themselves in grave danger…

Less a horror movie and more a group of adults fannying about in the woods. The only positive thing this film has going for it is the gore sequences, but even this is let down by overload, until the viewers are so jaded by the blood and gore on screen that another impressive disemboweling merely swoops over your head – just another bit of graphic nastiness in an avalanche of severed limbs and entrails. Everything else about this film is dire. The direction and the score are pedestrian at best. The soundtrack throws up ridiculous German hip hop that sounds like a Bavarian accountant reading out a shopping list. There are also some acoustic mumblings from a whimpering ponce, in the vein of Damien Rice, David Gray, James Blunt, John Legend, et al, you know the kind of acoustic-strumming morons whose tuneless whinings are supposed to be captivating and endearing or something. I don’t know. I could be wrong, but apparently this music touches people, whoever they are. I just can’t relate to it. All I hear is bland open-chords and a contrived whiny voice uttering empty platitudes. It’s the kind of wallpaper muzak that is enjoyed by the enemies of fun everywhere, noise pollution of the lowest order. There’s something inexplicably hollow about this kind of music; it bypasses the soul completely. It’s basically consumer noise for those who don’t enjoy music but will listen to it because other people do – like imposters from another planet imitating the behavior of humans. And as such, I can’t relate to it. It just doesn’t work. I’m being alienated by the replicants again. There’s no real expression there, no art. In the music industry, they refer to this type of music as ‘content’, and they produce it and dish it out to the masses of gormless, farting androids that play at being human. It’s ultimately the type of music that is played at dumb people’s funerals.

The doddering script keeps the banality engine running throughout, as if it was written by a dalek who couldn’t create drama even if it lived in a house overlooking Albert Square. And the dialogue is bogged down further by having the lines ‘brought to life’ on screen by a group of robotic actors who would be better suited to stacking shelves at Walmart. Honestly, the line delivery in this film is so slow and labored, it’s like listening to a bunch of drunken buffoons with speech impediments, and requires the patience of a saint to stop yourself from yawning your soul apart.

The characters themselves are beyond stupid. Michael is the typical blight on the modern world, with a shiny bald head that looks like a scorched bollock. He’s a banal clothes horse, a twat of a hero. He dribbles his tedious lines in the manner of a brain dead pub doorman, presumably to underline what a decent, ‘likable’ everyman he is, but from where I’m sitting he looks and sounds more like a wrongly elevated dunderhead than a movie hero. Characters like that shouldn’t be in the movies, they should be knee-deep in cow shit nibbling turnips at the arsehole end of history, preferably during the Black Plague.

Nina is like a ghost, a character so flat and forgettable she’s basically undimensional. As the end credits roll, you’ll have to rewind the DVD to prove she really did appear in the film. She’s one of those routine ‘filler’ characters who is so blank and ordinary she vanishes from your memory the moment she crosses your mind. And she’s supposed to be the one we’re rooting for! The shame of it is that actress Raine Brown tries so hard to drum up some excitement by earnestly over-acting and chewing the scenery that her performance suffers even further as a result. If you over-act in a film, and your fellow cast members are basically humanoid logs, then instead of ‘outshining’ them on the screen by improving the dramatic arc, you actually end up looking foolish by acting like an absolute tit in the woods, as Brown does here.

The movie’s villains are a ‘family’ of savage cannibals who have lived in the woods, bumping off strangers and campers since the mid-70s. They’re like a cross between the hillbilly monsters of Wrong Turn and the Sawney Beane clan. But anyone looking for an interesting backstory explaining how they ended up deep in the wilderness, and why they decided to turn to murder and cannibalism will be left disappointed as no such explanation is given. Before the killers were made clear, I was half expecting it to be Deckard from Blade Runner – the perfect antidote to a bunch of replicants pissing about thinking they’re human – he would’ve put an end to this nonsense and retired them forever.

Do yourself a favour and form a barricade between yourself and this film. Trust me, you’ll have more fun watching a puddle exist.

BATTLE ROYALE (2001)

(Orig title: Batoru Rowaiaru)

Dir: Kinji Fukasaku /Japan

In the not-too-distant future, the Japanese government passes a new law to deal with soaring youth crime, by randomly selecting school pupils and sending them off to an island where they are given weapons and ordered to kill each other off in three days until only one survives. The pupils are also tagged with explosive metallic devices around their necks which can be remotely detonated if anyone breaks the rules or tries to escape.

Coming on like a 21st Century update of William Golding’s classic novel, Lord of The Flies, Battle Royale presents its characters with choices that are even more extreme. The film’s often shocking violence has restricted it to adult audiences (in Japan, however, it was given the R-15 certificate, allowing it to be watched by 15 year olds – school kids the same age as the characters in the film). Those who take on a censorious stance against kid-on-kid violence will be appalled by much that goes on in this film, but of course, this is all just a fantasy; it doesn’t encourage violence; in actual fact, veteran director Kinji Fukasaku does an excellent job of displaying the violence in a horrific and alienating, degrading manner, and as such, this is not the kind of cinematic violence that will have the audience cheering along.

From the get-go, the film doesn’t waste any time in setting up its ludicrous premise, and before long we’re in the presence of the legendary ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano, who is thoroughly annoyed at his unruly class. The students are gassed on a bus and wake up on the isolated island where they are lectured on the rules of the game, and Kitano throws a knife into the forehead of a girl who dares to talk over him, and blows the head off a class troublemaker to make a point about how serious the situation is. Then, for the subsequent three days, the 42 remaining school pupils are left on their own on the island to kill each other off in any way they see fit until only one survives. And what follows is a torrent of horrific vignettes depicting the deaths of these children as they double-cross each other, and the deadly scenarios are all painfully realistic – By the time you start identifying with characters, they’re gone in a series of disturbing, unsettling and often darkly funny ways. Some decide to kill themselves rather than take part, psycho volunteer Kiriyama gets hold of a fully automatic weapon and goes on a shooting rampage for fun, class bitch Mitsuko also takes a liking to serial murder, while Shuya and Noriko form a pact with previous BR winner Kawada, and they use computer equipment to try and rig the game so that more than one person can survive the carnage.

If this was some Sam Peckinpah-style shoot-em-up with a cast of gung-ho, trigger-happy adults, no one would bat an eyelid. But because Battle Royale is a film which presents murderers and victims alike as teenagers, it is all the more shocking and transgressive in the age of post-Columbine where barely a year goes by without someone deciding to take out their frustrations and impotence on the world by shooting up a school. In Battle Royale, kids are graphically torn apart by bullets from automatic weapons, beheaded, have their throats slashed, shot with crossbows, jump to their deaths, and even poisoned. As with the aforementioned Lord of The Flies, which was an obvious influence here, this film sets out to present its audience with an allegory rather than an exploration of real-life child violence. Battle Royale was based on Koshun Takami’s popular novel of the same name, and it basically skims over the initial set-up so that we can get right down to business. Just like the book, the film quite early on establishes the idea that Class B is made up of pupils who are neither wholly innocent nor particularly deserving of their forthcoming punishments. And while this whole scenario has ample opportunity to work as an effective satire on crass media and bureaucracy, director Fukasaku decides not to explore this angle beyond the amusing instructional video that is played for the kids and is presented by a very squeaky announcer who gives enthusiastic tips on how to effectively kill-off their rivals. She comes across as like a Blue Peter presenter from a future police state. But perhaps the most disturbing idea in the film is that the teens are not there to entertain conservative society, but to be taught a harsh lesson.

This was Fukasaku’s 60th movie. Before Battle Royale, he was best known for his cult classics such as The Green Slime (1968), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and Virus (1980). He also directed lesser known classics like Battles Without Honor Or Humanity (1973) and Street Mobster (1972) for Toei studios (interestingly, the shots in BR of the blue sea crashing against the rocks on the island shore are eerily reminiscent of the Toei logo screen of the 60s and 70s). He had very personal reasons for directing Battle Royale. “I immediately identified with the student characters,” he said. “I was fifteen when World War II came to an end. By then, my class had been drafted and was working in a munitions factory. In July 1945, we were caught in artillery fire. Up until then, the attacks had been air raids, and you had a chance of escaping from those. It was impossible to run or hide from those shells that rained down. We survived by diving for cover under our friends. After the attacks, my class had to dispose of the corpses. It was the first time in my life I’d seen so many dead bodies. As I lifted severed arms and legs, I had a fundamental awakening… everything we’d been taught in school about how Japan was fighting the war to win world peace, was a pack of lies. Adults could not be trusted.”

As a movie, Battle Royale barely gives the audience time to draw breath, let alone relax. It’s a film which flits between horror and heartbreak, even in its most celebrated, visceral sequences. But there’s also a subdued melancholy and contemplation here that is guaranteed to haunt long after the film is over.

THE BEASTS (1980)

(Orig title: Shan Koa)

Dir: Dennis Yu /Hong Kong

A Hong Kong take on the rape-revenge thriller, The Beasts follows a group of friends on a camping trip deep in the backwoods, and before you can say ‘I Spit On Your Grave’, these youngsters are terrorized by a gang of degenerate human monsters who make Krug and Weasel and co seem like a charming, misunderstood bunch. They rape and murder the teens, and the local police force seem utterly unconcerned with the violence and savagery going on in their midst. However, the father of one of the victims decides to take the law into his own hands, and he heads out to bring some brutal vigilante justice down on the scumbags, by luring them into makeshift booby traps – including the use of a wooden box with nails hammered into it for a particularly ghoulish trap, which I guarantee will make you cringe – and one by one, the ruthless “disco boys” are slaughtered in satisfying fashion.

Despite pre-dating the CAT III rating by almost a decade, The Beasts is often cited alongside other examples of Hong Kong nastiness, such as Her Vengeance and Suburb Murder. Likewise, it’s easy to spot the influence of Western exploitation flicks in this film, such as Last House On The Left and I Spit On Your Grave. And alongside Devil Fetus and Dangerous Encounters of The First Kind, this is one of the most outrageous films to come out of Hong Kong in the 80s. Much of the film is shot in ‘stalker vision’ with lurid, POV camera angles and has a tense and intimate feel overall. The bad guys are a cruel and nihilistic bunch, with one of them brandishing a knife and making silly growling noises. They’re perhaps the ugliest set of bastards you’ll ever see, and would make the elephant man puke down his face-bag. The growling one looks like a freeze-frame snapshot of a horse’s head imploding; the chubby one resembles Asia’s answer to the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters. As for the rest, well, they’re so grotesquely ugly it’s difficult to make out which way up they are; you have to look for noses and mouths and work it out from there.

BEAUTY’S EVIL ROSES (1992)

(Orig title: Se jiang II zhi xie mei gui)

Dir: Lam Wuah Chuen /Hong Kong

This is one of the most insane and schizophrenic movies in the entire CAT III canon. It isn’t as shocking or graphic as other films from Hong Kong of the time, but it’s a must see for anyone who enjoys outrageous ‘WTF?’ moments piling up on screen.

The story starts with a young woman (played by the tomboy cop in The Untold Story, Emily Kwan) entering the office of a chief of police, seducing him into sex, and passing on some kind of bizarre, sexually-transmitted curse. The plot is then put on hold for ten minutes or so as various hot young women engage in steamy softcore sex scenes. When the story picks up again, there is a man looking for his girlfriend (Wong Wing-Fong), who has been abducted by an evil cult ruled by the leader, Da-Shie, and a police officer (Alex Fong of Escape From Brothel fame) is investigating the spate of missing girls, and who had a hot model sweetheart. There's also a Taoist priest who looks to be a down-market version of Lam Ching-Ying from the Mr. Vampire movies. He stumbles upon the evil magic of the cult leader, but doesn’t make it to the final battle between good and evil… or something like that.

It’s a confusing tale for sure, and not helped by the haphazard editing (in fact, the version of the film available on VCD looks suspiciously cut to ribbons by the censors – scenes often cut to the next just as things become graphic and violent – even the soundtrack clumsily breaks off in numerous scenes). I've read various synopses from online reviewers, some of which differ radically, and it’s good to know that I’m not the only confused soul trying to work out what the hell is going on in this film. This movie doesn't seem to worry about coherency, it's far more occupied with things like the hilarious tentacle that comes out of Da-Shie's wrist; it looks like a ten foot long, brown crooked turd with a critter face on the end. And she uses said turd as a tool of punishment and enslavement. There is also a fight to the death set in another dimension that looks like something from an 80s TV show with its corny computer graphics and trippy aesthetics.

In terms of entertainment value, Beauty’s Evil Roses is a riot and gradually becomes increasingly off the wall as it progresses until you reach the point where you’re thinking your drink has been spiked with about eight tabs of LSD. The first half-hour is loaded with dull sex scenes (but the women here are hot), and it soon picks up, and before you know it you’re assaulted with silly police procedures, even sillier kung fu fight scenes, black magic, witches, violent rape (including a woman having a knife rammed into her flue). There’s also some amusing lesbian action, a wacky soundtrack which includes exotically-charged tribal rhythms, and cute girls teasing and whipping each other with what looks like a long, flexible pipe for a vacuum cleaner. And once it gets going, it never gets dull for a minute. There is probably a more graphic cut of this film doing the rounds somewhere, but I’ll be fucked if I can find it.

BERUF NEONAZI (1993)

(aka Profession: Neo-Nazi; aka Nazi Occupation)

Dir: Winfried Bonengel /Germany

A documentary about a couple of neo-Nazis which features the infamous Ewald Althans. Althans was not the stereotypical dumb skinhead as portrayed in the German press; he was actually quite a rational and intelligent man.

The film starts in Toronto, Canada, with Ernst Zündel, a middle-aged German in exile. He had left his homeland as a youngster to avoid national service and is seen here as the world’s leading distributer of Nazi paraphernalia and literature. Zündel organizes media events and plans his eventual return to Germany once the country has been “re-Nazified.” His right-hand man in this mission is Ewald Althans, the main subject of this documentary. Althans is an articulate, twenty-eight year old neo-Nazi. His job within the organization is to network with other splinter groups and unite them in their shared goal (at a time when computer activism was still in its infancy). This disturbing and controversial film goes on to present a fairly objective portrait of Althans, and we get to witness the activist as he espouses the teachings and philosophies of Hitler. We follow his activities, such as being the main German contact for Holocaust deniers living in Canada, to communicating with other similar groups across Germany and Europe at large. His own organization is also documented in the film. His way of distributing propaganda was very similar to those of the Ayatollah Khomeini (at one point, Zündel even describes himself as “the German Khomeini”). Althans later visits Auschwitz to confront visiting Jews about his theories on death camp denial. Soon after, he is then seen making sick jokes about genocide.

Beruf Neonazi was funded by five German states, and when the film sparked its inevitable public outrage, those who funded the documentary demanded their (taxpayer’s) money back. It was the same old story; a few tabloid papers whipped up a storm of controversy, and the government funding bodies panicked and attempted to disassociate themselves in a pathetic and frustrating example of trial by media. Trials were held to have the film banned in Germany, and while all this commotion was going on, the Werkstattkino sourced a print and was the only cinema in the land willing to hold screenings of the film. This led to protests by militant anti-fascists who picketed outside, intimidating and openly
threatening those who wanted to enter the theatre – Basically, they behaved like a bunch of fascists themselves in their attempts to have the film banished. The cinema was constantly under threat from picketers and abusive phone calls. Security guards had to stay overnight at the cinema to protect the film reels. Welcome to the free West.

The Werkstattkino was also prosecuted for screening Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Mother’s Day. Munich is usually a conservative city, but on those occasions it was the leftists who were responsible for behaving in an unnecessary and reactionary way. In 1995, the film was used as court evidence, and Althans was found guilty of racial incitement, defamation and Holocaust denial, and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. During the trial he announced his departure from the neo-Nazi movement. Through his homosexuality, Althans was often linked to other right-wing extremists, like Michael Kuhnen, another gay neo-Nazi. Filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim portrayed him in the 2005 film Men, Heroes, Gay Nazis. He now works under the name of Bernd E. Althans as a promoter and organiser of gay parties. Now that’s what I call a change of lifestyle.

A BETTER TOMORROW (1986)

(Orig title: Ying hung boon sik)

Dir: John Woo /Hong Kong

Hong Kong filmmaking is among the most extreme in the world. The emphasis is usually on action and violence, usually to the detriment of the plot. And the violence is often graphic, whether it be guns, swords, or hand-to-hand combat. Films rated Category III often add nudity and deeply disturbing themes to the mix, and usually, things are also spiced up with broad farce and slapstick comedy. For years these films only had the tinniest of cult followings in the West, but with the arrival of master filmmaker John Woo, all that was about to change.

'Heroic Bloodshed' is a term often used in reference to the sub-genre of Hong Kong action cinema involving excessive gunplay, bloody shoot-outs, and excessive stunts and car chases. It is the genre with which John Woo has become synonymous. A Better Tomorrow was the first of his epics to be granted widespread distribution beyond Hong Kong, and did much to cement his reputation as 'The East's answer to Sam Peckinpah'.

The plot centres on two brothers who come into conflict. Kit (Leslie Cheung) is the cop with a good conscience, and whose dedication to his profession crosses the border into obsession. His brother Ho (Ti Lung), and his good friend Mark (Chow Yun-Fat), make a profit from counterfeit bank notes, and Ho manages to keep his illegal activities hidden from his family. But when a transaction goes awry, Ho is betrayed, their father is killed, and Kit's career in the police force is put into jeopardy. When he is released from prison, Ho tries to patch things up with his brother, attempts to help out his struggling friend Mark, and keep out of trouble. However, before long he finds himself drawn back into the criminal underworld.

A Better Tomorrow presents violence as graphic but also stylized, and the perfect example is the sequence where Mark stages a retribution attack against Ho's betrayer, who is seen eating in a restaurant surrounded by friends and bodyguards. Wearing a suit and a full-length overcoat, Mark strolls down a corridor towards the room in the restaurant, hiding a bunch of handguns amongst the foliage of potted plants. He then bursts into the room, executes his victim at close range, and then retreats through the corridor, using the guns he stashed earlier to wipe out the bodyguards who are pursuing him, discarding each pistol as it empties. This is violence as pure visual poetry. Director John Woo's superb use of editing and slo-mo makes him the most successful practitioner of these techniques since the great Sam Peckinpah.

Never one to go lightly on action sequences, Woo's films also go against the traditions of Hong Kong cinema; he always puts plot and characters first in his epics, and - believe it or not - the violent set-pieces never break away from those important elements. He also never uses the silly slapstick humour to keep his audience engaged between shoot-outs, which is extremely rare in Hong Kong filmmaking. And crucially, all of his characters pay the ultimate price for their use of violence, much like Peckinpah.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)

Dir: Russ Meyer /USA

"You shall drink the black sperm of my vengeance.” Russ Meyer's Beyond The Valley of The Dolls is an outrageously entertaining cult classic, and one of the sleaziest mainstream movies ever released by a Hollywood studio up to that point. Crucially, this is not a sequel to Valley of The Dolls, but rather a demented rehash of Jacqueline Susann's trashy bestseller, alternating psychedelic hipness and bland moralizing. The film is also strangely bereft of Meyer's usual love of nudity and big-boobed women, but is just as insane as his other works like Mudhoney and Vixen.

Eager to break into the bigtime, an all-girl rock group consisting of Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Meyers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom) heads for Los Angeles accompanied by their manager Harris (David Gurian) who is also Kelly's lover. Kelly's aunt introduces the girls to record producer Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell (John LaZar), who turns the band into stars. As they become successful Kelly abandons Harris for playboy Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett), Harris is seduced by a porn star, and Pet falls in love with a law student. Casey, who gets hooked on pills and alcohol, is attracted to Kelly's aunt's lesbian employee. Things reach a head when Lance and the band members attend a party at Bartell's house; 'Z-Man' freaks out and attacks his guests one by one whilst dressed as a superheroine named 'Superwoman'.

After losing a fortune on epic flops like Doctor Doolittle, 20th Century Fox enlisted Russ Meyer - who had earned millions with low-budget exploitation flicks - to make a film for them. The result was a movie that outraged the industry but turned a huge profit on its $1.2 million budget, despite Fox's trepidation in promoting it. Technically, Meyer's films were always top-notch, and in this, his first widescreen movie, he and cinematographer Fred Koenekamp create some stylish comic-book compositions, splashed with Day-Glo colours.

In addition to the cast of former playboy models and other non-actors, there are wild orgies, drug parties, Nazi butlers, and a gruesome Manson-like massacre that reaches a manic pitch of surreal hysteria. Beyond The Valley of The Dolls is often repellent and demented - which is to say it's typical Meyer - but it's also a funny psychedelic time-capsule which has joined the likes of Psych-Out, The Trip, and Head as one of the great cinematic legacies of the acid years.

And would you believe that this drug-laden, sex-engorged camp masterpiece was written by none other than Roger Ebert? Sure, the guy's a stuffy old square nowadays and may feel embarrassed about his association with the film, but you've got to admire anyone who can churn out lines like "This is my happening, and it's freaking me out!" or "I want it. I need it. I love it when a beautiful woman licks between my toes." Perhaps there's still hope for the old goofball yet!

The British censors demanded cuts to the opening credits sequence in which guns are used to stroke breasts; the implied connection between sex and violence is still a big no no for the BBFC and the cuts remain in place to this day. But hey Russ, thanks for the mammaries!

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969)

(aka Phantom of Terror; aka The Gallery Murders)

(Orig title: L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo)

Dir: Dario Argento /Italy

Argento's debut sees American writer, Sam Dalmas, staying in Rome with his girlfriend (Suzy Kendall) and who becomes an eye-witness to an attempted murder in an art gallery late one night. Sam becomes convinced that in the back of his mind lies a clue that could lead to the identity of the assailant, but he can't quite figure it out (a theme that would later crop up again in Deep Red a few years later). After being informed by the police that the attempted murder was probably the handy work of a serial killer who has been hacking and slashing his way across Rome, Sam decides to investigate on his own, in parallel to inspector Morrisini's official investigation...

Boasting a cool, modernist photography by Vittorio Storaro, and a ground-breaking squawky score by Ennio Morricone (featuring Edda dell'Orso on vocals), The Bird With The Crystal Plumage introduced us to the motifs which would refigure the giallo and become prevalent throughout Argento's career. In this film, knives are no longer plain old murder weapons but cherished instruments of death kept in cases to be admired and fetishized as well as to slice and dice the victims.

Sam Dalmas was the first of Argento's characters to fail to recognise the 'fairer sex' as being capable of pre-meditated murder - Women as victims by the very nature of their gender. When Sam witnesses the attempted murder in the art gallery, he assumes that it is the man who is the aggressor, and automatically sets out to rescue the 'damsel in distress'; it isn’t until the end of the film that he realises his own gender-related preconceptions have thwarted his pursuit of the killer - It was the woman, Monica, who was brandishing the blade. Even the experienced Inspector Morrisini assumes the killer to be male. Argento transforms the typical conventions of the thriller/giallo by reversing the trend of aggressive and masculine men, and passive, helpless women. And a rather clever move by Argento is that we too, the viewers, instinctively assume the killer to be male, perhaps because of movie trends just as much as our own gender-preconceptions.

This was the first in Argento's 'Animal Trilogy' which continued with The Cat O'Nine Tails and Four Flies On Grey Velvet. The 2-disc set from Blue Underground is the best option for this film on DVD, the best this film has ever looked on home video. The DVD promises "Recently discovered, never-before-seen footage of explicit violence," but this is actually just a couple of seconds at the start of the slashing on the stairwell scene.

BITTER MOON (1992)

Dir: Roman Polanski /France/UK

Even as early as 1992, the erotic thriller had seemingly run its course after such lurid hits as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Poison Ivy and the like having worn the sub-genre into the ground with their clichés and dangerous femme fatales. But Polish director, Roman Polanski, presented Bitter Moon, an utterly warped variation on his earlier film, Knife In The Water, to show that there was much that had yet to be explored in this otherwise silly and excessive genre.

Onboard a cruise ship heading for Istanbul, British couple Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas) meet a strange French woman called Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s wife) and her wheelchair-bound husband, Oscar (Peter Coyote). Oscar begins to tell the story of how he met Mimi, and goes on to describe their highly unusual relationship. And while Fiona deals with her seasickness by taking sleeping pills, Nigel is drawn deeper into the story, convinced that he and Mimi will get to have sex at some point on the cruise. However, Oscar’s story becomes increasingly nasty and twisted, and after telling Nigel how he came to be paralyzed from the waist down, the scene is set for a disastrous New Year’s celebration…

Bitter Moon is a film which plays up to – and parodies – the erotic thrillers that were popular in the 80s and early 90s, and succeeds in spicing things up with a cruel and perverse edge, offering up much in the way of dark humour while the emotional turmoil of each character is laid bare in sometimes excruciating detail. Much of the story is told in flashback, and this is where we discover the psychological torture that drove Mimi and Oscar’s relationship from a mutual harmony to an obsessive and destructive battle of wills.

Fiona’s character is a tad underused, but she really comes to the fore in the finale. Coyote is absolutely brilliant as the American writer Oscar, and he demonstrates a convincing transformation from a naïve and ambitious writer who heads for Paris in the footsteps of his heroes, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and eventually becomes a bitter and twisted loser. (He also looks truly sinister when he grins, like he’s secretly defecating in his trousers and enjoying the warmth more than is strictly necessary.) Seigner puts on the finest performance of her career, which frankly, isn’t saying much, but despite what the critics have said, and despite her bad performances in other movies, she’s perfectly cast in Bitter Moon, and is totally believable at expressing both vulnerability (when she is bullied, humiliated and abandoned on a plane) and menace (when she decides to dedicate her life to making Oscar’s a living hell). Whether she’s brandishing syringes, cutthroat razors, or even her own sexuality as weapons, you believe every second of it. And Hugh Grant is his usual self in a typically bashful and awkward role as Nigel, a man so wimpy and spineless he puts up with the silly games and practical jokes that Oscar and Mimi play on him. Any normal person would have thrown them both overboard after the blatant cock-teasing prank in which she invites him to their darkened cabin only for him to find that he had climbed into bed with her crippled husband. Nigel’s barely controllable lust for Mimi is quite creepy; his willingness to be unfaithful to his wife at the first sight of an attractive female doesn’t really sit right with his character. He just doesn’t seem like that kind of guy; unfaithful ones are usually those who are more forward and self-assured in their pursuit of sexual gratification, but Nigel doesn’t have the confidence to talk his way into bed with a beautiful stranger. Besides, he seems far too normal and prudish to be drawn into Oscar and Mimi’s twisted games. His idea of a coke-fuelled threesome would be a glass of cola followed by a smoked salmon and horseradish baguette. And the only time you hear him growling the phrase “you know you want it” is when he is offering his wife a sleeping pill.

Hugh Grant made a successful career out of playing wimpish, floppy-haired twats; he did such a great job of embodying those types of characters that many assumed he must be that sort of person in real life. So it came as a shock to the world when in 1995 he was busted by L.A. cops getting sucked off by a street whore. His mug shot was strewn across news headlines worldwide; he looked like a man who had just been rudely awoken from a great dream (probably one where he was just about to fire his load into a chick’s mouth), and didn’t look to be happy about it at all. I was a teenager at the time, and besides from wondering what kind of bleak world we live in, in which movie stars like Hugh Grant have to pay to get noshed off, I was also reminded of Bitter Moon and how Grant’s horny rendezvous was exactly the kind of thing Nigel’s character would have done the moment the cruise ship docked at Istanbul.

Speaking of scandals – and on a more serious note – director Roman Polanski was no stranger to them, either. He slept with a thirteen-year-old girl after a photo shoot in L.A. in 1977. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawful sex with a minor. To avoid his prison sentence, Polanski fled to London, and he eventually moved to France. More than three decades later, in September 2009, he was apprehended by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities, who also asked for his extradition. The Swiss rejected that request, and instead released him without charge. He has never returned to the states since the late 70s. If he ever steps foot again on American soil, he’ll be detained at the airport and forced to serve his sentence. He remains a free man in Europe, and continues on his filmmaking career to this day. His classic films, such as Frantic, Death and The Maiden, and his masterpiece, The Pianist, were all shot in Europe, often as big international co-productions. And despite the scandal looming over his head, his reputation as a filmmaker has continued to grow over the decades, with top producers and actors queuing up to work with him.

He was also linked to another scandal in the late 60s when the Manson Family invaded his Beverly Hills home and brutally murdered his pregnant girlfriend, Sharon Tate, along with three others who were at the house, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, and Abigail’s boyfriend, Voytek Frykowski. Polanski was away in London preparing to shoot Day Of The Dolphin at the time. Underground filmmaker Jim VanBebber later made a film which includes a re-enacting of that awful event, called The Manson Family (released in 2003 after a decade-long production hell). But interestingly, there is a distinct bias in the bloodshed depicted in the film – whereas the killings of Folger and Frykowski and others are graphically shown in all their horrid gruesomeness (Folger was stabbed dozens of times, and the audience is shown more or less each and every one of them, for example), the killing of Sharon Tate is mostly skipped over. The details of her murder are horrendous – she was hung from the rafters in the living room, and after witnessing Jay Sebring being shot, stabbed and kicked to death, she began pleading for her life. The cult members simply made fun of her and then slashed her face to ribbons and took turns at stabbing her.

You would think that a director like VanBebber, whose blood-soaked filmography includes Deadbeat At Dawn and My Sweet Satan – both splatter classics – would relish the opportunity of putting Tate’s gruesome death on screen, but he doesn’t. In an interview, he claimed he avoided presenting her death on screen out of respect for Polanski, which is fair enough. But what about Folger and Frykowski and the rest? Don’t they deserve respect too? But they didn’t have filmmaking spouses did they, so I guess their deaths are fair game; have them butchered right there on screen in graphic detail. They were a bunch of nobodies anyway, right?

My point is, Polanski as a filmmaker is still very much respected, despite his very public fall from grace. Anyway, back to Bitter Moon. Mainstream critics largely dismissed the film, accusing it of being “crass” and lacking credibility overall. The S&M scenes and pig-mask role-play games were also frowned upon, especially in the UK where Empire magazine cried “Don’t they believe in divorce in Paris?” The Observer called it “the work of a perverse, exhausted talent narrated by a perverse, exhausted talentless writer to trap a dim-witted listener.” The reception wasn’t much better across the pond; Janet Maslin of the New York Times praised Kristen Scott Thomas’s performance on the grounds that she wasn’t actually present in most of the scenes. She went on to accuse everyone else of “going off the deep end.” But still, there was something about the film that has kept people coming back for more over the last couple of decades since its release, making it something of a bona fide cult item nowadays. Indeed, at its best, Bitter Moon presents a darkly comic grand guignol take on modern relationships, and is ideally suited to repeat viewings. Polanski has since tried his hand at repeating the cult appeal with films like Death and The Maiden and The Ninth Gate, but they don’t come close to the noirish, decadent fun of Bitter Moon, whose 139-minute running time passes by in a flash.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)

Dir: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez /USA

Ah, The Blair Witch Project; loved by some, loathed by many. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this low-budget classic, whether it be a triumph of student filmmaking and a master class in internet promotion, or a crappy amateur waste of time. But one thing's for sure: Whether they admit it or not, everyone was rattled by this film when it first hit the screens. Clark Collis of Empire magazine said it best, "The Blair Witch Project is one of those movies where ignorance is bliss - or, to be more accurate, terror." So if you haven't yet seen it or heard about its 'urban legend', then along with asking where you've been for the last 15 years, I suggest you drop this book and give it a look without reading any further.

In October 1994 three young student filmmakers spent a few days making a documentary about a local urban legend known as the Blair Witch. They gathered a digital video camera, a 16mm camera, and supplies, and then headed deep into the woods with the hope of finding a story. But they never came back. And nobody ever saw them again. The footage which they had shot was later found and sold to a company called Haxan films, who edited the footage together into a 90 minute documentary called The Blair Witch Project which shows the full horror of their dreadful journey. And when that film was released into theatres it scared the crap out of the entire film-going world.

The above synopsis was how the film was sold, but none of it was true. The real story goes something like this: Three young actors pretending to be filmmakers were given some recording equipment and then sent out into the woods for eight days. The real filmmakers were Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez who used satellite tracking devices to chase the actors around at night and leaving strange rock formations and wicker artifacts in strategic places, and playing audio cassettes with the sounds of weeping children. The actors weren't really lost, but they had no idea what would happen next, or when. And crucially, for much of the time they really were afraid.

Myrick and Sanchez were a pair of Florida Film School graduates who made The Blair Witch Project for around $35,000 and used the internet to find an audience. They promoted their film with The Blair Witch web site which treated the whole story as fact. As word spread, more websites began springing up, made by people who had bought into the myth. With no money to promote the film in a traditional way, Myrick and Sanchez had effectively exploited the web and word continued to spread. They even listed their actors as "Missing, presumed dead" on the Internet Movie Database (a nice trick borrowed from Snuff which also attempted a mondo-style realism by not including any end credits). Pretty soon people were starting to appear at the woods in Birkitzville, Maryland to search for the 'missing' filmmakers, but the publicity campaign wasn't finished yet. Next, Myrick and Sanchez turned their attentions to television and produced a couple of short documentaries, ‘The Curse of The Blair Witch’ and ‘The Birkitzville 7’, which reported on the search and even added some backstory to the myth, and these were both broadcast on TV as straight up journalism, apparently. This ingenious method of promotion was nothing more than a series of publicity stunts. But it worked. And when distribution company Artisan announced that they were going to release the film into theatres, the punters were queuing around the block.

The Blair Witch Project earned just short of $150 million in the States alone, and with its meagre budget makes it the most financially profitable movie ever made. I first saw the film in November 1999 and it was the first and only time I had witnessed mass screaming amongst a cinema audience, where fans of the nudge-nudge-wink school of bogus cool self-referential crap like Scream had no idea what was real and what wasn't. And some of them were genuinely terrified. Ah, bliss!

BOXING HELENA (1993)

Dir: Jennifer Chambers Lynch /USA

After being rejected by the beautiful Helena, a distraught surgeon, Nick Cavanaugh (Julian Sands), finds her at his mercy following an unfortunate car accident. He proceeds to amputate her limbs one by one, and makes her live in a box.

It comes as an important lesson for any budding filmmaker hoping to be accorded some shock-horror notoriety for daring to explore such a dark and sexually twisted story, and wrapping it up in a strange twisted sub-humour, for this film is more well-known nowadays for the behind-the-scenes troubles which thwarted the production for a while. Kim Basinger was signed up to play the heartless and eventually limbless Helena, but changed her mind at the last moment, backing out of the contract (an understandable decision in retrospect, given the lackluster results). This threw the project into disarray as a new actress was needed to fill the role, and Basinger was sued and ordered to pay $8 million in damages (in a settlement reached in 1995, she agreed to pay around $3 million). Due to all the legal wrangling that surrounded the production, the media seemed more interested in the behind-the-scenes shenanigans rather than the actual film. And the much sought-after controversy in the subject-matter was largely overlooked as the film itself served as nothing more than a tiresome backdrop to the real-life drama that took centre stage.

As for the film itself, it was Sherilyn Fenn who replaced Basinger in the role of Helena, the object of Nick’s unnerving obsession, and she appears to be unsure of what she has let herself in for, overdoing what would have worked much better as a crazed, deranged victim of her own self-loathing. Julian Sands’ role as the surgeon who expresses his demented love is also unconvincing. Director Jennifer Chambers Lynch has obviously taken inspiration from her father David in the way the events unfold in an illogical, dream-like fashion. But she’s at a loss when it comes to replicating his off-beat, warped humour and striking visuals.

David Lynch as an artist has always been preoccupied with the undercurrents of human behavior; the subtextual, the surreal, and unconscious resonance that shapes his plots and his character’s motivations, whereas Jennifer makes a point about bringing all this stuff to the surface, denying the film any kind of mystery and wonder or ambiguity in the process. Sands’ character, Nick, is portrayed in the actor’s usual excitable manner, and he represents a Freudian (Oedipal) hodge-podge of tortured sexual desire for his dead mother, and who transfers his obsessions onto the despicable Helena. Even after her legs have been removed following the car wreck, and she finds herself trapped in Nick’s house, her only mobility is in an old wheelchair, but she continues as her old self, throwing objects at him and screeching like an outraged chimp. The fact that his warped behavior has led to him severing her legs (with her arms soon to follow) doesn’t make her put pause to her actions. Surely in a situation like that, of being stranded with a nutcase, she would take a few moments to assess the situation and the danger she is in, and think very carefully about what she does or says. But instead, she just carries on as herself, paying no heed to the situation she is in, and this makes it very difficult for viewers to believe in a character like that, let alone sympathize or even care about what happens to her, or Nick.

If it wasn’t such a bloody awful film it may have yielded a few laughs here and there, but as it stands, the only humour here is of the unintentional kind, as Michael Atkinson of Movieline points out, “Boxing Helena simply cannot be taken seriously, in a large part because it takes itself so seriously that we can only respond to it with gales of derisive crowing.” Jennifer’s own directorial style is so haphazard it makes you wonder whether her filmmaking limbs have also been lopped off. It would have worked much better as a twenty-minute short. Actually, why not try Rampo Noir (2005) instead, which features the infamous ‘Caterpillar’ segment directed by the legendary Hisayasu Sato, and explores some similar territory in a much more plausible and disturbing manner.

The most annoying thing about Boxing Helena is that it had the potential to be a great film, a dark, twisted sexual fantasy loaded with themes of revenge and control and obsessive possessiveness. However, what we get instead are a couple of awful performances, a terrible script and clumsy dialogue. Add to this some trite castration metaphors, an overly long 107-minute running time, and some ‘self-parody’ which cannot be passed off as intentional, and you’ve got the recipe for one of the most disappointing movies of the 90s.

THE BRIDE OF FRANK (1996)

Dir: Escalpo Don Balde (Steve Ballot) /USA

This is what happens when a bunch of warehouse workmates get together with a video camera to make a ‘movie’. Hopelessly amateur and inept in all areas, The Bride of Frank is nonetheless outrageous fun and often laugh-out-loud hilarious.

The story follows an old homeless bum as he abducts a little girl, smashes her head in when she gets mouthy, and then drives over her in a truck before eating her brains for breakfast. He later shows up to work with a bunch of equally hopeless truck drivers, and together they bicker and argue among themselves in thick New Jersey accents (bird is “boid”, jerk is “joik”, and he deserved it is “he desoived it”, etc). The characters are a lot of fun, and they reminded me of the eccentric staff at the car repossession office in Repo Man; they may call each other the worst names under the sun but they stick tight as a workforce and back each other up to the hilt. Frank is a wrinkled, miserable old fart who looks like someone’s attempts to draw a sad face on the elephant man’s scrotum, and he has a very literal slant on things, including his descriptions of how he would like to kill people, and his carrying out of the grisly tasks in a hilarious, matter-of-fact way. His workmates try to find him a date, and this causes lots of trouble as Frank’s ideas on love are not to everyone’s taste… The rest of the players are all kinda weird and mis-shaped, like the cast of The Sopranos squinting at funhouse mirrors. What else can be said about this vile video? It’s crappy in a good way, and good in a crappy way. Most mainstream movie fans would rather sew their own eyes shut with fishing wire than subject themselves to this, but that’s their loss. It’s better than watching celebrities eat each other’s eyeballs to win a golden dildo, or whatever passes for TV these days.

In the mid-90s those spoil-sports at the BBFC insisted on removing several scenes from Steve Ballot's The Bride of Frank. UK horror fans were particularly annoyed with their decision since one of the main cuts required was to take away the film's central joke; as the tagline says, "All Frank wants is true love. But you better not mess with Frank, because if he tells you 'I'll cut off your head and shit down your neck', he ain't kiddin." The BBFC demanded 74 seconds of cuts, including the sight of a man being "realistically fellated," a man having sex with the eye-socket of a woman, and the showstopper: Cuts to remove the sight of a man defecating down the neck of another. The BBFC offered the following statement as justification; "Cuts are made on grounds of potential harm and potential obscenity, for unjustified sexual detail, and sexual violence." But don't dismay, the uncut version is available on region 1 DVD from Sub Rossa.

BULLET IN THE HEAD (1990)

(Orig title: Die xue jie tou)

Dir: John Woo /Hong Kong

Arguably John Woo's greatest and most disturbing film to date, and without question his most violent. Bullet In The Head is an Eastern version of The Deerhunter, and follows the fortunes - and misfortunes - of a group of friends, Ben, Frank, and Paul. The film begins in Hong Kong where violence is rife, rioting and social meltdown are an everyday thing, and thugs rule the streets. Ben's wedding dinner is disrupted when Paul, who had borrowed the money from a loan shark to pay for his friend's big day, is attacked by triad boss Ringo and his cronies. Paul endures a savage beating rather than settling his debt. Ben and Frank decide to get revenge, and in their attack they end up killing Ringo. So the three buddies flee to Saigon where they come into contact with Luke (Doctor Lam himself, Simon Yam), a dodgy mercenary who is just as likely to kill for money as he is to steal gold in his pursuit of riches.

After what they have already been through you would think these three men would have taken some very important lessons from their violent experiences back home in Hong Kong, but instead they get themselves involved in robbery and wholesale massacre of anyone who stands in their way of making some dirty money. And this reckless behaviour finds them fleeing deeper and deeper into war-torn Vietnam. And soon their bonds of friendship are frayed when Paul provokes a Mexican stand-off with Ben and Frank due to his greedy obsession with their stolen shipment of gold. Soon after, they are captured by the Vietcong.

In place of the forced games of Russian Roulette in Cimino's film, here the POWs are forced to open fire on their fellow prisoners for the entertainment of the VC. Ben participates in the game as a way of affecting an escape plan - his desire for survival outweighing his morality. Paul's attitude, on the other hand, is even more reprehensible; when making an escape, Frank is injured, so Paul simply shoots his old buddy in the head so that he won't have to deal with the burden of having to assist the injured man out of the warzone! He then goes on to murder a group of unarmed civilians in order to steal an escape boat. The film ends back in Hong Kong with Paul, who has now become a rich and successful businessman, is confronted by Ben over his act of treachery. They subsequently have a fight to the death that is as violent and brutal as anything seen in the history of Hong Kong cinema.

Bullet In The Head is perhaps most notable for the absence of actor Chow Yun-Fat, and for this reason the film seems to be missing a moral centerpoint. In a later film, Full Contact (1992), Yun-Fat was mistakenly cast in the bad guy role, and the punters stayed away not wanting to see their hero being the villain, and so the film flopped quite badly at the box office (it's a decent film though, and well worth checking out). Here with Bullet In The Head, it comes as a genuine surprise when some of the characters turn bad and others present some deep heroics. All are driven insane with terror and agony, and hysterically do all they can to survive. A classic.

The militarist slant on the 'Heroic Bloodshed' genre can also be seen in Samo Hung's Eastern Condors (1986), a film which borrows heavily from Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen (1967). But these borrowings often work both ways; Ringo Lam's City On Fire (1987) provides the basis for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, and Chow Yun-Fat’s two-handed gunplay in A Better Tomorrow is said to have influenced Harvey Keitel in Tarantino's film.

THE BURNING (1981)

Dir: Tony Maylam / USA

Tagline: “Don’t look he’ll see you. Don’t breathe he’ll hear you. Don’t move you’re dead.”

A prank misfires at an upstate New York summer camp, leaving the caretaker, Cropsy, badly burned. Five years later, and a whole bunch of odious, over-confident high school dickwits, every one of whom you grow to despise twice as much as Hitler, arrive at the summer camp to indulge in their care-free fun and pranks and bitching. Meanwhile, Cropsy has undergone the agony of failed skin-grafts, and is lurking in the nearby woods with a pair of shears, just waiting to send the little bastards to hell…

While there can be no denying the influence of Friday The 13th here, The Burning actually took its biggest cue from ‘Cropsey’, an age-old American campfire legend about a disfigured Doctor or judge seeking revenge on subsequent generations of young campers after a gone-wrong prank (it was also the inspiration behind another slasher movie, 1982’s Madman). This film actually surpasses Friday The 13th in terms of tension, atmosphere and creepiness. It also gets down to the nasty bits in good time (whereas Friday seems to take an age to get going). Rick Wakeman provides the quirky electronic score which serves as a nice backdrop to the slaughter. The Burning’s ace card, though, is the casting; these young characters are so teeth-grindingly annoying it’s a joy to watch them being cut, stabbed, and slashed to ribbons by the crazed killer. Make no mistake, these youngsters are a group of hissing despicable rats desperately clawing over each other, straining their necks to suckle from the withered tit of popularity; whining, preening, bitching, squealing – they couldn’t be any more dislikable if they wore Nazi uniforms and ran around shooting puppies with nail guns.

It isn’t the best slasher movie from that period (William Lustig’s Maniac beats it in every department); there are numerous plot-holes and nonsensical asides. It’s also chock-full of just about every slasher movie cliché of its time, with characters saying things like “I’ll be right back” just before they venture off to meet their doom, the usual conservative hang-ups about sex and freedom that must have had Kevin Williamson popping a hard one while researching Scream. There are also the annoying point-of-view stalking shots that flit between Cropsy and having viewers believing it to be Cropsy when it isn’t, kind of thing. This being a low-budget slasher movie, logic and sophistication are at the bottom on the list of priorities here, but for the sheer thrill of watching a group of morons get slaughtered, The Burning gets the job done. The most notable deviation from the Friday The 13th template is that the heroic virgin who is terrorized throughout but perseveres to become the sole survivor of the slaughter is a geek boy (played by Brian Backer) rather than the usual plucky and resilient Jamie Lee Curtis clone in the ‘final girl’ situation.

The most famous sequence in the film – and the one which helped to get it outlawed as a ‘video nasty’ in the UK – sees Cropsy leaping onto a raft on the river, and in about 30 seconds (and with just as many quick-fire edits) a group of teens are butchered with a pair of shears; chests and throats are stabbed, heads slashed open, and one unlucky kid grimaces in terror as his stupid little fingers are lopped off. We have special effects legend, Tom Savini, to thank for this memorable sequence. Savini once created a severed head that looked so realistic the police took it in as evidence of a genuine murderous decapitation. Fact.

Directed by Englishman Tony Maylam, who had previously scored a modest success with Riddle of The Sands, The Burning marked the pinnacle of his filmmaking career as he hasn’t been up to much in the movie world since. Maylam’s film also ‘crops’ up (sorry) on embarrassing credits forums; lookout for early appearances from Holly Hunter in a bit-part role (she would go on to win a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Piano), Fisher Stevens as ‘Woodstock’ (who later showed up in Short Circuit), and Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame who here serves as the token blobbo boy. Furthermore, the screenplay was co-written by future Miramax boss and Oscar winner, Harvey Weinstein.

The controversy surrounding the film in the UK in the 80s was triggered by the distributers accidentally releasing the uncut version on video after the theatrical version had already been sheared of it bloodiest bits. This led to the tape being included on the Department of Public Prosecution’s ‘video nasties’ list, and the film was effectively banned on VHS in 1983. It was later passed by the censors in 1992 in a cut version and was released on Vipco Video. Those cuts were eventually waved by the BBFC in 2001. In America, The Burning was initially cut by the MPAA of just over a minute of footage to secure the R-rating, and it was later released unrated on video and DVD.

THE BUTCHER BOY (1997)

Dir: Neil Jordan /Ireland

The comic-strip panels that fill the screen during the opening credits set the tone. Neil Jordan's adaptation of Patrick McCabe's award-winning novel is brash, broadly drawn, and awash with colour. But just below the deliriously hyper-real surface is a wrenching and ultimately horrifying tale of adolescent isolation.

It's 1962, and as the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates to a nail-biting climax, a different kind of explosion is set to go off in a small Irish village. Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens) is a precocious twelve year old boy whose freckle-faced, manically cheerful exterior masks an ever-deepening emotional disturbance. Francie lives in a fantasy world of comic book heroes and TV, and with good reason; his mother (Aisling O'Sullivan) is chronically depressed, his father (Stephen Rae) has the reputation for being the best drinker in town, and Francies arch-enemy - the Brady's evil neighbour Mrs. Nugent

(Fiona Shaw) - repeatedly reminds the boy that he and his family are no better than pigs. So a pig is what Francie is determined to become, particularly after his mum commits suicide and his dad lays the blame squarely at his feet. As every childish nightmare of abandonment comes true and Francie is failed by every person he ever loved, his uncontrollable rage leads him to a moment of appalling - and appallingly understandable - violence.

Jordan and co-writer McCabe have done a masterful job of adapting the novel for the screen, turning Francie's ranting interior monologue into a vivid vision of the world seen through the eyes of a disturbed child. Owen's remarkable, high-pitched performance and Jordan's lush, visionary style are perfectly suited to the material: Jordan fills Francie's head and the screen with extraordinary, often fantastic images, not the least of which is an amusing cameo appearance by Sinead O'Connor as none other than the Virgin Mary.

CAFÉ FLESH (1982)

Dir: Rinse Dream (Stephen Sayadian) /USA

Most porn movies are made purely for two reasons: To make the viewers horny and to make the producers wealthy. Of course, there are those who claim there is some artistic merit to be found in some harcore porn, but they’re just kidding themselves while they beat the meat. But having said that, Café Flesh just happens to be the exception to everything above. One of the great hardcore films of the 80s, with more imagination and carefully thought-out ideas than dozens of other XXX flicks, Café Flesh is basically a bizarre sci-fi pic with lots of weird fantasies and cum shots.

Set in the near future after a nuclear holocaust, radiation has left 99% of the surviving population unable to have sex. These impotents are known as ‘Sex Negatives’ who torment themselves with memories before the bomb by hanging out at Café Flesh, an apocalyptic nightclub where ‘Sex Positives’ – made up of the remaining 1% of the population who can still make it – perform live sex shows, much to the audience’s mounting frustrations. The live shows include some bizarrely detailed fantasies, such as in the scene where a housewife is raped by a milkman dressed in a rat costume while three oversized ‘babies’ sit in high chairs holding bones. And just like any other XXX feature, we get all the usual explicit sex and cum shots and girls bending over as if they’re inviting us to inspect whether they’ve wiped themselves properly. While most narrative-based pornos of the time looked so obviously choreographed, here with Café Flesh it’s supposed to look that way. The film is loaded with style and humour, and on the technical front, it’s equally impressive – there’s neon-lit photography, impressive sets (which look like they could have been an influence on Crispin Glover’s It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine), and strange soundscapes all adding to the eerie ambience.

The characters in this apocalyptic world include the host of Café Flesh, Max Melodramatic (Andrew Nichols), who impersonates Elvis and Marlon Brando in between teasing the Sex Negs in the audience; Angel is a naïve virgin from Wyoming on her first excursion to the big bad city; Nick and Lana (Michelle Bauer, under the pseudonym ‘Pia Snow’, who later showed up in classic exploitation movies like Reform School Girls and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) are a couple on the brink – he’s a Negative, she’s a secret Positive, and they’re both hoping to save their relationship; and there’s also Johnny Rico (whose namesake would later crop up in Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, not so coincidentally) the super-stud who’s so cool he doesn’t remove his shades, even while eating pussy.

This is all well and good, but one of the major differences here from the usual XXX fare is how Café Flesh is so blatantly derisive towards its audience. The film works as a mirror reflecting back on the jaded raincoat crowd who are the main consumers for hardcore porn. During the more graphic moments, the director cuts to the audience who all look like leering, libido-punished slobs, and it’s then that we realise we’re just like those poor fuckers, by watching Café Flesh on the screen we’re unable to get involved in the action.

Overall, Café Flesh is a vision of despair which has often been interpreted as a metaphor for the AIDs pandemic, even though in 1982 when the film was made, nobody knew about the immunity virus. Would you believe it, a thought-provoking, sci-fi porno movie.

CALIGULA (1979)

Dir: Tinto Brass, Bob Guccione & Giancarlo Lui /USA

When Caligula premiered in 1980, it did so amongst a chorus of outrage from people who described it as anything from "A revolting work" to "An unmitigated disaster," and that was just the people who made it. Director Tinto Brass disowned it, writer Gore Vidal washed his hands of it, Sir John Gielgud called it "my first pornographic film," British customs officers called it "Obscene" and sequestered it. Only Penthouse mobile turned film producer, Bob Guccione, seemed happy with Caligula, after all, he'd sunk $17 million of his own hard-earned money into it. But he still found the time to tell the press that Tinto Brass had mishandled and brutalized the film's sexuality, that you never see actor Peter O'Toole sober, and that Malcolm McDowell was "shallow and manipulative."

The story of Caligula the movie is every bit as intriguing and confusing as that of Caligula the Roman Emperor who, according to legend, slept with his sister, made a consul of his horse, and forced his senator's wives into prostitution... and then went insane before being assassinated and replaced by Claudius.

Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) is next in line as Emperor of Rome. He has an affair with his sister, Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy), and orders the assassination of the corrupt Emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole) to be carried out by his bodyguard Macro. He then ascends to the throne. Caligula soon develops a God-complex and exploits his position of power in every way he can as a way of offending and antagonizing his senators who he feels dislike him. He casually indulges in much violence and sexual debauchery as a way of crushing his enemies. He marries "the most promiscuous woman in Rome", Caesonia (Helen Mirren), sleeps with Macro's wife, his half-brother, and even his horse. After lingering near death, due to a feverish disease, Caligula goes completely off the rails, and this leads to more madness, more butchery, and more debauchery, before he and his family are finally dealt with, once and for all, in brutal fashion.

Originally written as a historical morality tale about the absolute corruption of absolute power, Caligula began its journey to the big screen in 1976 when Italian exploitation artist, Tinto Brass, was enlisted to make the film. Marshalling an extraordinary key cast of celebrated British screen thespian, with bit-parts being divided out to semi-famous European actors and glamorous 'Penthouse Pets'. Brass set to work at Rome's Dear Studios, where Oscar winner, Danilo Donati, conjured up a sweep of breath-taking sets which range from a gigantic boat-shaped brothel, to a shocking, mechanized 'Wall of Death' which decapitated those who fell before it. The film could not help but look stunning, and with Brass working on his own as director of photography, the end result was sure to turn heads.

Armed guards kept the inquisitive away from the set while the Italian director and American producer fought over the nature of the film. But the real trouble began after Brass had finished shooting when Guccione sneaked back onto the sets with Giancarlo Lui and shot around six minutes of hardcore footage, which he then edited into Brass's savagely unsexy movie, provoking two years of litigation before the film finally saw the light of day. The result of this painfully protracted birth is a cinematic cyclops, an unwieldy beast described at best as "a hideously deformed masterpiece," and at worst as "a multi-million dollar monstrosity."

Originally released in an unrated American print of around 156 minutes with a self-imposed X-rating, this version was cut by a whopping 55 minutes for the R-rating. The cuts included shots of a woman bathing her face in semen, bestiality, babies sucking phallic-shaped bottles, lots of sex scenes with hardcore inserts, female nudity, and most of the graphic violence. In the UK, the film was cut to 149 minutes by the BBFC who removed all of the hardcore shots, and also removed scenes of child abuse before giving it a theatrical X-rated certificate. The head of the BBFC at the time, James Ferman, commented: "Even before it could be considered for a certificate, some eight and a half minutes had to be cut to make it legal. There are scenes of perverted violence that I wouldn't have thought would ever have been seen in this country, in clubs or anywhere else. A lot of the sex was just straight sex, but more explicit than has ever been passed here. They took out another three or four minutes and replaced it with lesser material to make it acceptable for the X certificate." This version then played a lengthy engagement at the Prince Charles cinema in London, whilst a massively truncated print did the rounds in the provinces before shipping up on Electric Blue Video, complete with oodles of now softcore sex and sadly little of Brass's original ambitious vision which, like its inspiration, simply passed into legend.

In 1999, FilmFour prepared a version of the film which wasn't the two and a half hour theatrical cut, but was much closer in spirit to Brass's original than the VHS certificated version. For years it was almost impossible to see in anything even close to an uncut copy until the advent of DVD. The fully uncut 156 minute version is available on DVD on the Dutch Filmworks label in an anamorphic transfer, and this includes the revealing documentary on the making of the film, ‘Gore Vidal's Caligula’, with lots of talking heads and previously unseen footage, including McDowell bashing in a senator's head with a sledgehammer.

Whether Caligula has gained any more friends since the uncut version has been available remains to be seen. Personally, I like to believe that somewhere in there is a savage celluloid soul struggling to escape from its porno strait-jacket.

CANNIBAL FEROX (1981)

(aka Make Them Die Slowly)

Dir: Umberto Lenzi /Italy

Perhaps the most outrageous entry in the Italian cannibal cycle of the late 70s and early 80s, Cannibal Ferox was part of that list of banned movies - the 'video nasties' - which assaulted viewers and censors alike in the 80s. The film caused much controversy in America where it was released under the title Make Them Die Slowly, complete with a sleazy and graphically violent trailer. News media and current affairs programmes paraded its shocking images on television as an example of how depraved modern horror had become, with claims that the nation's youth were being corrupted by this type of fare. And when Elvira, Mistress of The Dark refused to film an introduction for its Thriller Video release, this eventually led to the MPAA tightening its restrictions on screen violence. The word 'ferox' is Latin for 'ferocious', and this should give viewers a good idea of what to expect here, as its catalogue of carnage - including real animal killings and gruesome death - makes it one of the most deeply unpleasant viewing experiences you'll ever have.

A couple of hard-boiled New York cops led by Robert Kerman (who had previously appeared in Cannibal Holocaust and Eaten Alive!, also known under his nom de porn, Richard Bolla) harrass a local drug dealer, Mike (John Morghen, aka Giovanni Lombardo Radice). Meanwhile, grad student Gloria (Emanuelle In America's Lorraine De Selle) is writing her thesis on the premise that cannibalism is just a myth, and heads off to the rainforest in South America. She is joined by good guy Rudy (Danilo Mattei) and the promiscuous Pat (New York Ripper's Zora Kerova). After their jeep breaks down in the mud, they're forced to trek through the jungle on foot, and this is when they bump into Mike and his pal. Turns out this dodgy duo have just escaped death at the hands of a cannibal tribe who have killed and eaten their friend. But Mike's sinister manner leads us to believe there's more to the story than he lets on. Pat beds down with Mike that same night, and in the morning he encourages her to molest and torture one of the native girls. So now we know for sure what decent a guy he is. And soon we learn that Mike and his buddy had ripped off some mobsters in New York and then fled to South America in search of emeralds and cocaine. After a drug-fuelled sex scene and some pointless animal killing, the cannibals soon descend on the Americans to inflict some graphically gruesome punishment - Mike is tied to a tree, has his dick cut off, is then relieved of the top of his head and has his brains eaten. Pat is subjected to an excrutiating death which involves being suspended in the air with metal hooks through her breasts. A sympathetic native leads Gloria out of harm's way and is killed as a consequence. She eventually makes it back to New York and receives her doctorate in which she still insists that cannibalism doesn't exist, and keeps the horrors she witnessed in South America to herself.

While many viewers were rightly appalled by the animal butchery on display here, many also see it as a camp classic due to the awful dubbing and amusing dialogue ("They, they... ATE HIS GENITALS"). The animal scenes are, of course, sickening and tasteless, and turns what could have been an over-the-top gore movie into something altogether more dangerous and indefensible. Whereas Ruggero Deodato had crafted a more serious and intricate film with Cannibal Holocaust, in keeping with his bleak and nihilistic worldview, Umberto Lenzi, on the other hand - who was never a fan of horror movies - simply trudges through the jungle, camera in hand, in an attempt to film anything that will keep the gorehounds happy without any regard for anything or anyone. And for me personally, that strikes me as more disturbing than Deodato's film. For all the atrocities on show in Cannibal Holocaust, its director did at least have a vision, albeit a depraved immoral one. But Lenzi shot Cannibal Ferox with nothing in mind other than creating a quick exploitation pic that would out-do Holocaust in shocking and tormenting its audience. And that to me is an extremely fucked-up thing to do. Indeed, during this period, Lenzi and Deodato seemed to be in some sort of gross pissing contest to see who could make the most shockingly outrageous film, and this only came to an end when Deodato found himself on trial for murder. And for a horror film, Cannibal Ferox never feels authentic in the way Deodato's movie does; as a genre novice, Lenzi clearly didn't have a clue what he was doing out there in the jungle, and was always much more interested in crime thrillers and gialli.

Shooting on location in the Amazon rainforest turned out to be almost as gruelling an experience as the doomed characters face in the film. There was the humidity and heat, the isolation and makeshift living conditions, and of course the strange exotic wildlife all around them, as Giovanni Lombardo Radice explains: "It was just terrible. When the almighty invented the Amazon he must have been very upset. It's not a place for human beings to be in. Everything is so rough; the weather, the humidity, the animals, the insects, the snakes. Even dolphins are bad in the Amazon. Once, I was on a canoe with Zora Kerova and we were having lunch, which consisted of the two sandwiches they gave us. All of a sudden, there was this big huge fish a bit far away that was jumping in and out of the water as a dolphin would do, but it was red. Zora said 'oh c'mon, let's go and see the fish'. Just to please her I started rowing, and in a minute there was another canoe with Indios following us and saying 'no no no no no' and making big gestures. Then they explained that this 'fish' was a kind of dolphin, but it's nasty and would try to turn the canoe upside down and bite you. It's a terrible place."

And it wasn't just the strange tropical creatures and harsh environment that was hostile; many of the cast and crew members took an instant dislike to the director, and would constantly undermine him at any opportunity. During the filming of the scene in which an anaconda crushes a small caoti, Lenzi was dismayed when the snake seemed to get bored and released the critter. And when the director ordered his assistant to step in and somehow force it to swallow the poor thing, the cinematographer switched off the camera and shouted "Cut, that's enough," and this caused fisty-cuffs between the enraged Lenzi and his DoP.

After a moderately successful theatrical run in Europe, Cannibal Ferox opened at the Liberty grindhouse in New York (which specialized in Euro-sleaze), complete with lurid ad-mats displayed in the lobby showing giant stills of some of the gruesome scenes in the film. Even the hardcore 42nd Street crowd was repulsed by what they saw, as Bill Landis noted in Sleazoid Express: "There wasn't one member of the Liberty Theatre audience who didn't holler or groan aloud during the course of the movie."

In the UK, Ferox was released on VHS in 1983 in an edited form with most of the animal footage dropped. Trims were also made to scenes of sexual violence and excessive gore. Prior to the Video Recordings Act of 1984, these cuts were considered "informal" by the BBFC. But once the VRA came into effect as a piece of legislation, all such 'informally' classified videos had to be submitted to the BBFC again and judged anew in accordance with the precise terms of the VRA. By this point, both the cut and uncut versions of Cannibal Ferox had been deemed 'video nasties' and prosecuted under sections 2 and 3 of the Obscene Publications Act, and it wasn't until the year 2000 that the ban was finally lifted. The distributers had hacked out around five minutes of footage and submitted it for classification, with the BBFC cutting a further six seconds to remove the "sight of small animal on end of rope banging against side of a jeep." And this is the version that remains legal in the UK today.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979)

Dir: Ruggero Deodato /Italy

When a group of immoral American documentarians vanish in the Amazon jungle, a rescue team led by Professor Monroe (Robert Kerman), trace their footsteps in search of the missing filmmakers. And after some gruesome animal butchery and false starts, the expedition finally come in contact with the Yamamomos tribe (or "the tree people"), who indulge in such pleasant activities as raping and murdering an adulterous woman with a stone dildo for punishment, and shoving a newborn baby in the mud to die. When the expedition gains the trust of the Yamamamos, the team is given the film reels belonging to the missing filmmakers, whose rotting corpses are enshrined by a tree.

Back in New York, the footage is shown to TV executives who are interested in making a documentary about the missing Americans. But their reaction is one of horror as the footage shows the filmmakers engaging in ruthless, reprehensible acts against the tribe, and who finally meet their grisly end at the hands of the natives they were exploiting.

Still an unbearable viewing experience today for most people, and very much ahead of its time in terms of narrative construction, Cannibal Holocaust is the high-water mark of the short-lived Italian cannibal sub-genre which came and went in the late 70s and early 80s. While most of these films can be dismissed as tasteless fun due to the campy acting, bad dubbing, and cheap gore effects on display, Cannibal Holocaust is an altogether different animal; a film viewed through the lens of its amoral, nihilistic director who presents his grim and misanthropic worldview with a casual viciousness rarely seen before or since.

Just like Joe D'Amato's Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals (1977), Cannibal Holocaust begins pleasantly enough in New York in glorious 35mm celluloid, giving the impression that we're watching a big international co-production. However, when it cuts to the jungle scenes, with the arrogant filmmakers shooting on rough, handheld 16 mil, the experience becomes much darker and unremitting as the quartet stomp through the 'green inferno', committing brutal atrocities against the "little mud people" and slaughtering animals. Of course, killing animals for the sake of entertainment is completely unacceptable, but unlike other films in the genre - Cannibal Ferox, for example - in which the mondo footage served as nothing more than shameless gratuity, the animal death in Holocaust leaves viewers with the disturbing thought that the whole film could be real. Indeed, the special effects are so realistic that director Ruggero Deodato was charged with murdering his cast members and had to stand trial in an Italian court.

The notorious shot of the native woman impaled on a sharp pole led many to believe it was a genuine image, and also a later scene in which a man has his penis cut off. Deodato demonstrates an extraordinary eye for visual detail as he successfully blurs the line between fact and fiction, and effectively toys with viewer's preconceived ideas about the mondo movie. It's a film which celebrates the mondo style while at the same time devouring itself in the process. Deodato seems to be saying 'you like mondo movies? You wanna see something shocking? Well, here it is in all its brutal glory'. Like it or loathe it, Cannibal Holocaust is an essential work of horror, and a milestone in the mondo genre. Listen: if you were to receive this film out of the blue, having never heard of it or knowing anything about it, part of you would seriously question whether the whole thing is real or not. Rarely has a film managed to convey the feeling of being stranded in the middle of nowhere and being hunted down by people whose sole intent is to kill you and eat you.

Italy has always been a land of imitation as far as cinema goes, but the Italian cannibal cycle didn't take its inspiration from Hollywood movies or American indies (which was usually the case). Instead, it owes its debt to the home-grown Italian tradition of the mondo film. Certainly, the cannibal movies' reliance on a fabricated reality, driven home with the inclusion of genuine atrocities, such as animal violence, does lend itself to the sensationalist trend which started with Mondo Cane in the early 60s. And the barbaric, primitive savages depicted in Cannibal Holocaust are almost unique to the cannibal sub-genre.

Before Deodato's film came along, there were other epics, such as Joe D'Amato's aforementioned Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals and Sergio Martino's Mountain of The Cannibal God (1978), starring Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach. The latter film would mark the prestigious highlight of the genre with its big budget and epic style. But even that film had its detractors due to the uneasy mix of star names, bestiality, and graphic violence. Deodato himself had already dipped his toes in the genre previously for 1977's Last Cannibal World (aka Jungle Holocaust) which is about a man who is captured by a tribe of cannibals after being stranded in the Malaysian rainforest following a crash landing. With his next film, Cannibal Holocaust, Deodato attempted another spin on the 'western civilized man meets a backwards, flesh eating tribe' by giving it a strong cinema verite style and an unrelenting nihilism that has kept the film mired in infamy to this day.

The film starts on the busy streets of New York, and the visual comparison between the modern metropolis of the Big Apple and the primitive way of life in the South American rainforest seems to be asking viewers which 'jungle' is the more dangerous. Joe D'Amato had already toyed with this idea in Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals, and Umberto Lenzi would later approach it again in Cannibal Ferox, but Deodato's take on this theme is the most effective.

Aside from the animal slaughter, Cannibal Holocaust does have other points of contention, such as the fictional violence and viewer alienation; the very first act of human on human violence is a punishment dished out on an adulterous woman. She is raped with a stone dildo and then beaten to death with a rock. Later, we see a pregnant native giving birth. The newborn is dumped in the mud without any explanation, and the mother is subsequently beaten to death. Again with no explanation. The American film crew are cocky and arrogant, thoroughly dislikable, and prone to horrible acts of sadistic savagery. However, the film's most recognisable image, that of the native woman impaled on a sharp pole, was done at the hands of the tribe. There are no moral characters in the jungle for audiences to identify with, and this does much to make us feel lost and dismayed. Indeed, in the eyes of some viewers, Deodato's depiction of the natives as barbaric savages makes Cannibal Holocaust not only extremely disturbing and morally bankrupt, but racist too. By presenting us with a conservative standpoint, and showing Third World primitives indulging in rape and cannibalism as 'normal', everyday activities, Holocaust is dismissed as a repulsive carnival attraction with the animal cruelty completing the spectacle.

The live animal cruelty was part and parcel of the cannibal sub-genre - although there were a couple of movies at the time that managed to avoid it, such as the Spanish oddity Cannibal Terror (1981), and the zombie/cannibal hybrid, Zombie Holocaust (1979). As yet, no one, not even the filmmakers themselves, have offered a reasonable explanation as to why audiences should see a turtle being decapitated and gutted on screen. Presumably, they did it for reasons of verisimilitude, and while this excuse would never make it acceptable, it would make more sense in this light, but no less reprehensible. Incredibly, some of the filmmakers have attempted to deflect the blame away from themselves; in an interview with Gorezone magazine in the early 90s, Umberto Lenzi even went as far as claiming that scenes of unmistakable animal deaths in Cannibal Ferox were fake. "I don't want people to think that I torture animals," he said. "Most of what you see [in the film] is special effects, and if you look carefully, it shows." If he really thought the horror community would buy that bullshit, then he clearly has fewer brain cells than a steak-and-ale pie. Over the years, Deodato has stuck to blaming the producers of Holocaust, insisting that they demanded the animal footage because it would make the film more marketable in Asia and Germany.

Nowadays, however, Deodato seems more willing to accept responsibility: "Now, if it was possible to turn back time, then I would not shoot any scenes with the animals because it was stupid to do that [...] I was born in Rome, and many times my family would go out to the country. The country people, the farmers, they would kill the pigs. They would turn them upside down and the blood... it was normal to see the pigs killed, the rabbit killed, the chickens... but now this is not normal. Now you do not see anything. Who killed your chicken? Now we don't know. But before, you saw the women in the village do it, so for me it was natural."

There are stories of Deodato trying to bully his cast members into committing animal atrocities for the camera. Actor Carl Gabriel Yorke recalls, "The only thing I can think is that Ruggero wanted to be as shocking as possible. I brought it up when they killed the monkey. I said 'This is a movie, you can fake it. That's what movies are all about'. I said this to Salvatore Basile, the assistant director, who also starred in the picture as Felipe, but he just said 'That's the way it is'. It came to a head over the pig. Ruggero called me a pussy when I wouldn't pull the trigger with live ammo in the rifle, and after that we all kept up a civil working relationship. I didn't feel like Ruggero and the crew respected me anymore, but that could be my imagination."

Actor Robert Kerman also grew more upset as the true nature of the film became apparent. One of the local natives arrived 'on set' carrying a live chipmunk. Kerman asked "What's going on here?" and Deodato replied "Don't you worry." Kerman became angry, "You're going to kill this animal, aren't you?" He then begged and pleaded with the director not to kill it, but to no avail. "The idea of really killing it on film was a pleasure to him," Kerman has since said. "I think it came from the film Mondo Cane, but that was like really watching people who were killing animals for a living, it wasn't for the camera, the camera is a detached spectator. It's like taking the camera to a slaughterhouse to see what happens. But Deodato made it happen. In Hollywood the chipmunk would have had his own dressing room with his own handler."

Added to the mondo mayhem was the 'Last Road To Hell' sequence, made using real newsreel footage of a military  coup in Africa, and which shows real executions of political opponents by firing squad, and a man who has a car tyre placed around his neck and set on fire. This sequence was edited into the film as belonging to the Americans as a part of their previous documentary before they entered the jungle. But Deodato wasn't alone in this kind of practice; his fellow countryman - and respected art house director - Michelangelo Antonioni used a similar shock tactic in his 1975 classic, The Passenger, where he inserted real footage of political uprising and human executions.

The mondo movie, with its accusations of fakery, is strangely what Deodato seems to be criticising in Cannibal Holocaust. And if this is so, then this is ultimately where the film fails. As with many titles in the shockumentary canon, the director fails to practice what he preaches and condemns the horrors on screen through the character of Professor Monroe, who is supposedly the film's 'voice of reason'. And at the same time, he doesn't hesitate in showcasing these horrors for the audience. It's this contradiction which makes Cannibal Holocaust guilty of the atrocities it seeks to condemn. The killing of the turtle on camera doesn't benefit anyone, but the director succeeds in making us feel sick to our stomachs, and ramps up the edgy nature of the fictional documentary footage. In addition, it's by showing the long and drawn out killing of an endangered animal that Deodato and co expose themselves as being the very same environmental terrorists that they seek to criticise through their portrayal of the wretched documentarian characters in the film. The truth of the matter is that the makers of Holocaust, toiling away in their capitalist, profit-hungry industry, had invaded a foreign land and bled the area's resources for all it's worth. The local natives were cast in degrading roles as barbaric gut-munchers, and animals were captured and slaughtered, their needless suffering recorded on film. All this to remind viewers of just how cruel and cold-blooded the world is. It's a perverse way of going about things, isn't it? For Deodato, he may as well have made a hand-wringing film about the horrors of domestic violence by bullying his cast members into drop-kicking women down the stairs for real, or a World War II epic given extra realism by having the Allies murdering a bunch of Jews and gypsies, and then having one of the characters muse "hmm, I wonder who the real Nazis are..." for some added stupidity. It sounds ridiculous but the contradictions are the same.

Animal cruelty was a rare thing to see on screen at the time. There was the documentary The Animals Film (1981), which showed endangered turtles being killed for food, and this was only a year after Cannibal Holocaust was released. But rather than merely shocking its audience, the harrowing documentary The Animals Film - which was narrated by Julie Christie - served the purpose of educating the viewers. Most of us have no problem with buying packaged meat from supermarkets, and the reality of how the product got there (or the lab animals suffering for our cosmetics and medicines, and washing powder) rarely crosses our minds. But the reality of actually seeing animals killed on camera, as we do in Cannibal Holocaust, the effect is extremely disturbing. Without making excuses for the film, Cannibal Holocaust does at least have the power to remind us that death is far from pretty.

As a work of horror cinema Cannibal Holocaust, for better or worse, has few rivals; when Deodato gets things right the results are astounding. There is the scene where the film crew arrives at a small village inhabited by peaceful Indios. They force the villagers into their straw huts, and then set the huts ablaze as a way of starting a tribal war ("just like in Cambodia"). With this powerful scene, Deodato proves he didn't need to kill animals to make a thoroughly disturbing scene; he perfectly captures the American invaders' cruelty and inhumanity, with the sight of women and children gripped with terror as they are burned alive. Ritz Ortolani's score is also praise-worthy; a sweepingly epic romantic ballad that reminded me of the theme tunes of American soap operas like Sons and Daughters (remember that one?). Deodato had requested Ortolani to score the film because he was impressed with the composer's sterling work on Mondo Cane (and this adds another connection between Holocaust and the mondo cycle). And Ortolani delivered the goods by offering up a sweet, hum-along chorus that is constantly at odds with the shocking imagery on screen. Even the film's smaller details can pack quite a wallop, such as Faye, the only female member of the documentarians, and the only one in the group who refuses to partake in the violence; she is rewarded for her non-violent approach by suffering the most long and drawn out death of all the crew members (and her harrowing rape and murder is captured on film by her fiance).

Cannibal Holocaust caused widespread controversy across the world. After being released in Italy for just ten days the courts banned it. "I had many problems with this film," Deodato has said. "At the box-office it was taking millions and millions of lira, it was fantastic, but after ten days it was gone." Deodato faced prosecution and stood trial for murder in Italy where it was believed that he had killed off his cast members for real. The scene showing the native woman impaled was so realistic the court didn't believe him when he assured them it was just a special effect, made using balsa wood and an old bicycle seat. The actors were contracted to "disappear for one year" as a way of generating the film's mondo reputation (a trick utilised by Michael and Roberta Findlay for Snuff, and later by Myrick and Sanchez for The Blair Witch Project - both these films were advertised with their cast members listed as 'Missing, presumed dead'). However, with the prosecution looming over his head, Deodato had to track down his actors and present them to the tribunal, live and well. "I called one of the Italian actors who worked with me, Luca Barbareschi. I said 'you need to come to Milan and I need to present you at the tribunal because you're still alive!' The idea was fantastic but not for me... The young people who shot The Blair Witch Project, when they did this the internet had arrived and it was fantastic, but for me, no. It only caused trouble."

Deodato was soon acquitted of murder, but was almost sent to prison for the animal killings. If the film had been shot in Italy he would most certainly have spent time behind bars. Instead, he was given a suspended sentence and the production company given a hefty fine for cruelty to animals. Looking back to those days, Deodato admits he got a kick out of watching jury members squirming in their seats when Cannibal Holocaust was screened for them, "The jury had two women on it and they screamed through the film!"

Despite the fact it was banned in its native Italy for obscenity, Cannibal Holocaust made a fortune in other territories such as France, Spain, Germany and Asia. In Japan it was a massive hit, even out-grossing Spielberg's E.T. at the box-office. In America, the film was barely released at all, except for a battered print which did the rounds at the Deuce on New York's 42nd Street, playing to outraged audiences at the grindhouses (as noted by Bill Landis in Sleazoid Express: "It branded you with its mark for having watched it"). In the UK, Cannibal Holocaust was released on VHS in cut form in the early 80s. Its availability was only brief though as the government soon clamped down on unregulated video tapes, and Holocaust became one of the most infamous 'video nasties'. The UK ban was lifted in 2001, albeit with five minutes and forty four seconds of cuts which removed all of the animal abuse.

Due to its banned status in the UK and its unavailability in North America in the 80s and 90s, horror fans had to make do with bootleg versions copied from the Venezuelan VHS and Japanese laserdisc (the latter had all the nudity blurred out). The best option for home video nowadays is undoubtedly the two disc DVD set from Grindhouse. This incredible package took five years to put together and contains everything you could possibly want from the film. The discs include both the uncut version and an 'animal cruelty free' version for when you're not in the mood to stomach the animal slaughter. The main feature is presented in an anamorphic transfer, and there's also a shed load of bonus features, including audio commentaries from Deodato and Robert Kerman, trailers, featurettes, music videos, DVD-Rom material, and no less than eight hidden Easter eggs.

This set also dispels the rumours concerning the legendary 'piranha bait' scene, which over the years had grown to mythic status. Although no one ever saw that sequence (it wasn't even filmed due to the 'misbehaviour' of the piranhas and the camera breaking down as soon as it was submerged in the water), some horror fans thought it was a missing scene that was deleted for being too gruesome. The idea was to show a member of a tribe being suspended in water and slowly eaten alive by the piranhas. In fact, all that remains of the scene is a few still photos as part of the DVD supplements, and to be honest it doesn't look all that bad; perhaps it was just a case of fan expectation getting carried away with itself, as there is nothing in those photos to make us believe it could have been any more shocking than the film's other imagery.

Cannibal Holocaust's legacy has spread far and wide over the decades, with films as diverse as Cannibal Ferox, Man Bites Dog, The Blair Witch Project, and Welcome To The Jungle all displaying the influence of Deodato's mondo shocker. The best tribute was paid by Zack Snyder in his remake of Dawn of The Dead, during the end credits sequence where the last survivors sail a yacht to an island hoping to distance themselves from their flesh-eating menace. But as soon as they step foot on the island they are ambushed by a horde of zombies, and devoured in gruesome detail as one of the unlucky travelers records the atrocity on video camera.

Deodato's film was also subjected to a spoof treatment in the low-budget Isle of The Damned (2008), which was given the amusing ad-line "Banned in 492 countries!" Hollywood horror maven Eli Roth is a big fan of Cannibal Holocaust, and he gave Deodato a small role in Hostel 2 as the bespectacled torture tourist seen at the table (he also cast another Italian exploitation legend, Edwige Fenech, in a role that looks to have been inspired by Elizabeth Bavory, as she lays in a bathtub and literally bathes in her victim's blood).

CAPTURED FOR SEX 2 (1986)

(Orig title: Kankin sei no dorei: Ikenie 2)

Dir: Masaru Ijuin /Japan

The ‘plot’ is drearily simple: A sadist kidnaps a young couple and takes them back to his lair in the middle of the woods, where the girl is physically tortured and the man is psychologically tormented. Some reviewers have called it an S&M movie, but because none of the victims here are willing participants, that label just doesn’t hold up. And what we have instead is a plain old pinku roughy, and not a particularly good one at that. The actresses involved were most certainly there by their own consent (in some scenes you can see the welts and bruising on their thighs during the abuse), and the style of their torture – with the use of whips and candle wax, etc – is the only reason anyone could mistake it for being an S&M movie.

The torture seems to bring out the young man’s own sadistic side, and he begs the captor to make him his ‘apprentice’. And before long, the sap is helping the scumbag to kidnap another girl from a tennis court. Back at the house, the abuse becomes increasingly extreme – we are witness to such past times as anal rape, pixelated sex scenes, candle wax torture, a milk enema (which is then plugged up for weeks with a cork), a demonstration of various pervert tools, including gynecological apparatus and bondage accoutrements, needle pricking, and in the pièce de résistance, a horrid scene involving the use of marbles, wine and a funnel.

The soundtrack consists of bizarre computer bleeps created on primitive electronics, and sounds like an old Spectrum ZX loading up. The title of this film clearly states that it’s a sequel to Captured For Sex, but it’s actually a loose sequel to Ikenie. The original Captured For Sex was also a sequel to another bizarre pinky film with strange set pieces, Daydream. Captured For Sex 2 is a bizarre ride through lust, pain, and the transgression of normal pain, and was probably an influence on future AV dreck like Tumbling Doll of Flesh and The Devil’s Experiment. Even with the short running time of 67 minutes, you’d have to be a seriously committed bad movie vulture to sit through this to the end. It has all the grace and charm of a glob of phlegm bobbing around in a fetid pub urinal.

A CAT IN THE BRAIN (1991)

(aka Nightmare Concert)

Dir: Lucio Fulci /Italy

While American postmodern horrors like Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Scream were doing the rounds, Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci had already mined similar territory years earlier with A Cat In The Brain, a gruesome, self-reflexive nightmare of a filmmaker coming to terms with his own macabre brand of art and its effects on society.

Starring Lucio Fulci as himself, a filmmaker who suffers from extremely violent hallucinations while directing his latest epic. Fulci compares his fractured state of mind to a cat clawing away inside his skull, tearing his grey matter to shreds. And this metaphor is gleefully shown in graphic detail (this is a Fulci film, after all). Fulci eventually visits a psychiatrist (David L. Thompson) who puts his troubles down to an 'identity crisis'. However, this psychiatrist just so happens to be a very dangerous serial killer, and he plans on letting Fulci and his movies take the blame for his killing spree by using hypnotism to control the filmmaker. And while the doctor continues to slaughter the local women in the area, Fulci's sense of guilt and horror increases as he thinks he could be responsible for the deaths.

A Cat In The Brain is quite simply one of the goriest and most insane movies ever made, and still divides its audience to this day. Most of the footage was recycled from other late-wave Fulci pics, such as Ghosts of Sodom and Touch of Death, and this footage is intercut with new scenes in an attempt to make a cohesive whole. And, to be fair, I think Fulci just about manages to pull it off, even if one or two of the characters - namely Thompson's killer psychiatrist - ages about ten years from one scene to the next due to the mish-mash of old and new footage. Newcomers to Fulci are advised to start elsewhere (try The Beyond) as this isn't the best showcase for the director's work; the performances are all quite bad, including Fucli himself whose acting range basically amounts to him gazing off screen in horror... or is it surprise, or consternation? I've no idea, but I'm sure he knew what he was going for!

In addition to the recycled footage, we also get a recycled soundtrack, with Fabio Frizzi's themes taken from previous classics like The Beyond and City of The Living Dead. Scene for scene, this is Fulci's goriest film, and one of the goriest ever made by anyone. The killer cuts a chunk of flesh from a dead woman's hip, fries it in a pan, eats it while sitting on the couch watching a video tape of the woman, and then cuts the rest of her body up with a chainsaw and feeds her remains to his pigs. The scene where the mad doctor smashes his wife's head in with a lump of wood is extremely nasty; a piece of her brain is knocked out of her skull and lands on the floor pulsating. There's also a very nasty scene of a woman being slowly decapitated with a piano wire used as a garotte.

A Cat In The Brain bares more breasts than any other Fulci film, even if many of the naked women are cut, stabbed, or dismembered with an axe or chainsaw. But it isn't just women who are the victims; in one scene, Fulci runs over a man in his white Mercedes, reverses, and then drives over him again. And again. And just because this is Lucio Fulci we're talking about here, it's no surprise when he reverses once more and runs over the man's torso a fourth time, and then zooms in on all the sloppy intestines and bloody organs oozing from the victim's body. Towards the end, the rickety plot goes out the window completely, and the film just seems to wallow in one gruesome death after another. There are more decapitations in this movie than any other I can think of, and they're all pretty graphic.

But despite the nonlinear style and gallons of blood, this film seems to be Fulci's way of exorcising his demons and exploring his anxieties as a filmmaker. He seems to be asking 'Is it irresponsible for an artist to make horror movies?' And at the end of the film when Fulci sets sail on his yacht with a beautiful brunette by his side, the answer seems to be a resounding 'hell no!' And during the same sequence, Fulci brilliantly draws the distinct line between fictional movies and reality when his film crew film him poking fish hooks through severed human fingers; at first we're thinking Lucio really could've been responsible for the killings, but then the camera pulls back, revealing it to be just a scene from the movie he is currently working on.

This strict differentiation between representation and actuality is something I wish the censors and moralists everywhere would consider much more often, instead of calling for violent films to be banned. The world would be a much saner place, that's for sure. And whether you see this film as an autobiographical piece concerning the dark side of Fulci's chosen profession, or a self-indulgent mess, is entirely up to you to decide.

THE CAT O'NINE TAILS (1970)

Dir: Dario Argento /Italy

(Orig title: Il gatto a nove code)

The second in Argento's 'Animal Trilogy' which kicked off with The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and continued with Four Flies On Grey Velvet, The Cat O'Nine Tails has long been seen as one of the weakest entries in the Argento cannon (but is actually a masterpiece compared to later turds like The Card Player, for example), but there's still much to be marveled here as he simply refuses to abide by genre conventions.

A blind, retired reporter named Franco Arno (Karl Malden) overhears a blackmail conversation while taking a walk with his niece, Lori. A genetic research institute is broken-into and one of the top research experts is pushed in front of a passenger train the next morning. Arno discovers that the victim was one of the men he had overheard the previous evening, and so he joins up with newspaper reporter, Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), to help track down the killer who is always one step ahead of them, using a garotte wire to wipe out anyone who could jeopardise his freedom by revealing his identity...

Argento throws out all the usual giallo requirements of the time - the whodunit three-act plot structure, romantic interest, and so on - and instead has a field day playing around with the murder mystery template. In fact, the unmasking of the killer seems to be Argento's way of showing contempt for the usual by-the-book guidelines, as the killer turns out to be the least developed character. In this film, the killer seems to be everywhere, a shadowy omnipresence, he seems to know everything, and is right there at the right time to witness important details of the investigation, and is then able to keep the sleuths at bay by killing off those who may know too much.

Deep Red, Suspiria, and Inferno all feature buildings where the architecture becomes a puzzle to be solved; where the bricks and mortar almost become like a living and mysterious being. In Cat O' Nine Tails we see the beginning of this idea: Although it's less developed here, the Terzi Institute of Genetic Research becomes a cache of information, a place where all nine clues are yielded.

Ennio Morricone provides another wonderful score; this is actually one of his best - a sweet lullaby theme that breaks off into some darkly twisted jazz improvisations. Lookout for a gravestone which reads 'Di Dario!' as Arno and Giordani search for Bianca Merusi's tomb at the cemetery. Along with Four Flies On Grey Velvet, this was the most difficult of Argento's films to see for many years. The Anchor Bay version is the best option for DVD so far, but even here the intro and credits sequence looks a bit rough - it may have been taken from another print - and a couple of seconds are missing from the beginning of Morricone's theme. But as for the rest of the print, it looks pristine and all of the violence is intact.

THE CELL (2000)

Dir: Tarsem Singh /USA

Of course you can't really divide form and content; the medium is the message, the telling is the tale, and all that. But the flagrant disparity between this tale of the rush to save a young woman from a sadistic serial killer and the visually inventive way in which it's told demands comment.

Child psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is part of an experimental programme to treat mentally ill patients so locked into their own minds that conventional therapy is useless. With the help of lots of drugs and hi-tech machinery, the therapist actually enters the patient's psyche. The FBI has just captured sicko killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio), who kidnaps women, drowns them in a fully-automated tank of his own fiendish devising, then bleaches their bodies until they look like porcelain dolls. Unfortunately, he's had a brain seizure and lies comatose, unable to tell anyone where the girl he just abducted is hidden. Unless Catherine can enter his twisted mind and extract the information, the missing girl will die. So, Catherine steps into Stargher's mental chamber of horrors, which seems to have been designed by Salvador Dali, the Quay Brothers, Damien Hirst, and fashion photographers Pierre and Gilles.

It's mind-bogglingly gorgeous in a totally trippy way; if this were made in the 60s no one would dare see the film straight (though the nastiness of the imagery is definitely bummer material). The shame is that whenever you get hauled back to the story, it's impossible not to notice it's debt to Silence of The Lambs. The costumes are phenomenal, the set design ravishing, and the sadistic inventiveness extraordinary; too bad it's all harnessed to a cliché story.

The killer is your typical nutjob, the victim of horrendous childhood abuse from his wretch of a father. He's a necrophile, and during one scene he mounts his victim - he assumes she is dead - but just before he penetrates her, she twitches, and the killer realises she's still alive, and this disgusts him. Interestingly, his reaction to the thought of fucking a live woman is the same disgusted reaction most of us would have to the idea of fucking a corpse (I wonder if people like Ed Gein had the same trouble?).

The Cell is very far-fetched in places, and not just the basic concept of characters being able to invade the minds of others, but also the killer's hi-tech lair is not very convincing - How he has managed to finance all his gadgets and gizmos is never explained, nor how he has managed to purchase the large quantities of formaldehyde and have CCTV and water chambers installed without arousing any suspicion.

The Cell was generally despised by international critics on its release, and it's understandable why; there's some very unpleasant stuff going on in this film, and it's also a typical example of style over content. It's a fairly standard cop vs. serial killer thriller with a mind transfer gimmick thrown in for the sequences where Deane enters the twisted mind of Stargher. And it's these sequences where the film comes into its own. If you can accept the ridiculous concept that forms the basis of this film, then The Cell does have its moments for those who are willing to overlook its flaws. The scenes in Stargher's mind are a visually stunning, crudely inventive platform for director Singh's disturbing imagination. We get grotesque clockwork corpses, child abuse, disembowelment, a living vivisected horse, and Stargher's terrifying super-ego who rises from its throne wearing a huge swirling cloak. As Deane ventures deeper into Stargher's disturbed conscious, things become even more bizarre.

Director Singh seems much less interested in character development as the protagonists here are all rather flat and ordinary, each going through the routine of stopping the killer and saving the girl in very cliché and predictable ways. Jennifer Lopez offers a decent performance, despite her lacklustre role, and I've always thought she is a much better actress than a singer (her singing voice sounds like a wounded horse). Howard Shore's music is equally praise-worthy; a rhythmic, Arabic chamber piece that is beautiful and intense, and is punctuated with a big brass section. Have a listen to it as it plays uninterrupted on the DVD menu screen.

Like it or not, there's no denying that this film is a treat for the eyes and ears, and it's impossible to imagine a major studio giving a film like this the go ahead nowadays.

UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929)

(An Andalousian Dog)

Dir: Luis Buñuel /France

A man slices through a woman’s eye with a straight razor. Then, a guy struggles with his desires, and he is constantly thwarted by absurd interventions from ants, an androgyne toying with a severed hand, a dead donkey on a piano, churchmen, and a doppelgänger. The protagonist strolls along a beach with his female companion, and they spring out of the ground…

Every art form has to push its own boundaries as a way of challenging, questioning and provoking a response, otherwise the art form becomes too safe and predictable; it withers and dies. In order to survive, art must be constantly redefined. The best filmmakers have always striven to push things that little bit further. Sometimes, this is done purely for the notoriety and sensationalism, but there are also true artists whose aims are to explore and expand the possibilities of their chosen medium.

In 1929, ambitious young filmmaker, Luis Buñuel and painter Salvador Dali worked together on a seventeen-minute short which would become the most essential film manifestation of the surrealist movement. But Un Chien Andalou also works as an effective pastiche and parody of Hollywood conventions of the time, especially in its anti-narrative approach. The seemingly happy ending with the couple strolling into the sunset is intercepted at the last moment with an intrusive fade-out shot of the couple having transformed into frightened human trees. The film opens with the caption, “Once upon a time,” a phrase borrowed from countless fairytales, but here given an added playfulness and sarcastic edge – it was Buñuel subverting the age of innocence: cinema as harmless escapism which Buñuel and Dali intended to change forever. And that is exactly what they did with Un Chien Andalou.

The next scene remains shocking to this day – perhaps even more so than its imitations in Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters and Toshiharu Ikeda’s Evil Dead Trap – as Buñuel sharpens the blade, tests it on his thumbnail, forces open a woman’s eye, and in stark close-up, slices through the eyeball. This incredible special effect, which still looks genuine today, was created by superimposing shots of animated clouds passing across the moon and an overlap shot of a dead calf’s retina being cut. Eighty-five years later, and that scene is still a seminal moment in cinematic gore. The eye is the primary tool by which we appreciate cinema; a shot of one being cut forces us to do one of two things – look away, or look at things in a different light.

For a long time – decades even – many published reviews and articles about the film were in confusion as to what Buñuel had used for the eye-slicing scene; many argued he had used a dead pig’s eye, or that of a dead sheep, or of a dead donkey, or other animal. In an interview in the mid-70s, however, Buñuel claimed that he had used a dead calf’s eye.  He even admitted going to the lengths of actually bleaching the calf’s skin to make it lighter, to give the area around the eye the appearance of human skin.

Buñuel and Dali based the entire film on their dreams and urges, drawing on anything which may have meaning or significance. This seemingly random way of piecing together their film in the hope of uncovering – or experimenting – with the unconscious mind, has led to decades of analytical interpretation from generations of fans and critics, many of whom see the film as the tale of a man struggling with sexual impulses and frustration, his own psychological draw-backs and the disapproval of society (many have also interpreted their later film, L’Age D’Or, in much the same way). "Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything,” Buñuel has claimed. “The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis."

When Un Chien Andalou premiered at Studio 28 in Paris, André Breton and his followers in the surrealist movement attended the screening with the intention of “sabotaging” the event because they had never heard of Buñuel or Dali. The film’s makers, in turn, were disappointed when the audience looked to be enjoying the film. Buñuel went as far as saying that the positive reaction “ruined the evening.” After all, they had both armed themselves with rocks which they carried in their pockets to throw at anyone who tried to attack the screening. Rather than causing the calculated outrage they had intended with their film, Un Chien Andalou was actually greeted with a positive reception from the bourgeoisie, and this made Buñuel sick to his stomach. "What can I do about the people who adore all that is new, even when it goes against their deepest convictions, or about the insincere, corrupt press, and the inane herd that saw beauty or poetry in something which was basically no more than a desperate impassioned call for murder?"

After the premiere, Dalí and Buñuel became the first filmmakers to be officially welcomed into the Surrealist movement by leader André Breton. Lookout for Dali who appears in the role of one of the confused priests, and Buñuel who does the eye-slicing. Did you know, Salvador Dali could ejaculate at will without any kind of physical stimulation? He would invite models to his home, paint their portraits in his garden, and spooge his trousers whenever he felt like it, without even touching it. An amazing talent. I’m pretty sure I saw it in a documentary about him once… Or maybe it was Picasso? Or maybe I was on drugs and imagined the whole thing…? Answers on a postcard please.

A CHINESE TORTURE CHAMBER STORY (1994)

(Orig title: Mun ching sap daai huk ying)

Dir: Bosco Lam /Hong Kong

A CAT III historical epic that is closer in spirit to Oxen Split Torturing than Sex And Zen, A Chinese Torture Chamber Story is an odd mix of sex, sadism, and slapstick which will confuse and irritate all but the most hardened Hong Kong cineastes.

A young servant woman called 'Little Cabbage' (Yonne Yung Hung) and her married lover (Lawrance Ng) find themselves in deep trouble due to her uncontrollable voyeurism. Through a series of plot twists Little Cabbage and her lover are accused of murder, and are subjected to a long and sustained period of torture and abuse from a local magistrate - including being hung by the hair, having fingers cut to the bone in a fiendish blade device, finger nails ripped off, being forced to walk on knees over broken plates, and rolling on a bed of nails, etc - The judge is hell-bent on extracting a confession from the pair at any cost. Flashbacks show that the couple has been stitched up by the hero's wife and her brutal bit on the side. By contriving to have Little Cabbage and the hero take the blame for the murder, they in turn get to keep their own adulterous behaviour a secret.

A Chinese Torture Chamber is remembered mostly as a series of standout scenes rather than as a whole; we get an amusing take on the Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze/pottery wheel scene from Ghost, complete with an Eastern variation on the tune Unchained Melody, in which Cabbage stands behind her husband and reaches around to touch his penis, causing him to ejaculate on the wall. There's also the spectacular kung fu scene in which the male and female combatants end up having rough sex in mid-air above a forest. Aerial stunt wires are usually used for fight scenes, a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I've never seen stunt wires used to make a sex scene before (unless The Eternal Evil of Asia counts). It's such a wacky scene as these two characters really do give a flying fuck!

Tortures include a man strung upside down and having is cock and balls cut off with a red hot knife, and a feather stabbed into the wound like a flag. Another man is guillotined in half. And - in another cinematic first - a third man is buried in the ground up to his neck, has his scalp sliced open, and then has acid poured into the wound. This causes such agony that his body literally springs out of the earth, leaving his skin behind. And these tortures are all shown in the first few minutes! Another highlight is the scene where Little Cabbage rides her husband. He apparently has a huge schlong, so she had previously refused to be penetrated. On this occasion, however, she puts up with the pain, and when he ejaculates it causes his dick to explode in a shower of flesh, blood and spunk. And it's this ultimate exploding-dick orgasm which causes all the problems for the protagonists as it turns out to be a fatal experience for the well-endowed husband.

Produced by the infamous Wong Jing, and afforded a much bigger budget than the usual CAT III fare, this colourful, visually impressive film boasts some wonderful set designs and costumes (much like the aforementioned Oxen Split Torturing), and can join the ranks of other Cantonese classics like Taxi Hunter and The Eternal Evil of Asia as another blend of horror and humour that makes these movies so worth tracking down. And speaking of Eternal Evil, that film was made the following year and also features Elvis Tsui on stunt wires and sex symbol Julie Lee.

CHOPPER (2000)

Dir: Andrew Dominik /Australia

Tagline – “The Truth, The Half Truth And Nothing Like The Truth.”

The true(ish) stories of Mark ‘Chopper’ Read, noted Australian criminal, killer and bestselling author. “This is not a biography,” states the opening title card of this uncomfortable, grisly, knife-edge film, though there remains some question as to whether the subsequent film panders to, or debunks, Read’s cheerily psychotic self-image. There’s no denying Eric Bana’s skills in the title role, however.

After six whole years of “Ban this sick film!” hoo-ha in the papers, and censorious politics, Andrew Dominik’s debut feature hit the screens in 2000 and was well worth the wait. Often wrongly compared with other controversial hits, such as Natural Born Killers, Chopper is actually a disturbing character study which owes more to Henry-Portrait of a Serial Killer than to Oliver Stone’s film. Indeed, director Dominik’s non-judgmental approach to the bleak material, and centering on the ‘confessions’ of a maniac – whose tales get taller by the minute – relates to Henry (the real-life Henry Lee Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders of which it is extremely unlikely he had anything to do with). And unlike the later British film, Bronson (2008), which seemed more interested in emulating the set designs of  A Clockwork Orange rather than presenting the story of a real-life criminal, here with Chopper, Dominik disgards the showy, stylish side and instead opts for a much more gritty and cold approach. And this objective style pays dividends in the first part of the film which is mostly set in the harsh environs of the prison system. In both Chopper and Henry-Portrait, both are based on factual accounts, making them all the more horrifying. Dominik’s approach to the subject-matter overall serves to illustrate his own detached stance on the story – by treating his real-life criminal in the same documentary style as John McNaughton’s Henry, he succeeds in allowing the story to take place in a free rein, and ultimately allows Chopper to contradict himself and trip himself up as he trudges through the dark maze of his own bullshit.

But this approach is not surprising; I mean, what is Chopper supposed to do, spill the beans and incriminate himself further by telling us the details of crimes he hasn’t been convicted for? Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Indeed, Chopper contributes a fascinating commentary track on the DVD which is definitely worth listening to. In it he claims that the character Neville Bartos is actually based on several different characters. He also seems sorely tempted to spill the beans and tell us what really happened; in several scenes he’s dying to reveal some important info not disclosed in the film, but doing so would no doubt incriminate him or possibly others, and he reluctantly keeps his mouth shut while hinting that there is more to the scene than what is presented before us.

Former comic, Eric Bana, is perfect for the role of Chopper – apparently, Read himself recommended him on the strength of seeing him on a TV show – It was a courageous move on the casting front as Bana infuses his performance with an understated emotional complexity, and the gamble of casting an inexperienced actor in the lead role duly paid off. Indeed, this was only the beginning of Bana’s meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom; he went on to land roles in Black Hawk Down (2001), Hulk (2003), Troy (2004), and Spielberg’s Munich (2005). But Chopper remains his most impressive work to date.

THE CIRCLE (2000)

(Orig title: Dereyeh)

Dir: Jafar Panahi /Iran

The title of this daring and challenging film refers to both a physical locale - a public plaza in the heart of Tehran - and the film's ingenious story structure, which begins and ends with news of an Iranian woman who has just given birth. In between, writer/director Jafar Panahi offers a damning indictment of the lack of freedom experienced by women on several levels of Iranian society.

The film opens at a hospital where an expectant grandmother has just received some devastating news: her daughter has borne a baby girl. As she leaves the hospital in shame, two women (Maryiam Parvin Almani and Nargess Mamizadeh) - prison escapees - hover nervously on the pavement outside. One wants to return to her native village but lacks the proper ID (Iranian women are forbidden to travel alone); in order to help her friend, the other prostitutes herself to a complete stranger. A third prisoner (Fereshteh Sadr Orafai) has fled in order to obtain an abortion. She turns to her father and brothers for help but they throw her out on the street. This narrative relay continues across a wide range of characters: a nurse who fears her doctor/husband will discover she once spent time in prison; an exhausted single mother who attempts to abandon her young daughter on a darkened street; and a prostitute whose arrest symbolises the perpetual spiral of transgression and punishment that brings the film full circle.

Panahi's first film, The White Balloon, was an enchanting pic whose messages lay safely tucked inside a charming story about a little girl in search of a goldfish. Not so here. This tightly structured, often exciting film is among the boldest in a series of increasingly explicit movies about the hardships facing contemporary Iranian women (Marziyeh Meshkini's The Day I Became a Woman is another). Not surprisingly, Panahi's film is banned in Iran.

CRAZY LOVE (1987)

(aka Love Is a Dog From Hell)

Dir: Dominique Deruddere /Belgium

1987 was a great year for Charles Bukowski screen adaptations. Barbet Schroeder offered up Barfly, a low-life epic of squalor and drunkenness starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. In the same year, Dominique Deruddere presented his debut feature, Crazy Love, a much lesser-known film that stunned the art house crowd with its darkly amusing and disturbing edge. But since its initial release, this film has gone on to be regarded as one of the finest of the 80s.

Crazy Love began life as a short film entitled A Foggy Night, based on Bukowski's taboo-breaking story ‘The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, CA’. Deruddere had wanted to expand the short into a full-length feature but was also aware of Bukowski's dislike for another film based on his writings (Tales of Ordinary Madness). Deruddere and co travelled over to America to meet Bukowski with the hope he would give their little film the seal of approval. The booze-laden author's now legendary response was that he was so pleased with Deruddere's short that he gave the filmmakers his blessing to turn it into a feature, and even declared the short to be better than the original source material.

We first meet Harry as a twelve year old who falls in love with a princess who graces the screen of his local cinema. But after an encounter with an older woman who has had a bit too much to drink, his illusions of love are shattered. In reality, things aren't always as perfect as they are in fairytale movies, and thanks to Harry's older friend, his early attempts at getting laid leave him with experiences of adolescent horror. In the second story Harry is a nineteen year old ridden with acne, and this has turned him into a romantic pariah (if you throttled his neck, you’d produce enough custard to fill a bucket). Obsessed with a beautiful classmate, but lacking the confidence to talk to her, he instead turns to the liquor bottle knowing he can depend on it and that it won't judge him because of the way he looks. However, through some drastic circumstances he does eventually get to dance with his teenage crush, albeit by having his head wrapped up in toilet paper for an oddly touching scene. The third and most disturbing story in the film finds Harry as a fully-grown homeless alcoholic who finally finds his perfect love in the form of a female corpse he steals from a parked hearse.

The synopsis above may sound dark and depressing, but director Deruddere somehow manages to keep things sweet and humorous, thanks in large part to Bukowski's no-nonsense narrative style which Deruddere captures perfectly in this film. The result is a vast improvement over the previous Bukowski adaptation, Tales of Ordinary Madness. It's an incredible movie, an emotionally-wrenching but comical portrait of a human being destined for life-long loneliness, and the film simply refuses to be sentimental about its subject. It's honest and unflinching yet still comes from the heart. These cold presentations of estranged love are captured invariably in their settings, usually in vehicles. Car rides, car park rendezvous points, fairground rides and stolen hearses; in a metaphorical sense the car symbolizes Harry's loneliness, and serves as his prison of shame. The only way he can escape is by distancing himself from reality, and with an act of revenge that befits both the fairytale ending and Bukowski's own symbolism, our anti-hero does eventually get to hold his princess in his arms, and finally makes his escape to his dream world.

CRAZY LOVE FOR YOU (1993)

(aka Can’t Stop My Crazy Love For You)

(Orig title: Dang bu zhu de feng qing)

Dir: Wei Tat Hon

News broadcaster Kitty (Yvonne Yung Hung) has an unwelcome stalker who lives in the apartment opposite to hers. This creepy loner watches her on the news every day, and when she’s at home he uses a camera with an extra-long lens to peer into her private life. The creep, Fred, is played by Hong Kong’s most delirious madman, Simon Yam (of Doctor Lam infamy), and one night he heads off to a live outdoor broadcast with a bunch of flowers hoping he will get to meet her. However, Kitty is pestered by a group of louts, so he follows them into an alley and beats them with a baseball bat.

The next day, one of Fred’s office colleagues invites him along to a shooting range. And it’s there that they meet up with another shooting enthusiast, Charlie (Michael Wong). This Charlie happens to be Kitty’s boyfriend, and when she shows up in person to join them at the table Fred is awe-struck. Charlie and the office colleague head for the shooting range, leaving Kitty and Fred at the table. Fred gets twitchy and nervous, and his attempts to engage in conversation ends with him suggesting that they should meet up for dinner in secret. This makes Kitty feel uncomfortable, so she makes her excuses and leaves. Back at home, Fred is very angry and has a blazing row with his ‘girlfriend’, a mannequin dummy in a wig which he keeps at home for company. He and his dummy then have some make up sex on the sofa bed.

Fred’s creepiness soon enough steps up a gear as he makes strange phone calls to Kitty’s house and even enters her apartment at night while she sleeps, taking framed pictures of her and defacing the faces of those next to her in the shots, stealing her underwear and beating her unconscious when she awakens. Fred slowly worms his way into her life by installing a security alarm on her apartment and somehow gaining enough trust to get access to her home, despite him having “abnormal eyes” and “staring” at her all the time. Of course, Fred has rigged the alarm system to ensure he has access to the security code, and when he spies on Charlie and Kitty having sex, his insanity reaches new levels of creepiness, turning to murder and mutilation in order to get closer to Kitty…

Sort of an Asian take on Fatal Attraction with the added layer of Hong Kong comic craziness thrown in for good measure, Crazy Love For You is not as well-known as other CAT III gems like The Untold Story or Ebola Syndrome, but is a welcome addition nonetheless, offering up many twists and turns on the familiar territory and reaching new heights on of hysterical mayhem along the way. Simon Yam in the madman role delivers perhaps the most delirious performance of his career, turning what could have been a routine thriller into something altogether more unsettling. His performance even outweighs that of Anthony Wong in Retribution Sight Unseen, a film which shares a similar storyline to this, and would sit perfectly on a double-bill of obsessive stalker nastiness from Hong Kong.

CAT III movies are well-known for their crazy humour, and Crazy Love For You doesn’t disappoint in that area either. Most of the laughs to be had are at the expense of Yam and the things he gets up to while he’s alone in his apartment. But like all the great CAT III gems, the humour soon dissipates once the storyline is firmly established. However, perhaps the funniest moment in the film comes at the end when Yam utters an immortal line of dialogue which I won’t spoil here.

CUTTING MOMENTS (1997)

Dir: Douglas Buck /USA

Very few short films can lay claim to the infamy bestowed on Cutting Moments, an extremely disturbing 20-minute delve into domestic hell which first gained notoriety on the festival circuit (where it picked up the Audience Award at FantAsia).

The film begins on a gloomy day in a suburban home. While the wife prepares food in the kitchen, the husband cuts the hedges, and their son re-enacts rape scenes with toy figurines. The child has clearly been the victim of sexual abuse from his father. And his parents are just waiting for social services to turn up and take their boy away at any moment. Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum throughout. Instead, we hear every day sounds of a typical family home – baseball on TV, vegetables being sliced on the cutting board, an aeroplane passing overhead – but these normal, everyday sounds feel somehow cold and sinister due to the way they cut through the atmosphere and distance between the family members.

The mother looks to be in denial about what is happening to her family. She doesn’t seem to resent her husband one bit for what he has done, and she offers no reassurances to her son, either. Instead, she carries on as if nothing has happened, and tries to keep up the pretense of being a part of a normal, ‘happy’ family. She can’t seem to face the fact that her family life has changed irrevocably. Her once loving husband now completely blanks her out of existence. Her disheveled appearance indicates that no matter how much she tries to keep things as normal as possible in the household, she looks like she has been tearing herself to shreds, emotionally. She has retreated into herself at the behest of her family’s scorn. She transfers her husband’s wrong-doings onto herself, perhaps as a way of making light of the situation; with the weight on her own conscience, she feels she can do something to help, she can indulge in the fantasy of ‘mending’ the harm done, to give herself the impression that things are improving. She blames herself for the abuse of her son because she didn’t make herself sexually available to her husband; she overlooks the fact that he committed an abhorrent, inexcusable act against their child.

The wife later enters the living room wearing lipstick and a red dress. She stands in front of her husband but he seems completely disinterested and pissed off that she is blocking his view of the telly. Her romantic gesture is met with cold revulsion. Feeling rejected, she heads for the bathroom to dwell on how undesirable she has become, again overlooking the faults of her husband. Situations like this happen all the time all over the world – the stereotypical long-suffering wife slaving away unassisted for hours to keep the family fed and watered. All she wants in return is a bit of attention and affection. Instead, her husband sits on the sofa watching baseball on TV like a boneless hippo, silently farting warm butt-fulls of gas into the atmosphere during the ad breaks. In this bleak and murky world, wives are supposed to be meek-but-cheerful servants (she doesn’t even get a proper chair to sit on; she has to perch at the side like a dog begging for scraps of approval) while their husbands are lazy, oblivious dickheads.

She stares at the bathroom mirror and has a breakdown. She scrubs her lips with a piece of steel wool until blood pours onto the floor tiles. She then picks up a pair of scissors and begins cutting her lips off. She doesn’t look to be in any kind of pain while she does it; it’s as if she is in some kind of trance, clumsily cutting away, her mouth leaking blood all down the sink and her chest. She enters the living room and stands in front of her husband once again, this time covered in blood and bearing a mutilated face. She gets his attention all right, but his reaction to the bloody parade is even more disturbing and grotesque…

Cutting Moments is a bleak and depressing film. Even with its short running time, you’ll feel like you’ve been bopped on the head with a baseball bat when the credits roll. Film fans at various festivals reacted like stunned fish – stuck rigid in their seats and slack-jawed at the horrors they had just witnessed. Established cult movie makers queued up to sing its praises – among them were Abel Ferrara, Gaspar Noe, Larry Fesenden and Tom Savini – which is extremely rare for a low-budget short film. Indeed, the reception for Cutting Moments was so overwhelmingly positive that director Douglas Buck expanded on his short with Home (1998) and Prologue (2003). Home tackles a similar theme but from the husband’s perspective, as his suppressed anger at his wife and daughter eventually boils over in a violent rage. Prologue centers on a man whose previous rape victim shows up in town to stir up some trouble for him. All three shorts were edited together and released on DVD as a feature film under the title Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America in 2004. But despite the deliberately innocuous title, this makes for some very disturbing viewing, and is the perfect answer for those looking for a psychological angle to balance out and underline the horror and the blood.

DEADBEAT AT DAWN (1988)

Dir: Jim VanBebber /USA

Young filmmaker Jim VanBebber became something of a cause celebre of the underground when his debut feature, Deadbeat At Dawn, hit the screens. Made over the course of three and a half years, and eventually racking up budget costs of $85,000, VanBebber's film is second only to Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi in terms of boasting some of the most impressive action scenes ever seen in a homemade movie.

VanBebber cast himself in the lead role as Goose, the leader of a gang called The Ravens. They start the film by having a mass brawl with a rival gang, The Spiders, in the middle of a graveyard. Under pressure from his occult-fixated girlfriend, Goose agrees to quit the gang and the violent lifestyle so that the pair can move away from the area and settle down together. However, The Ravens catch wind of this and take it as a betrayal. And while Goose is out one day a couple of gang members take a visit to his apartment and viciously beat his girlfriend to death with a golf club. How does Goose handle this situation; does he break down crying at the loss of his love? Does he call the police and have the culprits punished by law? No. He simply dumps her body into a trash compactor and swears revenge. The Ravens and The Spiders put aside their differences and team up to pull off a complicated bank heist, and while this is going on Goose hits the bottle hard and has trippy nightmarish hallucinations, including the sight of his bloody girlfriend wandering through the graveyard in her white funeral sheet. Goose eventually gets involved in a bloody and extremely violent showdown where he single-handedly takes on both The Ravens and The Spiders for one of the most glorious fight scenes of the 80s.

Jim VanBebber is a rare kind of filmmaker, a true auteur. In addition to writing and directing his films he also raises his own funding, acts in his films, and edits them into the final products. Based in the mid-Western town of Dayton, Ohio, Jim has often found it difficult to achieve the kind of success he deserves. He's a greatly talented filmmaker but the harsh environments of the movie business, combined with his own hard-hitting and uncompromising stance, has made his geographical restraints the least of his troubles. VanBebber's films are among the most ferociously transgressive and brutal of the 80s and 90s, and his budgetry constraints have never held him back from directing some of the most intricate and complicated violent-set-pieces in the history of low-budget film.

With Deadbeat At Dawn VanBebber throws together every cliché from the 60s and 70s gang films but the end result is surprisingly fresh and exciting. Visually, he also adopts a retro, backward-looking edge with his use of psychedelic kaleidoscope segues and a crimson-laced backdrop (that would crop up again in his later film, The Manson Family) which comes across as being heavily influenced by the works of Roman Polanski and Kenneth Anger. Deadbeat At Dawn is also deliberately gritty and grating on the sensibilities of its audience. However, it's the last 10 to 15 minutes of this film which will be remembered the most fondly by cult movie fans - The final showdown with The Ravens and The Spiders is so violent and expertly done it defies belief. These gang members don't just die, they get splattered! Just looking at the intricacies of that final sequence, with the dangerous stunts and tightly choreographed violence (including the use of nunchucks that has kept the film banned in the UK for years), and you know it must have been a real headache to organise all that chaos, and probably took weeks to shoot. Van Bebber's next feature film, The Manson Family, was an even bigger headache for Jim; a nightmare fifteen year voyage through production hell.

DEAD GIRL ON FILM (2000)

Dir: Brian Paulin /USA

A group of filmmakers sit around watching their latest epic, a black and white lesbian bondage movie. They're bored, and one of them suggests they try something new. After toying with various perverted ideas, including being shat on by a "300-pound sweata with a gassy box", they are eventually forced into making a snuff movie. The filmmakers soon find themselves entering a dark world of murder and bloody mayhem, and are terrorized by a ghostly force of vengeance.

Brian Paulin's second feature released on his label, Morbid Vision Films, is a fairly competent if overlong piece of DV horror hokum. It would have been much stronger if it had been edited down to around 50 minutes or so because it's very time-padded in places, and instead of getting on with the plot, we are instead kept in the presence of a bunch of characters who sit around calling each other names like 'hot pocket' (it is a funny word though; turns out it's another slang term for 'arsehole'). Usually when a filmmaker wants to stretch the running time of his movie so that it will reach the desired feature length, he will do things like have one of his characters wander the streets accompanied by a lively soundtrack (think Combat Shock), and Brian Paulin is no exception. He follows his co-producer around an abandoned industrial shithole littered with ugly weeds and dumped furniture. Hardly the stuff of nightmares, but directors like Buddy Giovinnazzo (Combat Shock), Jim VanBebber (Deadbeat At Dawn), and even David Lynch (Eraserhead) have all been guilty of exactly the same thing in their filmmaking techniques, and those guys are considered Gods.

I must admit, when I first read the synopsis on this film (something like: 'Angry filmmaker decides to make a snuff movie as a way of earning some quick cash'), I was expecting something more along the lines of Last House On Dead End Street. But Dead Girl On Film is something else entirely. For a start, the fictional filmmaker (played by Paulin himself) is forced into making the snuffy at gunpoint, in stark contrast to Terry Hawkins who, in Dead End Street, films his murders purely for his own sadistic and vengeful purposes. Even Rich George's character, who is portrayed as an unstable lunatic, just doesn't seem evil enough to force someone into making such a brutal film. And this is another area where the film fails: the performances. There's nothing even close to a convincing performance in this film, least of all co-producer Rich George, who prances around like a hyperactive spaz, making a total 'hot pocket' of himself on camera. He's also one of those who insists on chewing a toothpick, one of the most annoying habits ever, alongside interrupting someone when they're trying to say something interesting, or forging ahead in an argument when you know you're wrong. Chewing toothpicks is not cool. Stop it.

Director Brian Paulin is no better as an actor, and he'd be the first to tell you. He's a special fx wizard, a decent musician and director, but no actor; his attempts to express his emotions through facial expressions are truly tragi-comic. He also looks like a butch female. He would've fit right in to the Russian women's Olympic shot put team. His long hair, which resembles a mousy-blonde wig, perfects his hideous look. If you played this DVD to group of five year old children, it wouldn't be the blood or the gore or the brooding atmospherics that would make them cry, it would be Brian Paulin's abysmal hairdo, rooted at the bowels of hell. I feel bad now for typing that. I'm being a total hot pocket, I know, but c'mon, this film was made almost thirteen years ago, he must've surely had a haircut by now?

The snuff victim (played by Typhany Weathers) looks to be the most competent performer in the movie but is sadly given very little screen time to make an impact. Instead, she poses on a couch in her panties and a t-shirt, only to be stabbed to death moments later. Her character remains a mystery to viewers (she doesn't even have a name - she is credited simply as 'Snuff Victim'), and this has the bad side-effect of lacking any kind of emotional punch. Had her character been developed a bit more to show us what she was like as a person, it would've paid dividends when her vengeful spirit returns to inflict its carnage on the filmmakers, because it would have benefited from viewer identification. But as it stands, her doomed character just serves as a dumb blonde ripe for slaughter, with the viewer’s hardly caring about what is happening on screen beyond the gore sequences that appear near the end. Overall, this flimsy film just serves as one big build-up to the gruesome finale in which Brian Paulin gets to open his bag of bloody tricks.

But don't hold your breath, gorehounds, because the second most extravagant effect here is a skull surging towards the camera lens wearing a blonde wig (Brian's, presumably). The most spectacular effect is undoubtedly the scene where Rich George is suspended from the ceiling with metal hooks through his eyes, followed by a slow, agonizing death by dismemberment which is genuinely impressive, and given some extra oomph by it happening to the scummiest character in the film.

Paulin's craft improved considerably throughout the 00s with Fetus and Bone Sickness, so be sure to check those out first before venturing to his earlier stuff like this. The director also created the music, too. The opening tune sounds a bit like that old Metallica cover of ‘Free Speech For The Dumb’, and shares a similar chugging riff. There's also another memorable tune played out to busy drum loops and distorted guitars, like a modern-day, extra-doom-laden Joy Division.

During the end credits a caption reads: "Anyone duplicating this movie without the permission of Morbid Vision Films will be suffocated by a 300-pound sweata... with a gassy box". So there you go, don't do it unless you like that kind of thing. Then, by all means, knock yourself out. Just don't come crying to me with shit-bubbled tears afterwards, you hear?

DJANGO (1966)

Dir: Sergio Corbucci /Italy /Spain

Made to cash-in on the runaway success of Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood, Django is an altogether more downbeat affair with a bloody and pessimistic viewpoint making it legendary among spaghetti western and cult movie fanatics. A major success across Europe at the time, Django failed to make much of an impact in America but has gradually won the hearts and minds of stateside fans in the ensuing years, and was recently ‘re-imagined’ by Quentin Tarantino for his major production, Django Unchained.

The film opens with the title character walking through a bleak and desolate landscape dragging a coffin behind him. And after rescuing a woman about to be burned alive, he strolls into a whorehouse and gets himself in trouble with the local bandits who shoot Mexicans for fun. And after dealing with the red-hooded bad guys in bloody fashion, he finds himself caught in the middle of a war between a crooked Major and a group of Mexican outlaws, all of whom are interested in what he keeps in his coffin.

This is a rough and dirty piece of work, both in terms of its themes and its look. But what it lacks in polish and sophistication is more than made up for in its grubby and downbeat edge. The title character Django is a quietly sinister rogue, a true anti-hero. Whereas Eastwood’s ‘man with no name’ character was likeable despite his moral ambiguity, it’s difficult to feel the same about Django because it’s obvious from the start that he is a heartless and selfish bastardo. He’s no different from the wily scum he’s fighting against; he’s just as much concerned with greed and lust, except he’s cooler and more laidback about it. The violence was, um, cutting edge for its time, especially in the scene where a man has his ear sliced off and is forced to eat it, and the Gatling gun massacres which pre-date the excessive violence of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. No doubt, 60s audiences would have been ‘blown away’ (sorry). Franco Nero is in fine form in the lead role (Tarantino later gave him a cameo in Django Unchained), Loredana Nusciak is passable as the lovelorn redhead even though she doesn’t have much to do except be humiliated by Django and shot. José Bódalo, who plays General Hugo Rodriguez, is also pretty good in an over-the-top kind of way. And curiously, in some scenes his cheeks look like buttocks, so it’s difficult to concentrate on his performance without thinking his mouth is about to flatulate at any moment. But face-farting aside, Django is a diamond in the rough and still packs a punch today.

DOBERMANN (1997)

Dir: Jan Kounen /France

The opening computer-generated credits sequence features a gun-toting Dobermann Pinscher urinating over the titles, and this sets the provocative tone for Jan Kounen's feature, an extremely violent French comic-strip cyberpunk gangster flick. A direct homage to Quentin Tarantino, its action sequences owe just as much to John Woo and the Hong Kong school of choreographed carnage. Added to which there is a constantly thudding techno soundtrack.

The subversive story concerns a leather-clad hoodlum who conducts bank robberies with his deaf moll and a band of coke-snorting psychopaths. With a promotional poster reminiscent of The Terminator and a kinetic trailer that featured on every TV channel in France, Jan Kounen's film built him a reputation as "Luc Besson with balls". He described his film as an "urban Western," and aimed it at a generation of film fans raised on big-budget Hollywood fodder, taking its violence to comic-book extremes, substituting humour and style for deeper scrutiny.

Films which attempt to transfer the twisted kinetic perspectives of comic-books to live action cinema are a notoriously hit and miss affair, with a wide range of flops, from Howard The Duck to Judge Dredd, convincing Hollywood studios that only Tim Burton can really pull this kind of thing off. Over in France, however, Netherlands born Jan Kounen was showing himself to be a talent better than most, managing to inject a real sense of excessive comic-book craziness into his live-action feature, Dobermann, an excerise in empty-headed entertainment. So we can wave bye-bye to good taste, and welcome in almost two hours of graphic trash as we enter a world of big guns, bad haircuts, silly names, senseless violence, cruelty to children, transvestite temper tantrums, and people getting their dicks blown off by Nazi cops with anger management problems...

A big-budget breakthrough for Kounen, whose previous credits include The Arch Trashfest Vibro Boy, Dobermann is essentially an over-dressed urban Western which comes on as like a cross between Mad Max and Deputy Dorg. Apparently, the director sees something of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas in many of the sequences on view, but frankly, that comparison is completely lost on me. Far more of a debt is owed to the slapstick sensibilities of Sam Raimi, who once described his Evil Dead trilogy as "An update on the Three Stooges with blood and gore standing in for custard pies", or to Luc Besson who incited the wrath of the French critical establishment by putting style before content in explosive hits like Leon and Nikita, films which Kounen has clearly watched in admiration. Certainly, there's an active disdain in Dobermann for the polite traditions of French cinema, as the characters blow peoples brains out with hand grenades and literally wipe their arses with high-brow movie magazines. Kounen clearly doesn't have time for high-minded critics, which is convenient really because, since Dobermann, they've had little time for him either.

On a casting level, Dobermann has much to commend it, with legend Tcheky Karyo squaring up against Vincent Cassel, who had made such an impact in Mathieu Kassowit's La Haine, a film which worried the hell out of the authorities but still went down very well with international critics and punters. There were far fewer supporters of this slickly sadistic satire which was widely denounced as being "Extremely violent and indulgently irresponsible" (though some people may of course take that as a recommendation - I know I did at the time). The film doesn't really have any substance, but for those with an extremely violent appetite, it might just hit the spot.

DOCTOR LAMB (1992)

(Orig title: Gou yeng yi sang)

Dir: Danny Lee and Billy Tang /Hong Kong

Loosely based on the true case in 1982 of a deranged taxi driver, Lam Go-wan, who brutally murdered several women whom he considered unsavory. He later told police that he had been instructed by God to kill the women. He was captured after developing extremely disturbing photographs of himself mutilating and having sex with the bodies. Horrified staff who worked at the camera store alerted the police. Lam was sentenced to life in prison.

The film starts with a flashback to Lam's troubled childhood before the present day action in which cops close in on Lam when he enters the camera shop to collect his photos. The police apprehend him and search his home. After Inspector Lee (Danny Lee of The Untold Story and Love To Kill, who also served as co-director on this film), finds an incriminating clue, Lam is taken back to the station and placed under heavy interrogation and abuse as a way of getting a confession out of him. He is beaten with a hammer through a phone book, an old police trick to ensure no bruising. He is also beaten with a hammer on the soles of his feet while the Hong Kong press clamour outside. And, using a plot device which would later be imitated to death in future CAT III releases - The Untold Story, Daughter of Darkness, Suburb Murder, etc - Lam eventually breaks down under the pressure and reveals his gruesome story to the police in flashback.

Those investigating the case continue to gather evidence on Lam; in one sequence they even manage to match his finger prints from a shot of his hand in one of the photos that they zoom in on and run through their system, and find a match to Lam. His family members are allowed entry into his cell, and they beat him up while he is restrained in handcuffs. Flashback to drunken girl who gets in his taxi late at night. He beats and strangles her. He then takes her body home. And when his family members have left the house, he undresses her corpse and shakes it in anger, manically trying to get the limp body to answer his questions. In a blackly comic scene, he ties rope around the wrists and ankles of his victim and does an exercise work-out with her, and then jiggles her tits around in a madman's frenzy before nipping out to purchase a circular saw. When he returns he sets about dismembering the body in an insane ritual. This darkly funny sequence was a big influence on that other notorious CAT III killer movie, Diary of a Serial Killer (1995). Back in the present day, one of the cops slaps Lam across the back of the head and calls him an "arsehole" in English.

The police return to Lam's house to look for evidence, and in a hilarious scene, a cop finds a severed human breast in a jar. And when he realises what it is, he instinctively throws it away in horror, and it lands on the back of one of his colleagues. It sits there wobbling around on her back while she frantically reaches behind to get it off of her. Only in Hong Kong.

In another flashback, another drunken girl gets into his cab. He drives to a deserted stretch of road. The music is tense. She sits back smiling with her eyes closed in a drunken fugue, completely oblivious to the mortal danger she is in. Lam suddenly lunges and strangles her. Back at home, he lays her body out on the floor, tapes her eyes shut, and cuts her tits off before taking a few polaroids of his handy work.

Another woman hops in. She's sober. He strikes up a conversation but soon creeps her out with his forwardness and sexual leering. He pulls over. And when she tries to get out of the car, he handcuffs her wrists. Once she is under his control, he drops all pretense of sanity and drives out to a deserted area. She's weeping and terrified, but plays along with his game, constantly on alert to best make her escape when the right moment presents itself. She knows she's dealing with a lunatic, but bravely keeps her cool, like strangers at a bus stop when a tramp shows up staggering around and screaming at imaginary demons. She makes a run for it in the rainstorm, but he soon catches up with her and wraps his merciless cord around her neck...

Meanwhile, back in present time, the cops find a home video of Lam which shows him cutting up one of his victims. The unsuspecting cops are physically sick by the images they see on the screen. Next up is a full-on necrophilia scene where the cops watch the video of Lam fucking a corpse. Can this sicko stoop any lower? The cops now have all the evidence they need.

Doctor Lamb is one of the more well-known CAT III shockers from Hong Kong alongside The Untold Story, Riki-Oh, and Ebola Syndrome. It was Danny Lee's directorial debut (he was helped by the notorious Billy Tang, the man behind Run and Kill and Red To Kill), and offers up an insane performance by Simon Yam in the lead role; Yam is superb as the maniac, leering at the camera and chewing the scenery like a pro. At various points in this film, his features seem to take on a life of their own, as if at any moment his face will literally leap off his head and go running through the tall grass, attacking dandelions with its teeth. Also lookout for Kent Cheng as the overweight cop, Fat Bing; he would later go on to play the stoic victim in Tang's harrowing Run and Kill a few years later. For a double-bill of CAT III mayhem, try lining this up alongside Crazy Love For You, another legendary shocker featuring Simon Yam in a maniac role which also offers up many dark laughs.

In its original cut, Doctor Lamb proved so extreme the Hong Kong censors insisted on the filmmakers removing the most grisly scenes of mutilation before it could be given the CAT III rating. Both the DVD and VCD releases are cut. The Spanish VHS from Manga is uncut but long out of print and almost impossible to find. And that version runs for an extra 15 seconds.

DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE (1979)

(aka The Burning)

Dir: Joseph Ellison /USA

One of the great unsung gems of the stalk ‘n’ slash heyday, and also one of the grubbiest and most downbeat, Don’t Go In The House will have little interest for those looking for something along the lines of fun-time slashers like Halloween or Prom Night, but for fans of darker and more disturbing fare like William Lustig’s Maniac and Gerald Kargl’s Angst will find much to savor here in this tale of a madman who abducts women and burns them to death with a flame-thrower in a makeshift steel room in his house.

Donny Kohler (Dan Grimaldi) was the victim of horrendous abuse at the hands of his cruel mother as a child. She would hold his arms over the hob of a gas cooker, and severely punish him for every little misdeed he committed. Now a grown man, Donny is constantly plagued by visions and flashbacks to his troubled past, and suffers from acute psychological problems, including pyromania. When he returns home from work one day, he discovers that his mother has died. But rather than being upset, he instead jumps for joy and plays loud music. However, his new found freedom doesn’t last very long as he soon begins to hear voices that command him to kill.

He wastes no time in converting one of the bedrooms in the house into a fire-proof cell, and then goes on the hunt for his first victim. He manages to lure a young woman back to the house, and he beats her unconscious. She later awakens chained to the ceiling by her wrists in the steel room, completely naked. Donny appears in the doorway wearing an asbestos suit and a welding mask. He slowly and methodically pours petrol on his victim. His mask the perfect metaphor for the unreasoning psychopath – no matter how much she begs and pleads, there’s no getting through to him; his blank mask remains completely inscrutable. And after a short pause, he blasts her with the flame-thrower. We watch in horror as she dangles there, writhing in the flames and screaming in terror and agony – the camera never flinches, it shows everything in one horrific take. It’s one of the most shocking scenes of the slasher era, right up there with the scalping of the prostitute in Maniac and the nail-gun shooting in The Toolbox Murders.

Donny continues on his killing spree, and he keeps the charred bodies of his victims in the house; he dresses them in his mother’s old clothes and sits them on sofas in the living room. Each corpse communicates with Donny via the voices in his head, and he has regular conversations with them. Even Donny himself becomes increasingly uncomfortable and freaked out by spending too much time in his house of horrors, and decides he should sort out his social life. He accepts an invite from a work-mate for a double date, but this turns into a nightmare as another flashback to his youth causes him to lose control and toss a candle stick at his confused date. Her hair catches fire and she leaps screaming onto the dance floor. Donny is chased out of the club and given a beating, but on his way home he finds a couple of drunken women and invites them back to his place…

As you’ve probably gathered by now, Don’t Go In The House is not a cheery kind of film. And why should it be? We’re not dealing with some unstoppable boogeyman from the Halloween and Friday The 13th franchises; horror fans should welcome this slice of badly burnt exploitation cinema because it delivers on the essential elements that makes these movies so compelling for people like us – it has a bleak, despondent edge, and a morbid curiosity value in that we see how a deranged serial killer lives and goes about his business when he isn’t killing; it has its shock elements with the burning of the girl; it has a twisted psychological edge in that we get to hear the voices in Donny’s head, and we see his visual hallucinations as the charred corpses rise from their seats and slowly shuffle toward the camera, and so on. Horror movies should make us feel shocked and disturbed and horrified; your head should be spooked out for days after watching a real good horror movie, and Don’t Go In The House is one of the precious few that actually delivers. Why would you want to watch feeble horror shows like Prom Night or Graduation Day when you can have bleak gems like Maniac, Angst and Don’t Go In The House? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Donny is a pathetic loser and the product of an unstable mother; a man who can’t even light the oven without suffering severe flashbacks to his childhood traumas. His psychological damage serves as his prison from which he can never escape. And, suffice to say, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone could look up to someone like Donny for their sadistic kicks. He’s too feeble; he’s clumsy and awkward; the film often makes fun of him in several scenes. He’s frightening for sure, but only because of his pre-meditated conniving – he knows exactly what he plans to do to his victims before hand – but he’s also banal and nervous and… well, he’s basically a pussy. And as such, he doesn’t have the bulk or the ruthless unstoppability of a Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees. What I’m trying to say is that Donny more closely resembles the pathetic and chilling characteristics of real-life serial killers, and this helps to lift the movie up and above the usual body count fare.

THE DOOM GENERATION (1995)

Dir: Gregg Araki /USA

'Sex. Violence. Whatever'. That was the knowingly off-hand tagline for The Doom Generation, the fifth film from underground bad boy director Gregg Araki. If you're in the mood for sex, drugs, violence, comedy, apocalyptic imagery, demonic numerology, and of course a whole bunch of noisy rock music, then you've come to the right place. We delve into yet another nihilistic offering from the director of Nowhere and Totally Fucked Up. The result is a film described by critic Leonard Maltin as "A bleak view of the younger generation which makes Kids look like The Little Mermaid."

Sarcastically subtitled 'A heterosexual movie', The Doom Generation is, on one level, a sneeringly ironic re-working of the popular homicidal-young-lovers-on-the-road riff which won such unexpected mainstream hits as Guncrazy, Bonnie and Clyde, and Badlands, to Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia. Centering on the antics of two Gen-X wasters who team up with a psychotically dangerous drifter, Araki's rampaging romp projects the kind of youthful disaffected amorality made fashionable by movies like Slackers and Clerks. The difference is that, in those films, people didn't get brutally murdered quite so often. And it was that combination of ironic, couldn't-give-a-toss carelessness and outrageous screen carnage which caused stateside critic Roger Ebert (who had previously praised the likes of Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer) to condemn the film's use of "sickening carnage and violent amorality." You do get the feeling that Araki is trying very hard to offend you, and part of the fun in watching is to play along with it. In the end, all that matters is how much fun he's having misbehaving with his movie camera. And whether or not you have as much fun is entirely up to you.

On the pop celebrity front, The Doom Generation boasts a thumping soundtrack which jumbles up such popular teen rebel icons as Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus And Mary Chain, and Coil, and there's even a cameo by vancouver rockers Skinny Puppy alongside walk-ons from the likes of Hollywood madman Heidi Fleiss. And of course there's James Duval who later turned up in Independence Day. All very alluring no doubt, but the real on-screen attraction is leading lady Rose McGowan, a young woman so screechingly annoying even a Buddhist monk would be tempted to drop-kick her into orbit. She later appeared in the big-budget slasher movie, Scream (she's the one who gets squished in the mechanized garage door). She is seen here earning herself an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Baby Performance in a role which she allegedly landed after first choice actress, Jordan Ladd, was told by her angelic mother Cheryll that she would appear in such a movie over her dead body. But it wasn't just Cheryll Ladd and Roger Ebert who took against The Doom Generation; in America the MPAA demanded a number of cuts for an R-rating, while here in the UK both the film and video were passed uncut with an 18 certificate by the BBFC.

ERASERHEAD (1977)

Dir: David Lynch /USA

David Lynch's debut film, which he himself called "A dream of dark and troubling things," is a disturbing, hallucinatory chiller set in a decaying dystopia where madness rules and practically defies synopsis. John Nance is Henry Spencer, who undergoes all manner of surreal goings on when he is left holding his girlfriend's mutant baby. A fat-cheeked woman emerges from the radiator and sings songs, the lights seem to have a mind of their own, and Henry himself meats the mind-boggling fate that explains the title (not pretty). Whether this is supposed to be a view of post-apocalyptic America is unclear. Nevertheless, Lynch mixes ingredients from horror, science fiction, fantasy, and the avant-garde to create some of the most striking images ever to grace a cinema screen.

David Lynch said at the time "Eraserhead was made in Los Angeles and most of the shooting took place at night on sets built in the attic of a mansion. The amount of tools and hardware used would make a normal hardware store look barren, and the five or six of us on the crew worked every night for over a year. Jack Nance said to me, making a film with you Lynch is one frame at a time."

The film rapidly gained cult status with favourable comparisons to Un Chien Andalou, and Lynch was praised for his daring as a first time director, and rewarded with the chance to write and direct The Elephant Man which went on to earn him an Oscar and BAFTA nominations. If you ask Lynch what Eraserhead is about he'll tell you it's about 89-minutes. "I felt Eraserhead," he once said. "I didn't think it." And he also claimed it was a film to be experienced rather than explained. Certainly, no one has ever managed to adequately describe this confounding descent into nightmare, least of all Lynch who playfully called it "My version of The Philadelphia Story, only without Jimmy Stewart." Lynch even refuses to explain the monstrous baby at the heart of this dark film, with many rumours claiming that it's actually an animated bovine foetus! All we know for sure about Lynch's extraordinary film is that it has become a landmark of modern surrealist cinema, a midnight movie hit in America which quickly bloomed into an international cult classic and which remains essential viewing for anyone interested in incredibly strange films.

Although it first surfaced in the late 70s, Eraserhead was actually made over a period of five years, during which time Lynch was in the US Film Institute Centre in Los Angeles. According to Lynch, he presented the AFI with a 21 paged script, looted through their equipment department, and promptly set up shooting in some deserted stables in which he subsequently lived during production. Shooting began in June 1972 and proceeded through an endless run of nights with Lynch dashing off in the early hours to do the Wall Street Journal paper round which was providing his income. After the first nine months of shooting (already longer than the average film shoot), DoP Herbert Cardwell died in his sleep, leaving Frederick Elmes to take over camera duties. But no such substitution was possible for leading man Jack Nance, who was forced to keep his trademark, electrified hairstyle unchanged for years so that a set-up shot eighteen months apart could be edited together to make a single sequence. And throughout this tortuous process, Nance's wife Catherine Coulson worked as a waitress by day and first assistant, financier, hairdresser, and general problem solver at night, spurred on by Lynch's insistence that he had a vision of her holding a log in a TV series. A vision which actually came true many years later when Lynch himself finally cast her as the 'Log Lady' in Twin Peaks... strange but true.

Although it's now regarded as a masterpiece, the first people to be exposed to Eraserhead were more appalled than impressed. Both the Cannes and New York Film Festivals turned it down flat, while Variety magazine slammed it as "A sickening exercise in bad taste" when it premiered in LA. Wounded, Lynch panicked and cut out three or four scenes from the film, bringing it down to the current cut which was then championed by late night guru John Waters. And the rest is history.

No matter how many cheesy pop videos or arty horror movies come along ripping off its late-70s aesthetic of slimy industrial decay, Eraserhead remains as powerful and original and disturbing as ever. Whether the finished film is a gory homage to Sunset Blvd. or, as Lynch's daughter Jennifer suggested, a horrified reaction to the stresses of fatherhood, is up to you to decide. One word of advice: For all the on-screen wonders, the real heart of this film lies in Alan Splet's throbbing, industrial soundscapes, which are among the strangest things you'll ever hear in a movie.

ESCAPE FROM BROTHEL (1992)

(Orig title: Hua jie kuang ben)

Dir: Lung Wei Wang /Hong Kong

A young sports teacher, Sam (Alex Fong), is recruited by his friends to Hong Kong for an armed robbery at a jewelry store that has been pre-arranged by the store owner as a way of cashing in on the insurance payout. However, when the boys give away their identities on their escape from the crime scene - due to a camera, a couple of tourists, and an unfortunate killing - they find themselves on the run and in deep trouble, not only with the local police, but also the jewelry store owner who would much rather have them killed than confessing anything to the police. Meanwhile, Sam's sweetheart, Hung (the late Pauline Chan), works in a brothel, unbeknownst to him. And when he shows up at the house one day looking for a place to hide out, Hung tries to keep her profession a secret so as not to hurt him. When he does eventually discover what's going on, Sam and Hung are forced to flee from the brothel when ruthless criminals show up looking for his blood. Sam attempts to get back to the Mainland, but perhaps inevitably, their journey ends in treachery and brutal violence.

Like many other Category III titles, Escape From Brothel starts out as a soft and silly sex comedy, but darkens dramatically as it progresses. The humour is apparent in scenes involving a naked white woman who displays some high-kicking kung fu moves, and the "sex maniac" who hangs out in the women's shower room, incognito. But the light-hearted tone soon becomes muddied with the introduction of rape, electro torture, and superbly choreographed bloody violence, including an amazing fight scene in which people attack each other with machetes while climbing a bamboo scaffold. Those who regularly watch these types of films will spot one or two familiar faces, such as Ho Kai Hui of Daughter of Darkness who plays a corrupt cop who demands freebies from the prostitutes. Also lookout for Ben Lam (Police Story and Police Story 2) who plays another bad guy, and Japanese AV star Rene Murakami (of Sex and Zen fame) as Hung's sexy sister.

Actress Pauline Chan made such an impact in this film as Sam's girlfriend, Hung, and also in other classics like Devil of Rape, Whores of China, and Erotic Ghost Story III, and became an icon for off-beat film fans in the process. She caused much controversy in the Chinese press during the 90s. Born in Shanghai in 1973, she moved to Hong Kong and entered the film industry in 1991 at 18 years old, and starred in dozens of CAT III films. She was in a troubled relationship with a famous Taiwanese investment tycoon, Huang Jen Chung, who was 33 years older than her. She used drugs and sorcery to ease her emotional pain and to win back his heart when they split up. She attempted suicide in a live television interview, physically attacked random members of the public, set fire to her home, and was also hospitalized several times for near-fatal drug overdoses. Her career came to an end when she was sent to prison in the UK for assaulting a stranger. Most tragically, Chan later committed suicide by jumping from her apartment window on the 24th floor. She was just 29 years old. In a strange twist, Chinese actress Crystal Sun played Chan in the biopic Pauline's Life (2002), and she also took her own life in 2009.

Escape From Brothel is perhaps Chan's finest hour, a challenging mixture of humour, heartbreak, and horror, directed by the ever adaptable Lung Wei Wang who also made the wacky City Warriors (1991), and even took up a few minor acting roles, most notably as the gang leader in Billy Tang's outrageous Run And Kill (1993). Escape From Brothel was cut for its UK release, but is available untouched on VCD on the Ocean Shores label.

THE EXORCIST (1973)

Dir: William Friedkin /USA

Still one of the most controversial films of all time, The Exorcist centers on Regan (Linda Blair), the twelve year old daughter of a famous stage actress (Ellen Burstyn). She begins to suffer from unexplainable seizures and displays some very odd behaviour. Regan is taken to doctors, but examinations fail to pinpoint any physical or psychiatric abnormalities. Her condition worsens, and she begins to transform physically, taking on an ugly, demonic appearance.  In desperation, and with all rational possibilities exhausted, Regan's mother begs the help of a young priest, Father karras (John Miller). Realising that Regan is possessed by the Devil, and knowing that his own faith is too weak for him to deal successfully with the problem all by himself, Karras turns to Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow), a more senior priest who has experience in exorcisms. And the showdown begins.

Based on William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel (which itself was based on the true case in 1949 in Maryland where a fourteen year old boy exhibited bizarre behaviour that led to his 'exorcism' by Father Raymond J. Bishop and Father William S. Bowdern), The Exorcist shrewdly exploits the fears and frustrations of parents. The film is an intense ride, a marvel of audience manipulation, with director William Friedkin pushing all the right buttons to ensure his film became a genre landmark. It's a perfect mixture of its then state-of-the-art special effects and good old-fashioned atmospheric horror to produce two hours of dread and unease.

Whilst the film was still in production, rumours circulated about the 'Curse of The Exorcist', in which supposedly dark supernatural forces were to blame for the death of actor Jack McGowran (whose character also dies in the film), and the house interior set mysteriously burning to the ground. The deaths of nine people connected to the making of the film only intensified the rumours, quickly becoming the stuff or urban legend. Director Friedkin even tried to have the set exorcised!

The Exorcist reached the UK amid reports that American audiences had been fainting and vomiting at stateside screenings, and the hysteria continued unabated on these shores. There were calls to have the film banned, evangelist Billy Graham claimed that the film itself was evil and that demonic forces were trapped in the very celluloid. Newspapers ran stories about people being driven to madness by the film, pregnant women miscarrying, and a spate of crimes - from shoplifting to murder - all blamed on the film. Nuns would show up at UK screenings and sprinkle the queuing punters with holy water to protect them from the evils they were about to be exposed to. Silly but true.

Linda Blair had reportedly received numerous death threats from a bunch of dangle-mouthed imbeciles ever since she appeared in the film when she was just fourteen years old. Incredibly, some movie viewers have a difficult time distinguishing reality from fiction, and thus Blair's superb performance as a possessed child led some to believe that she was actually Satan. According to legend, throughout this insanity the police sent out a special agent to live with the Blairs, to protect her from the unwanted attentions of an assortment of sinister psychos. Even today, there are still those who believe - and report as fact - that Linda Blair was driven insane as a direct result of appearing in The Exorcist - that she ended up in an asylum and her mother was struck by lightning. Of course, it isn't true.

She lived a bizarre life in the wake of the film; people would recognise her in the supermarket and run away screaming into the street. "I was a normal kid," she said, "and I wanted to be pretty. But all people ever said to me was 'Wow, can you really spin your head around and throw up?" When asked how she feels about her association with the film today, she says "Well, you know, there isn't a day goes by that someone doesn't ask me about that film. So to me it's like my left arm - it's just there."

Although The Exorcist did get a video release in the UK in the early days of home video, it was short-lived. The head of British censorship at the time, James Ferman, had his own personal problems with the film and was determined to keep it out of our homes. For years, the only way to catch The Exorcist was on the occasional ‘Midnight Specials’ screenings up and down the country. As a youngster I had heard and read all about the hyperbole and controversy that surrounded the film and was desperate to see it. It became this mythical thing, a forbidden fruit that seemed to me at the time as something genuinely sinister and dangerous. The film harmed people! They were carried out of the theater on stretchers! I had to see it! And like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist became one of those legendary 'banned' films that I thought I'd never get to see.

There was hope, however, in 1998, the year of The Exorcist's 25th anniversary. The media frenzy that anticipated the re-release was extraordinary; books were published about the film, documentaries were broadcast on TV, thousands of articles and columns were written. The film itself was re-visited and the general consensus was that The Exorcist was just as powerful then as it was back in the early 70s. I was a teenager at this point, salivating at the prospect of finally watching it for the first time.

But despite all the excitement, in a strange twist of fate, James Ferman of the BBFC yet again refused to pass the film for home viewing. "The problem with The Exorcist," he said, "is not that it's a bad film, it's that it's a very good film - one of the most powerful ever made." All I had to say to that was bollocks! We never saw the censors running around trying to banish Citizen Kane or The Shawshank Redemption for being too powerful, did we? One of the most graphically violent films of that year, Saving Private Ryan, was passed uncut with a 15 certificate and shows soldiers being shot, stabbed, and blown to pieces, and is extremely powerful, but there was no problem there. No, Ferman was talking nonsense and had his own - possibly religious - reasons for restricting the film (the ending of The Exorcist implies that 'evil wins', or at least has the victory of killing one of the priests; something writer Blatty - a true believer - had always been concerned about in Friedkin's film version).

So, despite all the hype and excitement concerning the re-release, The Exorcist remained outlawed on home video in the UK. The film's mythic power of unattainability remained so. The following year, however, saw another twist in the saga when Ferman retired (good riddance!) and was replaced by the much less stuffy Andreas Whittam Smith, and he promptly passed The Exorcist uncut for home video without further ado. The spell was finally broken at long last, and out came the video and the DVD and the laserdisc.

Nowadays The Exorcist lurks in high street stores, that iconic image on the DVD sleeve of Father Merrin standing outside Regan's house, bathed in light that radiates from an upper window, satchel in hand. The DVD sits right there on the shelves across the country, nestled between Shrek and Back To The Future, with kids as young as Regan able to pick it up and have a read about the synopsis on the back cover. Does the film then lose any of its power by being as free and as widely available as Shrek? The answer is no. The Exorcist is a genuinely scary movie.

For all the wonders of this film, from the magnificent performances of the cast, the impressive special effects, and its story grounded in gritty realism, the most effective element for me is the sound: There's Mike Oldfield's Tubuler Bells, and there's also Jack Nietzsche's eerie sounds that underscore some intense scenes. But beyond the music there's also the incredibly effective sound design by Robert Knudson and Chris Newman, and this is where the horror truly lies in the film: the eerie scuffling in the attic, the traffic noise, the rising wind and fighting dogs in Iraq. Also, the demon Pazuzu itself, voiced by actress Mercedes McCambridge. Her gutteral tones provides much of the unease; her voice is filtered through sound effects, loops, and animal noises combined for the full effect. Also, one of the creepiest scenes in the film is when Father Karras plays back a tape recording in his room.

Film critic Mark Kermode deserves much praise for his dogged devotion to the film. It was Mark who unearthed the rare deleted footage, that included Linda Blair's legendary 'spider walk' down the stairs. It was Mark who made the excellent documentary, The Fear of God, for the BBC. He has also written books about the film, helped organise its re-release, fought long battles with the BBFC over its ban, and believes it to be the greatest movie ever made. "I have seen The Exorcist about two hundred times," he admits. "I stopped counting after the first hundred. I've stood outside that house on Prospect Street, stepping in the shadow of Max Von Sydow, putting myself into the picture that haunted my childhood and which will surely follow me to my grave. Worse still, I have forced my entire family to make the pilgrimage to Georgetown just to parade up and down the precipitous steps which plummet from Prospect Street to M Street and which feature so prominently in the film - first my long-suffering wife Linda, then more recently my kids and my mother who haven't even seen The Exorcist. Friedkin was once quoted as saying that on his gravestone would be engraved the words 'The guy who made The Exorcist'. He meant it self-deprecatingly, but at least he made the damn film, of which he should be proud. On my gravestone it'll just say 'The guy who bored his family and friends to death with The Exorcist.'”

DER FAN (1981)

(aka Trance)

Dir: Eckhart Schmidt /W.Germany

One of the most disturbing films to come out of Germany in the 80s was Der Fan, a study on obsession, madness and murder which reaches the heights of full-blooded horror while devouring its audience whole. The story follows Simone (Desiree Nosbusch), a seventeen year old loner who has an intense obsession with ‘R’ (Bodo Steiger), a bland, new-wave pop singer. Her passion for him is so strong she physically attacks her father when he changes channels during a performance of one of his televised songs. Simone sends fan letters to ‘R’, and though he never responds, she tells herself they are soul mates and will eventually be inseparable. She manages to blag her way into a TV studio where ‘R’ is recording a music video, and this means we’re forced to listen to the same bloody awful tune played over and over again, ad nauseam, complete with low-budget 80s lighting effects and bald mannequins. After taking her back to his place and spending the night together, he tells her he is going away on vacation, but because she is better than the average groupie, he tells her she is welcome to stay at his house until he gets back. Simone doesn’t like the idea of being left alone, and just as ‘R’ is about to leave for his trip, she creeps up behind him and cracks his skull open. What happens next is an unforgettable art house nightmare as Simone turns to some extremely twisted measures to ensure they’ll never be apart again.

Made shortly after Uli Edel’s Christiane F. and Helma Sanders-Brahm’s No Mercy, No Future (Die Berührte), Der Fan was the latest in a line of German movies which showed youth as being anything but pleasant, with characters plunging to the depths of madness and degradation. Der Fan looks like it could have influenced Jorg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik 2 which was made almost a decade later and shares with Schmidt’s film the themes of obsessional, twisted love and dismemberment (not to mention the surprise ending).

FESTEN (1998)

(The Celebration)

Dir: Thomas Vinterberg /Denmark

A gripping domestic drama from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, The Celebration manages to tell an emotionally-charged story while strictly adhering to the no-frills approach of the Dogme 95 manifesto.

On the eve of patriarch Helge Klingenfelt's (Henning Moritzen) 60th birthday, his entire clan returns to the family-owned hotel to celebrate. They include the eldest son Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), a successful restauranteur who hasn't been home in years; Christian's younger, wilder brother, Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen), and his family; prickly anthropologist daughter Helene (Paprika Steen) and her African-American boyfriend (Gbatokai Dakinah); and Helge's icy wife, Elsa (Birthe Neuman). The festivities begin pleasantly enough, but Christian's toast to his esteemed father includes a bombshell: urbane and happy dad regularly molested him and his twin sister, Linda - who had recently committed suicide - for years.

This first film made in accordance with the strict rules of the Dogme 95 Manifesto - which dictates technical austerity, from hand-held camera to the absence of a musical score - is a smashing success, both as a technical experiment and as a piece of distinctive cinematic storytelling. Wreaking havoc with audience expectations, Vinterberg more than delivers on his promise "to force the truth out of my characters and settings." Many critics found the film to be flashy, pretentious, and even dizzying, but it has a welcome and all-too-rare energy and vigour. Vinterberg's film was the bracing kick in the balls that contemporary cinema needed (and still needs).

FETO MORTO (2003)

Dir: Fernando Rick /Brazil

In a nutshell: A funny-looking geek who was born with a foetus head growing out of the side of his skull - hence the ‘Dead Fetus’ of the title - is the constant target for a group of Satan worshipping scumballs who stalk the streets looking for trouble. The geek eventually decides that enough is enough, and he goes on a voyage of discovery whereby he murders a tramp with a broken bottle, learns shaolin kung fu, and then returns to dish out some fatal punishment on the gang.

The film kicks off with the group of vicious deviants walking the streets wearing Black Vomit t-shirts (might as well get your cast members to plug your wares, no one else will). A young mother is beaten to death in the presence of her baby. The baby is then lifted from its pushchair and pulverized onto the ground, where it soils itself in convulsive death spasms. A young man across the street says something, so the gang ventures over and cut open his scrotal sack, play with his severed testicles, and then beat him to death. A homeless guy just sitting there minding his own business is the next target; they piss on him, kick him around the pavement for a while, then toss him into a ditch before setting him on fire. The geek is attacked in a children’s playground and left for dead. And this entire opening sequence is played out to a gritty, adrenaline-fueled, higgledy-piggledy metal soundtrack (or whatever type of metal it is, as there are so many sub-genres nowadays it’s hard to keep up).

Geek boy arranges a ‘date’ with a whore, so he takes a shower and heads off to her place offering her a rose and an apple as a gift. She tosses the rose over her shoulder, and the poor lad is so nervous he pukes on the apple. But this doesn’t stop her from taking a bite out of it. They strip off and have some fun time on the sofa, but his nerves get the better of him again, and he pukes his white baby vomit allover her tits and pussy. That night he dreams of being stabbed to death by a nude woman who then rubs the blood onto her body.

Meanwhile, the heavy gang continue terrorizing the streets, shooting and beating to death anyone who crosses their path, while the black metal blasts out on the soundtrack; even in Portuguese, the lyrics can be easily deciphered, and they go something like “RRRROOOAAARRRRR, I’VE GOT A SCARY VOICE AND A BURNING HEMARROID, RRRROOOAAARRRR!!!” The two-headed geek is beaten some more, and an innocent guy pissing against the wall has his cock severed and his guts pulled out and his arm ripped off. The gang member then carries the severed arm back across the road, and the geek is beaten with the dismembered limb. One of the gang members is female, and she has a mesmerizing cleavage. You know the film is fucked when the only thing worth looking at in the entire movie is a chick’s tit valley.

After this casual bit of street savagery, the ‘plot’ breaks off into a free-form exercise in tedium. We get guerrilla footage of street performers, a coke-head priest who cures an invalid and burns a bible. The newly cured cripple then ventures into the street running for joy; but sod’s law has it that he immediately slips in dogshit and is run over by a passing car – both of his legs are severed. That night, the geek boy is the victim of an attempted rape by a homeless bum, and he reacts by smashing a bottle and stabbing the tramp to death. He then has a chance encounter with Satan, who takes him to the beach and teaches him a crude form of self-defense, Highlander-style. Geek boy then returns to the streets and exacts his bloody revenge on the Black Vomit scum. The end.

As you can probably gather, Feto Morto has a very silly, tongue-in-cheek vibe to it, but this doesn’t excuse how bloody awful it is. Just because you’re aware of how crap your movie is, doesn’t make it any less reprehensible in the eyes of those having to sit through this mess. With a slim running-time of around an hour, the acting is frankly abysmal, with the cast members like passengers on a nose-diving plane assuming that if they all fart hard enough, they can lift it back into the sky. And it can’t even be recommended to those who enjoy ‘bad movies’. Lloyd Kaufman and Troma are thanked in the end credits, but their films look like glitzy Hollywood blockbusters compared to this. I’d never heard of Black Vomit Filmes before I saw this, and now I can understand why; even fans of the Olaf Ittenbach school of DIY unspecial FX could look down on this piece of shit. And when you try to fart a plane back into the sky, you only succeed in making the atmosphere unpleasant for everyone. And spoiling the in-flight movie. And making the stewardess weep. And as such, this film can only be recommended to those who regularly sit in front of the TV with a loaded shotgun in their mouths, waiting to pluck up the courage.

FLAVIA THE HERETIC (1974)

Dir: Gianfranco Mingozzi /Italy /France

One of the most infamous entries in the Italian nunsploitation series of the 70s, Flavia The Heretic mixes religion-bashing with sleazy grindhouse aesthetics, an unholy combination that kept it away from home video for years in anything resembling an uncut copy. Most often released in blurry, censored form, Synapse came along and offered the full uncut version on DVD in the early 00s in a beautiful, razor-sharp transfer. Suffice to say, it remains the only version of the film you should see.

Flavia (Florinda Bolkan) is sent off to a remote convent after witnessing her father decapitate her friend. And it’s there she lives under the rule of the cruel Mother Superior. She takes her chance to leave and meets a Hassidic scholar, but soon finds herself back at the convent under the power of the sisters. Later, freedom looks to be at hand when a Muslim sect rolls by, known as the Tarantulas, and Flavia becomes the leader of a bloody revolt from within the convent walls. Flavia cuts off her hair when she becomes attracted to the leader of the sect (Anthony Corlan, of Vampire Circus fame), and then sets out on a fateful journey that leads to much more violence and gruesomeness.

Flavia The Heretic remains notorious to this day for its depraved and sadistic ending, but the sleaze-factor is present throughout the entire film; within the first five minutes we’re witness to much disarray as women in the convent run wild, playing with themselves and encouraging the sisters to join in while chanting “Tarantulas!” over and over, and sensually caressing the walls like Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man. It’s a scene reminiscent of the nun pandemonium in Ken Russell’s The Devils, and shares with that film the uninhibited performances of the cast. Those expecting something along the lines of Joe D’Amato’s Images In a Convent or Bruno Mattei’s The Other Hell, however, will be in for a surprise here as Flavia is a competently made drama with characters the audience can feel for and believe in. Indeed, the film has a warm 70s vibe to it and radiates quality from every frame, which makes it all the more startling when things turn nasty and graphic. In addition to scenes of bull castration, bloody massacres, suicide victims swinging from the rafters, severed heads, and a Fernando Arrabal-esque sequence in which a couple have sex within the hollowed-out carcass of a cow, the film also includes a magnificent performance from Bolkan, whose assured presence is engaging from start to finish. Whether she’s lusting after Corlan (at one point, she looks to be on the verge of climbing over the rocks and wiping her fanny down his leg) or gripped in a homicidal frenzy, it’s difficult not to feel for her, and this only makes the inevitable ending all the more horrific to watch.

FLESH (1968)

(aka Andy Warhol's Flesh; aka Flesh 18)

Dir: Paul Morrisey /USA

As Andy Warhol recuperated from the gunshot wounds inflicted by Valerie Solanis, his Factory associate Paul Morrisey took the chance to emerge from under the master's cloak and directed this drowsy, picaresque tale of a henpecked male prostitute in Manhattan, the first of several 'Warhol' films that are actually part of Morrisey's equally interesting ouevre.

Joe (Joe Dallesandro), a virtually affectless but oddly charming creature of the East Village, drags himself out of bed to hustle tricks on 33rd Street. His girlfriend Gerry (Geraldine Smith) has demanded cash to pay for an abortion. During a long day of entrepreneurial improvisation Joe encounters a variety of Warhol regulars, including legendary transvestites Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling (who, along with Dallesandro, were later immortalized in Lou Reed's classic tune ‘Walk On The Wild Side’).

Although Flesh displays many of the hallmarks of Warhol's non-narrative Factory style (endless takes, speed-fueled improvisation, casually amateurish lighting and sound, etc), Morrisey is already experimenting with the kind of traditional filmmaking techniques that Warhol pretended to dislike - at least until Morrisey's increasingly polished movies began turning nice profits.

Viewers today will still find this film to be quite shocking in places, and many will struggle to handle the fact that the film was made entirely in-camera (basically, the whole film is presented as exactly the way it was shot; in sequence, lots of very long shots, jump cuts, etc), but this is the film that made an underground star of Dallesandro, and was widely considered a ground-breaking revelation on first release for portraying New York's underground life.

In interviews, Morrisey's opinions on drug culture, art-groupies, Andy Warhol, and sex movies in general can sound quite harsh and hypocritical at first, but his conservative stance doesn't contradict his films. His values may lean to the right but his manner and opinions on art are actually very liberal. Rather than lecturing his viewers on morality, he allows libertarian ideals to express themselves in his films, and watches as they consequently contradict themselves in the process (as they do in the sequel, Trash, for example).

Morrisey rejects the idea of censorship, even in cultural forms he strongly disapproves of, and is happy to challenge the so-called freedoms we take for granted. Ultimately, his films are loaded with a strong sense of humanity and sympathy, even when depicting characters whose values he disagrees with. And it's perhaps his stubbornly individualistic stance that led him to be regarded as uncool among the clingers-on at the Warhol Factory back in the old days.

The best option on DVD is the box set from Tartan which also includes the loose sequels, Trash and Heat, and an audio commentary. This is an old 16mm film so don't expect to impress your friends with super-duper audio/visual quality, but is the best transfer of the film you'll probably ever see, considering the source materials. And it is at least tons better than those old VHS copies that were floating around back in the day.

THE FORBIDDEN (1973-78)

Dir: Clive Barker /UK

It's a rare thing for a filmmaker to release his or her early experimental works on video for the public to view and judge, but in the late 90s this is what Clive Barker did when he unleashed Salome and The Forbidden. But as it turned out, this pair of early films from Barker have since provided inspiration for thousands of young filmmakers to launch their own careers. Salome is a black and white treat that Barker made in the late 70s and includes some strikingly dark images, but it is The Forbidden that remains the most interesting of the pair as it addresses many of the prevalent themes and ideas that would crop up time and again in his films, novels, and paintings.

In The Forbidden Barker takes his time to present his images and takes his artistic preoccupations up a notch. The result is a twisted version of the Faust tale in which a man's sadomasochistic desires leads him to being skinned alive. The film begins with a man in a mask and the creation of a bizarre painting. A bearded man (played by Barker's friend and Hellraiser scriptwriter, Pete Atkins) looks to be locked in a kind of cell, and he gazes at the painting. The film was printed almost entirely on inverted black and white negative, and with the strange music that accompanies the film, this gives the proceedings an otherworldly edge. Pete Atkins begins putting together pieces of the puzzle which could make up a map, but it's difficult to define exactly what it is. A woman shows up and pierces Atkins with needles. Clive Barker himself then makes an appearance with his face painted silver; his penis is covered in blood and he hops around in a bizarre dance routine, probably a demonic ritual of some sort. Meanwhile, Atkins is still being mutilated by the woman, and while this is happening, more people show up to help her - these mysterious hands from another dimension begin cutting into Atkins' flesh and eventually peel back his skin, revealing the bloody figure of muscle and bone beneath the flesh (much like Frank in Hellraiser). The pieces of the puzzle are then discarded and blown away.

With The Forbidden Clive Barker demonstrates that even at an early age he had a fantastic ability to create a dark and eerie mood with only the simplest of sets and props to work with. And it's great to see him working on a project in which he had a free artistic rein which was eventually somewhat thwarted when Hollywood signed him up to make Hellraiser. Here, Barker explores his obsessions with the rituals of the macabre in his own way, with no interest in making compromises to suit his producers, no interest in financial reward or making it palatable to any 'target audience'. This is Barker at the closest he ever got to being a true film artist, Hellraiser not-withstanding. And the film remains much more dark and disturbing than anything in Barker's Books of Blood series.

It's clear to see in this little 8mm film many of the ideas Barker revisited in his later works, such as the puzzle that leads to hell, the ghouls that seem to appear from another world, another dimension (much like the Cenobites). Also, the recurring  Faustian theme of a man's complicit relationship with hell and damnation; here it is Pete Atkins who solves the puzzle because he desires to know what lurks on the other side, and desires his gruesome fate. And this idea links The Forbidden to Hellraiser, in which Frank solves the mysterious puzzle box because of his own masochistic curiosities. Also, in Candyman the curious must stare into a mirror and chant his name five times before he'll come and get you; in other words you have to be curious enough to bring hell upon yourself. Even in Barker's novels and stories he sometimes bases the entire plot on this very simple yet very frightening idea, such as the evil Shadwell in Weaveworld who dazzles his victims into submission by giving them a glimpse of something they desire in the magical lining of his jacket.

Barker admits that his early shorts were heavily influenced by Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger, but you'd never assume it if you didn't already know. In fact, The Forbidden is unlike anything I've ever seen, despite its status as being a testing ground for many themes that would help to define modern horror. Barker also reports that one potential investor actually backed out of funding The Forbidden because he couldn't understand what the director meant when he described the "sublime and wonderful unveiling of the central figure", and demanded to know exactly what is so wonderful about being skinned alive.

THE FOURTH MAN (1983)

(Orig title: De Vierde Man)

Dir: Paul Verhoeven /Holland

Alcoholic gay writer, Gerard (Joroen Krabbé), is troubled by premonitions. During a speaking engagement at a sea-side town, he finds himself so attracted to a man called Herman (Thom Hoffman) that he romances his wife as a way of getting close to him. However, the wife is a witchy minx who may be responsible for the deaths of her previous three husbands, and may have her sights set on a fourth…

‘The blueprint for Basic Instinct’. That’s the description most often bounded around by film fans when discussing Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man. Made in the early 80s in the period between the opening of the controversial Dutch shocker, Spetters, and the start of production on his first Euro/American project, Flesh & Blood, The Fourth Man found Verhoeven in his element, crafting a stylishly slick, erotic thriller which blended elements of tortured Catholicism and perverse sexuality into an exquisitely twisted cocktail of sex and death.

Based on the novel by Dutch writer Gerard Reve, of whom you’ll hear more of in the movie, The Fourth Man confounded critics who had Verhoeven down as a brash populist. Yet here he was trading on the name of one of Holland’s most respected literary figures, the celebrated artist who had both supported the film during production and later declared it to be the very best screen adaptation of any of his writings. The fact that it took less money at the box-office than Verhoeven’s previous movies mattered not a jot – this was a project that marked him out as a filmmaker worthy of serious attention, and he has never looked back. Part of the attraction of The Fourth Man is in its unrepentant ambiguity, as it follows Gerard’s seduction by the archetypal femme fatale who may or may not have murdered her previous partners.

Pre-figuring the rows which greeted Basic Instinct ten years later, Verhoeven casually throws together unashamedly contradictory gay and straight, sacred and profane images which imply – but never clarify – their humorously heavy-handed themes. The film also combines multi-sexual eroticism, strange religious imagery (including a crucified gay poster and an appearance by the Virgin Mary), Argento-inspired horror elements and gore (a memorable eye-gouging after a car crash springs to mind) and some biting black humour. Soutendijk gives a fine performance – her tightly tied-back hair and blood-red lips make her an unusual satanic seductress. Krabbé is also in fine form as the obsessive Gerard who persists in finding decency in his extraordinarily sleazy character. The film moves along as a dark fantasy, offering up several genuinely surprising plot twists and moments of shock-power.

Form a stylistic point of view, the film is seen through the eyes of action-packed cinematographer Jan De Bont, who would later lens Die Hard and direct Speed. There are movie nods too to the work of Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock and – oddly – John Landis. And, of course, there’s religious allegory aplenty, even if it does come wearing a pair of bright red swimming trunks.

In Holland, The Fourth Man was declared to be the first home-produced ‘magic-realist’ thriller, and it was also the winner of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award in 1984 for a foreign language film. Here in the UK, it remains a much talked about but still fairly little seen milestone in violent erotic cinema.

FOXY NUDES (2004)

(Orig title: Hana no Joshi Ana)

花の女子アナ ニュースキャスター・悦子

Dir: Okesawa, Hisashi /Japan

Japan’s written language consists of ideographs, which are mostly stylized pictures. And consequently, because of this, comic books – or ‘Manga’ – have never been treated to the marginalization that they have in the West, where comic books are generally looked upon as little more than a children’s art form. The huge market in Japan for Manga caters for all tastes; you can buy comic books for everything, including sports and cookery, horror and Samurai adventures, even hardcore porn of every conceivable variety; gay or straight, kinky and perverse, to the downright warped.

Alongside the Manga industry is anime; animated cartoons which are often based on Manga comics. The anime business offers up everything from big-budget international releases to throwaway video fare, and a whole range of television shows. Anime has slowly crept into Western homes since the late 80s with the release of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, a mega-hit which captured the imaginations of troubled teens across the world. The 90s saw the release of other controversial anime tales, such as Legend of The Overfiend and Ghost In The Shell, both of which helped to produce a growing cult of anime heads – or ‘Otaku’ – in the West, to the point where almost every video store in the world has its very own anime section.

Foxy Nudes is a typical hentai entry in that it contains sustained images of graphic sex. The difference here from the usual xxx anime fare, however, is that the sheer ruthlessness and cruminess of the characters marks it as somewhat more of a contentious show than usual. The film comes in two 25-minute episodes and centers on an amoral TV news reporter who is prepared to do literally anything – no matter how crude or debased – in order to secure the scoop of a lifetime and boost the all-important ratings. And when a maniac holds women hostage in a building and begins raping and knifing them in the glare of the world’s media who are gathered outside with their cameras, our anti-heroine gains access to the building by devious means, and even goes as far as encouraging the maniac to commit ever-grosser acts of violence and violation, knowing she has front-row seats to the mayhem with her trusty camera crew in tow.

I can understand the appeal of watching this stuff as a purely comedic way of showing those who think they’ve seen it all something they may find freaky and amusing; and there’s also the curiosity of the forbidden and the weird that these films possess, too. But I honestly cannot understand how there is a market for this stuff beyond the giggles that can be had from watching cartoon characters ‘get it on’ in hardcore fashion. With the inclusion of lots of sex in these hentai videos, there’s obviously an appeal to the erotic market, but do people really watch this stuff as a turn on? Does anyone really sit there with his plonker out, tugging its head off to this stuff? Do you? You’re fucking sick, aren’t you? You’re fucking weird. Why don’t you get yourself a hobby; fly a kite or play some Call of Duty or something. Don’t wank over cartoons, it’s weird. Getting caught masturbating to normal porn would be embarrassing enough, but at least it’s normal and you’d get over it eventually. But getting caught cracking one off to cartoon porn – that’s a different matter. You’d never live it down, you’d have to hang yourself immediately.

FREAKS (1932)

(aka Nature's Mistakes)

Dir: Tod Browning /USA

Freaks incited so much controversy it was banned in the UK for thirty years. The film is set in a travelling circus where trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) and strongman Hercules (Henry Victor) become lovers and are the only physically normal members of the act. The rest are all sideshow freaks; midgets and the physically deformed, including a human torso (who in real life is said to have fathered fifty children!). The story centers on Hans (Harry Earles), a dwarf who is in love with Cleopatra. She is beautiful but also cruel and mocking, and she openly laughs at him. But when she learns he has inherited wealth she begins to see him in a different light.

Hans' friends try to warn him about Cleopatra but he is too smitten with her to listen. Cleopatra and Hercules devise an evil plot - she will marry Hans, slowly poison him to death, and then make off with his fortune. At the wedding reception the freaks welcome her into the fold with chants of "We accept you. One of us, one of us." Cleopatra shrinks back in disgust, and Hercules finds it all highly amusing. She tells them she'll never be grotesque like them. She then humiliates Hans by kissing her strongman lover in front of him, and the community soon realises there is a threat in their presence.

A few weeks later and the plot to kill Hans is already in action. The freaks become increasingly suspicious when Hans falls ill, and they discover the poison plot. Meanwhile, Hercules is frustrated that he can't have his way with Cleopatra, so he turns his sights on another woman and attempts to rape her. But Phroso intervenes and wounds him with a knife. Hercules escapes to find shelter in the forest. It's nightfall and the rain beats hard. Hercules stumbles around in the mud, and the freaks pursue him relentlessly. The human torso drags his self through the mud with a knife clenched between his teeth. And when Hercules is dealt with, they return to inflict a horrible, ironic revenge on Cleopatra. As they close in around her, their chant goes up again: "One of us... one of us..."

With a running time of just over an hour and with an equally slim plot, Freaks is a genuinely startling film even today. This film will always be remembered for one thing: The casting of genuine circus freaks. At once a demented work of genius and one of the most memorable exploitation movies ever made, Freaks is a film whose horrors are absolutely real. Fake scenes of sex and blood and violence are one thing, but real genetic deformity is something else entirely. The only special effect in this film is at the end: The final shot is of Cleopatra, her whole body severed and deformed, her face mangled beyond recognition, presented as the most horrifying exhibit at the circus's next venue.

Back in the 1930s this film caused such a scandal it was removed
from cinemas and effectively ruined the career of its director, Tod Browning. Only the previous year he had introduced the horror film to the talking age with the hugely successful Dracula (1931), the Bela Lugosi classic. He had made over fifty films dating back to 1915, but after Freaks he never made another serious film. Browning had always wanted to make a movie about the sideshows at carnivals, and of course he was a 'carny' himself at one point. As a teen he ran away from home and joined a travelling circus. So on the one hand he had that personal connection with those people which perhaps explains how he managed to get them to agree to appear in the film and relax in front of the camera, and on the other, his own experience as a carny had taught him that those people weren't monsters to be hidden away, but decent people with hopes and dreams and aspirations. The problem was that the everyday movie-going public didn't have that personal connection with circus 'freaks', and they were horrified at what they saw on screen. I suppose Browning's only fault was that he took his own acceptance of those people for granted, assuming that others looking in from the outside would see them in the same way he did; as a community of decent people. Alas, he was wrong and sorely punished for it.

Freaks was made by MGM as a way of getting in on the horror boom that was started by their rivals, Universal Studios. Films like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy had made a fortune and had made stars out of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and had captured the imaginations of an entire generation (and many more to come over the decades, too). MGM decided they would hire the director of Dracula to make a film for them, hoping to ape the financial success of Universal's horror movies. But when the film was completed the studio was so shocked and horrified that it sold the movie off to independent distributers who, rather aptly, toured it around carnival tent shows under the title Nature's Mistakes (Dwain Esper, of Maniac fame, also gave it roadshows in tents and burlesque houses in America, further adding to this cult classic's notorious reputation).

Freaks shows an obvious compassion for its carny cast, imbibing the plot with vignettes about the Siamese twins' love life, how a man with no legs gets about by walking on his hands, or how a man with no legs and no arms can manage to light a cigarette. It's an oddly charming film for much of its length, showing its human oddities as innocent and childlike - such as the bearded lady, the bird girl, the hermaphrodite, the human skeleton, and the pinheads - to see how they move, how they feel, how they love. But the ending is an unforgettably nasty nightmare that, to a certain extent, seems to undermine everything else that has happened in the film up to that point, as the freaks crawl very menacingly through the mud with murder in mind, becoming the very monsters the world thinks them to be.

Nonetheless, this is a one-of-a-kind landmark in the horror genre and is still well worth seeing.

A FUCKING CRUEL NIGHTMARE (2010)

Dir: Sebastian Zeglarski /Germany

Sometimes movies are your friends. When you’re alone at home eating microwaved muck, movies keep you company and block out the badness and help to pass the time. But like all friends, the movies sometimes let you down when you need them the most.

There is nothing worse than insomnia striking when you have to be somewhere early the next morning. Every passing second spells out your failure. You feel like the world’s biggest loser, a dunce who can’t even shut his eyes and drift off properly. Time drags on and you start to panic, counting down the hours left in which you could still sleep if only you could switch off right now. You need some kind of distraction or you’ll drive yourself insane. Reading is no good; it hurts your eyes and requires thought. So you switch on the TV and stare at a screen glowing with glorified crap.

We’re supposed to be a 24 hour society, but once you reach the wee small hours there’s nothing on. BBC1 turns into News 24; the same hellish stories about war, kidnapping, economic gloom and Richard III‘s skeletal remains played over and over again on a loop. BBC2 has the Learning Zone, educational programmes for the brain when all you want to do is wind down. ITV has interactive gambling presented by a huge hungry maggot displaying all the fake pleasantries of a door-to-door salesman, or Ted Bundy using his shit-mouthed grinning charm to lure some victim into his car. ITV also has Nightscreen, a merciless assault on the eyes and ears as bland programming is advertised with the accompaniment of bland muzak. Anyone voluntarily watching it must be certifiably insane. Channels 4 and 5 are saturated with poker tournaments, supercasino, or American sports; all three will have you scooping out your own eyeballs with a spoon if you don’t change the channel within five minutes. And the billions of Sky channels are equally hopeless.

So what to do? You put on a movie. A slice of German splatter nonsense called A Fucking Cruel Nightmare which, on first glance, looks like Andrey Iskanov trying to remake Hostelon a budget of about, ooh, £2.50? This painfully slow torture porn tedium opens with a caption which reads, “This film contains loads of cruel, nasty, brutal, sick and violence scenes. Furthermore there are necrophile scenes and sick shit that you don’t need to understand at all. Therefore it should not be seen by any one of you!”

The film starts with a man wandering into a building. He sees people tied to chairs being cut up by masked ghouls in asbestos suits. He covertly witnesses much of the torture and chainsaw mutilation going on in the place. One of the monsters noshes himself off with a severed head. A blondie is restrained and has six inch nails hammered into her spine, and is then decapitated with a meat cleaver. The soundtrack consists of cheesy drum machine patterns and looped piano notes, probably programmed by a tone deaf buffoon on a Roland synth. A bloke in a seat is beaten to death with a baseball bat. Another is repeatedly stabbed in the groin and has his dick cut off. The knife-wielding maniac then bathes his face in the stream of blood gushing out from the wound. The shell-suited lunatics soon begin mutilating themselves; one rips his own finger nail off, and another inserts a sharp implement down his piss-hole.

Next up is a regulatory disemboweling (seemingly required by law in low-budget horror these days). A baby doll has its head smashed in with a hammer. Our dunderhead protagonist continues to spy on the action; instead of getting the hell out of there and contacting the police immediately, he simply journeys from room to room gazing at the mutilation and pulling earnest faces of horror and concern. More meat cleaver mayhem next when a woman is systematically butchered with said instrument. Electric drill torture, yadda yadda, head cut off, la-di-da, but no storyline yet…

A loon punches a dummy to death until ketchup explodes from its head… a girl is raped by a guy sporting a huge prosthetic boner… and meanwhile I’m losing the will to live…

A man wakes up startled in bed… and then he goes back to sleep… Wow, this really is a fucking cruel nightmare! I get it now! The man goes back to sleep, and the fucking cruel nightmare picks up where it left off… The snooper is eventually captured and has his brain pulled out of his arsehole. Ah, so that’s where he kept it… The man having the nightmare awakens once again, and he dons the asbestos suit and mask, and then he joins in on the tortures… But then something weird happens; apparently, the tables have turned, and those who were dishing out the torture for the first forty minutes of this film are now the victims, and one of them has a long nail rammed down his urethra… and his guts pulled out of his arse.

For the remaining forty minutes we watch the torturers being tortured by their victims. In one scene, one of them has large nails stabbed into each side of his skull, and then jump leads are attached to the sticky out bits, and the man’s brains are fried while the torturer laughs away at the top of his lungs. I don’t know if this is a comment on man’s capacity for evil or what, but there’s nothing in this film to suggest that the filmmakers had anything else in mind other than wanting to impress the underground horror fans with scenes of lame torture and dime store ‘special effects’. There’s no dialogue in the film either, apart from mumbling and the odd scream and agonized cry here and there.

Man has throat cut and blood drained into a bucket. Another man is then drowned in bucket of blood. A glass jar with razor blades glued onto the inside is placed over the penis of a victim, and is used to ‘masturbate’ him, causing much blood and cock-shredding… A head is literally split in two with a meat cleaver… Man has top of head lopped off with axe… Oh, when will it end? If you’re still awake at this point, you can enjoy more of the same for the next half hour or so, as there are no explanations as to why these atrocities are happening, nor who the suited ghouls are supposed to be, or what their purpose is, or why we’re expected to sit here watching this shit. Oh well, at least it cured my insomnia.

But hold on, we actually get a line of dialogue at the end! “What a fucking cruel nightmare”, a guy mumbles to himself. While clearly not a budding Tennessee Williams, writer/director Sebastian Zeglarski is hardly the next Scorsese either. For his next film he could just shoot his audience in the eyes with nail guns and have done with it. Stick to your Andrey Iskanov’s and avoid this piece of shit. Ah, sleepy times…

GUYANA: CRIME OF THE CENTURY (1979)

(aka Guyana: Cult of The Damned)

Dir: Rene Cardona Jr. /USA

Of all the destructive cults that arose out of the chaotic 60s and 70s, Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple cult were second only to Charles Manson's family in terms of creepiness. Even by today's standards, the mass suicide at Jonestown remains one of the most disturbing images of group hysteria ever to burn its way into the collective consciousness. Perhaps inevitably, the morbid fascination surrounding the event would be the springboard for many media cash-ins. Books about Jones and the cult were rushed into publication, and press coverage leeched onto the sensationalism of the event. Even a tape recording of the mass suicide and Jones's final sermon was released, and advertised for sale on the cover of The New York Times. The event was given the docu-drama makeover treatment for television in Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, and that version had an awfully safe and respectful TV movie vibe about it. But on the big screen it was a quick exploitation effort by Rene Cardona Jr. entitled Guyana: Crime of The Century, which remains one of the finest true crime exploitation movies ever made.

Cardona Jr. was no stranger to exploitation movies, he had previously written Survive (1976), the first film about the Andes plane crash survivors who were forced to cannibalize the dead passengers in their efforts to stay alive (and this was later remade as Alive in the early 90s). For Guyana, Cardona was shooting the film within four months of the tragedy, and the result is a movie that is undeniably compelling, even if it is frequently sleazy and shocking.

Based on news reports and audio tapes of Jones's sermons (including the notorious suicide tape), Cardona documents the final two years of the People's Temple, though the names of characters have been changed. Guyana starts in 1977 with 'Jim Johnson' (Stuart Whitman) leading his followers from San Francisco to a 27,000-acre compound in Guyana, Central America. He's already teetering on the edge - perpetually wearing dark shades, he is paranoid, sadistic, and constantly taking pills as he puts his followers through mass suicide rehearsals. Meanwhile, Congressman Lee O'Brien (Gene Barry) has received numerous complaints from cult members claiming that Johnson is unstable and out of control. So he organises a trip to Guyana accompanied by the media to bring back home any cult members who wish to leave. The arrival of O'Brien and the clamoring press sends Johnson over the edge as he sees their presence outside the compound as a threat, and he fears the media will discover the horrors of Johnsontown. And this sparks a series of events that head towards tragedy for all, and culminates in a re-enactment of the infamous mass suicide in which Jim orders his congregation of some nine hundred followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.

With a running time of almost two hours, Guyana boasts the same kind of morbidly fascinating atmosphere that fuelled the media frenzy in its reporting of the event. With not a shred of taste or decency or sensitivity here from the director in his handling of the material, Cardona nonetheless re-creates that awful sense of hysteria, and puts his viewers right there in the middle of the compound. Gene Barry is superb as Congressman O'Brien, whose crusading heroism is really quite touching in a way you wouldn't expect in this type of exploitation fare. However, the true star of the show is Stuart Whitman as Jim Johnson, in the greatest performance of his career. There are scenes in which he rants on at his followers at length, delivering each brimstone-drenched tirade with the fervor of an actor chuffed to have some decent material to work with. By the time the mass suicide comes along, Whitman has transformed Johnson into a nasty, demonic force of self-obsessed evil whose frightening power helps to elevate the film up and above the usual exploitation movies of the time.

No one will ever confuse this with great art - it's way too tacky and insensitive for that - but the dark subject-matter is given a solid treatment with a grim tabloid style and some fantastic performances. There is actually another version of Guyana floating around, an American version called Guyana: Cult of The Damned. This version was assembled by Universal and was cut down to 90 minutes and given an added narration by a surviving member of the cult, a character who never actually appears on screen. Many believe it to be the superior version but is still unavailable on DVD, and is extremely difficult to find. Missing from this version is the opening scene of a man blowing his brains out in front of a mirror. Interestingly, Cult of The Damned received an R-rating in America but includes the scene of a little boy being punished for stealing by having electric shocks to his genitals. And that same scene is cut from the DVD version of Guyana: Crime of The Century.

HANA-BI (1997)

(Fireworks)

Dir: Takeshi Kitano /Japan

Hard-as-nails detective Nishi ('Beat' Takeshi Kitano) is at the end of his tether; sick and tired of chasing gangsters and other crims, saddened by the death of his colleague in a stakeout, the terminal illness of his wife, and the haunted despair of his good friend Horibe (Ren Osugi), who has been paralyzed by a nasty yakuza, and as a result has been abandoned by his family and unable to get back to work.

Nishi tries to avert his friend's impending suicide by gifting him a box of art supplies and encourages Horibe to paint. As his friend begins experimenting with colourful and bizarre pictures of exploding fireworks and animals with flower heads, Nishi plans an elaborate bank robbery so that he can take his dying wife on one last sentimental journey.

The legendary Takeshi Kitano began work on this profoundly personal summation on love, violence, and death just before his near-fatal motorcycle accident. Revisiting similar themes he had explored previously in such classics as Violent Cop and Sonatine, Hana-Bi is a strange mixture of death fixation and life affirmation which makes it just as moving as it is disturbing.

Not only did Kitano write, direct, and edit the film, he also cast himself as Nishi in the lead role, the cop with a short-fuse who is just as much capable of ramming chopsticks into someone's eye as he is of returning a kind favour. Kitano's face still bore the brunt of the accident, with the scars and the brain damage and his slight facial twitches, making his performance not only courageous but also fascinatingly explosive. In addition, the scenes with Nishi and his dying wife are incredibly heartfelt, in stark contrast to the meticulous planning of the robbery and his own hardline morality.

The disjointed structure of the film effectively conveys Nishi's confusion as he struggles to handle his wife's impending death and the despair of his paralyzed friend Horibe, who was just doing his job of trying to protect a society who don't rely deserve it. Extreme violence is contrasted with scenes of uneasy serenity, which reflects

Nishi's sadness, and ultimately his own brutal death which will soon be visited upon him.

Takeshi Kitano (who acts under his stage name 'Beat' Takeshi, from his early days as being one half of a comedy duo) looks like a typical movie tough guy with his sleek suit, cool sunglasses, and his superbly calm way of kickin' arse whilst barely moving a muscle. However, the guns and the posing conceals an abyss of existential despair, and rather than lightening the mood, the film's strange interludes and moments of silly humour only make it worse and more haunting.

The paintings seen throughout the film at the bank and the hospital, and those of Horibe's of the bizarre floral-animals, were all created by Kitano himself who took up painting after the crash as a form of self-therapy. And his artworks give the viewers an extra insight into his psychological state as he set out on his second chance at life. The resulting film is a fable on the healing power of art and the endurance of bittersweet bonds of loyalty, love, and loss, all wrapped up in a hard-boiled cop movie.

HARD BOILED (1992)

Dir: John Woo /Hong Kong

Hard Boiled is a classic piece of Hong Kong action from John Woo. If you like lots and lots of guns and action then you're in for two hours of head-cracking entertainment as we discover that it's okay for today's modern man to be left holding the baby and a pump-action shotgun.

John Woo's final film before embarking for Hollywood is a typically kinetic calling card, high on style and energy. Once again, Chow Yun-Fat takes the lead playing Tequila, a hard-nosed Hong Kong cop intent on bringing down the arms dealing mobster, Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong), who killed his partner. After his boss takes him off the case, Tequila decides to carry on his investigation unofficially, forging links with Tony, an undercover cop who has infiltrated the gang posing as a hitman who must kill to maintain his cover. To get near the target, Tequila must blur the line between good and evil, gaining support from friends who endanger themselves to keep Tony's secret, and unite to fight against Wong as he holds an entire hospital hostage.

Trivia fans will have a bonanza with Woo's bullet ballet which spent 100,000 rounds of ammunition during filming, culminating in a body count of a record 300 (far higher than its nearest rival, Die Hard 2). Yun-Fat's character was named as a tribute to Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, in which a character downs a bottle of tequila prior to the infamous bloodbath ending, while the title is a pun on the Cantonese translation of Dirty Harry, another film which provides inspiration here. Woo trimmed his original version after the crew complained about the amount of explosives he envisaged - he later requested only 25% of that total after seeing sense. From there on the production appears to have run smoothly, with the same crew offering to work without pay when money was running low on a key sequence.

Hard Boiled played in UK theaters in the early 90s where its catalogue of carnage earned it the title of 'The most violent film in the history of cinema', and unsurprisingly, the British censors weren't entirely impressed, cutting out three seconds from the cinema release and a further two from video. Although interestingly, the cuts focused on human interaction like chops to the throat and knees to the chest rather than the excessive gunplay of which there is so much. But censor's quibbles aside, Hard Boiled
was a resounding hit with audiences, giving Woo a platform to launch him to a string of English-speaking blockbusters like Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission Impossible 2, in which glossy Hollywood heroes got to blow each other away in eye-popping style.

All well and good, but for some film fans Woo's best work was done before going to Hollywood in his films up to, and including, Hard Boiled. Born in mainland China in 1948, John Woo started making movies in the 70s, turning out martial arts romps like The Young Dragons and The Dragon Tamers, and even helping out Jackie Chan's career with a co-starring role in Hand of Death. But it was in the 80s when he teamed up with Chow Yun-Fat to produce the internationally acclaimed gangster epic, A Better Tomorrow, that Woo's talent first started to be recognised in the West. Subsequent fare like Bullet In The Head and Return To a Better Tomorrow further raised his profile, with British-based company Palace Pictures picking up The Killer for distribution in the UK. But it was Hard Boiled which finally secured his reputation as the most exciting director in town, with one critic declaring "John Woo is God!", and notaries like Quentin Tarantino shouting that Hollywood should sign him up immediately. Something Universal Pictures did with Hard Target. And the rest is history.

As for Chow Yun-Fat, he subsequently went on to explore a softer side of his personality in Hollywood hits like Anna and The King, which proved that there's much more to him than gun-toting machismo. Indeed, as Hard Boiled's ironically sardonic DVD cover shows Chow cradling a baby in one arm and a shotgun in the other, this demonstrates the key to the success of his on-screen persona; it's that strange balance between sensitive vulnerability and ice-cool implacability. He may be hard boiled on the outside but, like Woo, there's a tenderness underneath, even if you do have to run through a hail of bullets to get there.

HARD CANDY (2005)

Dir: David Slate /USA

The human race has always been great at inventing tools which conceal some unforeseen consequences. For instance, when man invented the wheel, we had no way of knowing we were also laying the foundations for 2 Fast 2 Furious and the like. Did our ancestors pause to consider the impact that a prolonged exposure to Paul Walker might have on future generations? Of course not, but then people from history didn’t give a fuck about anything, did they? With their discoveries of tobacco and non-degradable plastics, and putting planes in the sky which seemed like a really good idea at the time until crazy people decided to do a kamikaze stunt into the World Trade Centre.

Like the wheel, social media is another invention that is now showing its dark side. And as Jean Baudrillard noted, everything nice and positive in our lives comes with its own “shadowy other”. Honestly, if you knew what you were doing, you could get yourself murdered within 24 hours by doing nothing but using Facebook and Twitter. You don’t even have to venture outdoors. Just sitting at home methodically typing the most grotesque and inflammatory comments you can think of should do the trick, and ending each post with a link to Google Maps which shows your exact location. Start in the morning over breakfast, and, provided you’ve been offensive enough, a homicidal mob should be kicking your door down and cutting your head off by lunch. It’d be a kind of euthanasia service provided by the public. And this almost happened in real life; a teenager posted a list of sick jokes on Facebook about a recent child murder. Before he had even logged out, a 50-strong lynch mob had turned up on his doorstep. The kid was arrested for his own safety.

It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Even when you know the dangers of the internet and social media, it can make you shudder to think about. So just imagine how uneasy you’d feel watching a young girl get friendly with a ‘boy’ online, only to disappear after she secretly heads out to meet him… This idea of the internet as a predatory stalking ground forms the basis of David Slate’s film, Hard Candy, but here our supposed ‘victim’ turns out to be the biggest monster of all.

Hard Candy is about a teenage girl, Hayley (Ellen Page of An American Crime), who likes to surf the net and explore internet dating sites. The film opens with an instant message chat between Hayley – who is 14 - and a much older guy named Jeff (Patrick Wilson), who is a 32 year old photographer. Jeff and Hayley plan to meet up later that day, but their meeting turns into an unexpected nightmare of events. An intense psychological drama ensues…

This isn’t a case of the young innocent victim turning the tables on a would-be internet predator, Hayley is shown to be pretty deviant from the get-go. She entraps him deliberately as a way of seeking vengeance for other girls who have been the victims of paedophiles. She has no personal connection to Jeff, nothing to make her motivations seem more plausible. But she targets him and tortures him all the same. Once at Jeff’s house, she finds incriminating child porn. And even though she has him tied to a chair at her mercy, she doesn’t think to call the police and let state justice deal with him; where would the movie be in that? No, instead she plays a game of extreme psychological torture which also involves a very nasty surgical procedure. Throughout the film we learn very little about Hayley; her character just seems to serve as a hollow mouth-piece for director Slate to express his own ideas on the subject. And as such, there is nothing tangible there to justify her actions. She doesn’t hesitate in inflicting her punishments on Jeff, and this leaves us with the impression that she is a demented sociopath; how can anyone possibly cheer her on in those ugly circumstances?

While clearly a detestable character, Jeff nonetheless comes off as almost sympathetic due to Hayley’s monstrousness, and this is perhaps the biggest flaw in the film. Director Slate was so preoccupied with venting his opinions and justice on the paedophile that he completely overlooks the fact that Hayley is even more detestable than Jeff! Paedophiles deserve all they get, but sociopaths are no better, in my book. Hayley is aware of the fact that her young age will go a long way to excusing her actions in the eyes of the law. She wants to teach Jeff a brutal lesson in responsibility, and yet she never addresses her own actions along those lines. I’m sorry, but 14 year olds know the difference between right and wrong. 9 and 10 year olds know the difference between right and wrong, unless they’re sociopaths, which Hayley clearly is.

So, to sum up: If you want to see a paedophile go to hell, then you’ll probably enjoy this. But if you’re looking for a more realistic approach of a paedophile going to hell, then Hard Candy will be very disappointing.

HARDGORE (1974)

(aka Horrorwhore, aka Sadoasylum)

Dir: Michael Hugo /USA

A young nymphomaniac who suffers from hallucinations is put into a rehab centre, but little does she know that the proprietor is the leader of a Satanic cult who indulge in murderous afterhour orgies(!) Well, it's certainly unique!

I first reviewed this film in my book, Beyond The Darkness: Cult, Horror and Extreme Cinema (and I know we’re in the middle of a recession and people are struggling to buy groceries, nevermind books and whatnot… But fuck groceries, buy my book and eat dried birdshit instead, you cheapskate cunts). Anyway, my opinion hasn’t changed since the first time I saw it. I still didn’t get a hardon once throughout the film, I’m proud to say. And anyone who can maintain even a semi-on during any point of this film is exactly the kind of abnormal psychopath who shouldn’t be allowed to own a penis in the first place. If it has any plus points, one of the most appealing aspects of this film – aside from it being absolutely nuts – is that it was made back in the 70s when women had real bodies and real breasts, not those huge, immovable wax testicles that are sewn onto ribcages and passed off as ‘breasts’ and are all the rage nowadays.

Running around an hour in length, Hardgore is one of the more well-known horror/porn hybrids of American exploitation of the 70s. None of the actors are very attractive, the soundtrack, though pretty decent in places, has the annoying habit of recycling the same old tune until your ears feel like they're gonna pop. The sex scenes are all rather bland and unimaginative, and the horror sequences are few and far between. The Satanic 'orgies' are almost completely static with very little of interest going on (except for the scene where a woman is guillotined the moment her partner reaches orgasm; that was pretty cool, definitely the highlight of the film for me). The hallucinations are silly and mostly quite laughable (dildos on strings spurting semen?), the leader of the cult wears a red Satanic mask and robe and puts on a deep booming voice which is also unintentionally hilarious ("Nirvana!!!"). The girl does get some revenge at the end in the form of an axe rampage, but even this is quite dull and over before it really starts.

HATED: GG ALLIN AND THE MURDER JUNKIES (1994)

Dir: Todd Phillips /USA

The sneering nihilism and excesses of the punk rock movement has led to it being hijacked by talentless bozos in spikes and leather. For many, being a punk is the perfect excuse to act like a total jeb end. Case in point: GG Allin. This documentary on one of the most infamous of all death rock icons has very little to offer the viewers beyond the sordid spectacle of Allin’s on-stage antics. He was simply a one-trick-pony with no substance to him, apart from the arse-paste substance he would fling at his audience. The film stands as a downbeat and depressing look at an army of misguided souls, with the director documenting everything along the way. Beyond the fact that this film ultimately reveals just how boring and pathetic Allin really was, perhaps the most surprising aspect is that director Todd Phillips went on to forge a career in Hollywood, bombarding his audience with such rancid cinematic bowel movements as Road Trip and Starsky And Hutch.

Allin had just been released from prison after serving a three year stretch for assaulting a woman at one of his shows. Apparently, he deemed it acceptable to stub out a cigarette on her head before throwing her across a table. Quite early on, it’s clear to see that Allin was worn-out and troubled; one of the main focal points of his act was violence, against both his audience and his self. And this served as nothing more than a crushing treadmill offering zero progress. It’s ironic that GG posed no menace to anyone beyond his little group of fans, a fact he seemed completely oblivious about when he insisted in interviews that society was afraid of him.

After an interview segment with GG’s guitarist brother, Merle (who sports a Hitler ‘tache and claims to have psychic links with the Lunachicks), and Dino the naked drummer, we cut to footage of a
naked Allin running through a crowd, punching people in the face indiscriminately with reckless abandon. There is also footage of GG from 1988 giving a speech in a tiny hall. Back then, he had long, straggly hair, a bushy beard, and his face was partly concealed by the silly hat he wore. Remember the scene in Nick Broomfield’s documentary, Aileen – Life and Death of a Serial Killer, in which Aileen Wuornos went on a rant before she was executed, her eyes bulging with psychotic rage? Well, the 1988 footage shows Allin in a similar intense mood. He reads from a newspaper article which ridiculed him for saying he would commit suicide in October 1990. Someone in the audience shouts “Why don’t you kill yourself sooner?” Allin replies, “Why don’t I kill myself sooner? Because it would please you too much, you fucking cunt.” He then invites the heckler on stage to say it to his face. Moments later, a crazy-eyed she-beast approaches him and repeats her question. So, GG drags her by the hair and rams her head into the wall. Two men come to her rescue, and one of them punches Allin in the face while the other helps the woman and then boots him in the ribs. GG simply gets back up and continues with his speech like nothing has happened.

The documentary was filmed before and during the Murder Junkies’ 1991 American tour, in which three shows were filmed and appeared on the video, GG Allin – Raw, Brutal, Rough And Bloody. Todd Phillips arranged for the band to play at a university in New York before the tour commenced. The show went ahead in front of an audience who seemingly had no idea who GG Allin was, or what was in store for them. Appearing on stage alone, GG shoves a banana up his arse, poops it back out, chews it up, and spits it at the crowd. Half the audience finds it amusing, and the other half head swiftly for the nearest exit. Those who stick around are ordered to undress, but none do. This lack of obedience angers GG, and he shows this by heading for the audience. Most rise to their feet and rush for the exit, and GG throws a chair at them as they scarper.

It’s this kind of thing that makes Allin so fascinating for many; the fact that he completely obliterated the safety-line between the audience and performer. He wasn’t some Messiah of death rock, but a genuinely psychotic wild man who didn’t hesitate to endanger those who attended his shows – He would assault and abuse both himself and the crowd with equal abandon (at one point, he is seen repeatedly smashing himself in the face with a microphone, and breaking his teeth in the process). When people talk about GG Allin, the one thing that is rarely mentioned is the music itself. And once you hear the godawful racket of tracks like ‘Anal Cunt’ and ‘Bite It You Scum’, it’s easy to understand why. Make no mistake, even among the most hardcore, sneering punk fanatics, those songs aren’t going to win any prizes. This music is the auditory equivalent of having nitric acid poured in your ears. In fact, the only prize Allin could be honoured with is the award for ‘The Man With The World’s Smallest Nob’. Honestly, for a man who would shed his clothes at the drop of a hat, you would expect him to be packing something more substantial than the shy molecule that jiggled between his legs. Even a newborn baby boy could point and laugh at him. Indeed, Allin’s shriveled member seems to have its own personality, and both Allin and his penis look to be equally resentful of each other, as if they’re in some kind of battle to see who can undermine the other the most.

Footage is included of Allin being interviewed on TV by Geraldo Rivera, and this scene perfectly encapsulates the depths to which television would sink over the next couple of decades. Both men exude utter inanities; both profess a freak show schtick from opposing ends of the bullshit spectrum, only Allin is a tad more honest about it. Geraldo, with his faux-moral concern, had fooled millions of Americans into believing he was a socially-conscious do-gooder. But, by having people like GG on his show, this proves by default that such things as ‘family values’ and ‘human decency’ were the least of his concerns, so long as there was some freak show money to be made. Allin, in turn, uses his televised platform to indulge in his usual redundant shock tactics from within his rock ‘n’ roll bubble. Geraldo was bad enough in the early 90s, but nowadays we have reached the age of ‘The Jeremy Kyle Show’, a daily yelping festival for the sorriest bunch of slum-dwelling riff-raff to air their shitty laundry to an audience of self-important, foghorning smugsters. It’s the most depressing show on earth, and leaves me feeling empty and hateful of mankind. While Geraldo would merrily patronize his audience, and they in turn would lap it up (much like Trisha in the UK), Jeremy Kyle acts like a one-man good cop/bad cop in the way he bullies and then comforts his victims. Just look at his eyes: When he’s fired up, his glazz balls emit a piercing, psychotic charge, and his voice shifts gear into self-righteous overload, like how you’d imagine a loon to look while shooting up a school, or the aforementioned Aileen Wuornos barking away in a furious, whiny monotone. I’m convinced the guy is genuinely bonkers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I switched on the TV one morning to find him slapping some inarticulate chav around the chops with his cock. Family values? Human decency? Oh Jeremy, who are you trying to kid? As for the audience, they’re equally insincere and mentally ill. And their whoops of delight as mentally-challenged families fall apart on stage strikes me as truly sinister. In a perfect world, GG Allin would still be alive, and someone would have the human decency to brick up the exits on that show and allow the Murder Junkies to perform at deafening volume. None could escape as each and every one of them, including Jeremy himself, would be disemboweled, and GG would squat over them like a bedraggled demon and spray diarrhea in their mouths. And Dino the naked drummer would watch on in admiration. That would be a show worth watching. And it’s the only time that Allin has ever been a hero in my dreams. But I digress again.

In the book, Cult Rapture, Allin was interviewed by Adam Parfrey just days before the kamikaze icon succumbed to a fatal heroin overdose. When asked the inevitable question, “When are you finally going to kill yourself?” Allin replied, “The biggest question that everyone keeps asking me is about the suicide thing. For me right now to say I’m going to commit suicide is just way too premature because there’s too many battles and it seems like there’s too many people who want me to do it now, so as long as I’ve got to battle and to fight, and as long as I got some enemies, I gotta keep going to fuck these people up. To end it now is what the government would want and what society would want, and as long as I can be that dagger in their back and as long as I can be the enemy of the people then I’ve got to stay alive.”

Such a pitiful answer. GG Allin was unknown to about 99% of Americans at the height of his powers, and that’s a generous estimate. He was never a threat to the government or the fabric of society. His enemies amounted to those whom he punched in the face or flung shit at, or stole drugs from. If Allin genuinely thought of himself as a national threat, then not only was he even less intelligent than many assumed, but he also lacked the self-awareness needed to be truly subversive. As Parfrey puts it, “[Allin] was simply too much of a fuck-up to achieve mythic status.”

HELLRAISER (1987)

Dir: Clive Barker /UK

If you enter your local sci-fi and fantasy bookstore you'll encounter a whole range of models and memorabilia relating to horror heroes, past and present. You'll find Scream capes, Leatherface flesh masks, Freddy Krueger gloves, Jason's hockey mask. And if you're lucky, you might even come across a legendary rare Linda Blair pepper pot. But the most beautiful artifact you're likely to find is a mould of Pinhead, the nail-faced Cenobite anti-hero of Hellraiser, whose spikey visage became the defining, iconic image of the new wave of British horror.

Frank, a sexual adventurer in search of new carnal pleasures, purchases a mysterious puzzle box while visiting an unnamed Third World country. Back home in England, he opens the box to discover that he has unlocked the door to hell. Frank is pulled into another dimension, whose dwellers, known as Cenobites, push him over the fine line between pleasure and pain by ripping him apart with fish hooks. Years later, Frank's brother Larry moves his family into the house - to which, through some blood spilled on the attic floor, Frank returns in near-skeletal form. With the help of sister in law Julia - with whom he once had an affair - Frank begins sucking the life out of human bodies in order to regenerate to his old form. Meanwhile, Larry's daughter from a previous marriage, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), begins to suspect her hated stepmother Julia of having an affair, and to her horror becomes involved with Frank, the puzzle box, and the Cenobites.

Elegantly portrayed by Doug Bradley, who lends a snarling Elvis lip-curl to this face from beyond the grave, Pinhead was the coolest and weirdest screen monster of the 80s; the being for whom pain was power, and whose orgasmic wounds and physical defacements were not signs of submissiveness, but of wicked strength. Echoing the piercings and scarifications of the modern day primitives who were just starting to become 'hip' at the time, Pinhead was the creation of Clive Barker (with a little help from special FX legend, Bob Keen), the painter turned playwrite, novelist, and filmmaker, whose efforts to re-define the meaning of monstrosity led Stephen King to comment "I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker."

Barker's path to stardom started back in the 70s when, as a student at Liverpool University, he teamed up with Pete Atkins and Doug Bradley, with whom he shared an interest in the macabre. Initially, Barker had explored his sacred obsession through theatre and graphic design, but inspired by the low-budget endeavors of filmmakers like Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger, they decided to try their hand at 8mm art, producing two short films, Salome and The Forbidden. The Forbidden is the black and white short in which many of the skin-flailing, sadomasochistic pleasures of Barker's big screen horror hit were first road-tested. Crucially, in both Hellraiser and The Forbidden, the apparently horrendous tortures inflicted upon the flesh are seen as transformations rather than degradations - Births not deaths.

Barker eventually moved to London and quickly established himself in theatre, where his love for everything bizarre and fantastical found an outlet in such works as Frankenstein In Love, The History of The Devil, and the wonderfully titled The Secret Life of Cartoons. He also expanded on his dark visions in short stories, and soon became one of Britain's foremost horror writers with such classics as ‘The Damnation Game’ and the ‘Books of Blood’ series. One of his early short stories, Rawhead Rex, and a screenplay, Transmutations, were made into films (Barker penned both screenplays), and he was so disappointed with the end results that he vowed to get back into the director's seat himself. And in 1987 he did just that, adapting his own novella, ‘The Hellbound Heart’, for the big screen under the title Hellraiser.

At the time, the horror genre was dominated by American slasher movie franchises, and international audiences were totally unprepared for the cinematic onslaught that was Hellraiser. Was this a revitalisation of the British horror film? An open love letter to S&M sex? Or an attack on the unexpected success of the Rubik's Cube? It was all of this and more. Here was a mainstream movie that dared to link sensuality with fear, a film whose villains were also victims, and who were described by Pinhead as "demons to some, angels to others."

From Nosferatu, Dracula, and Frankenstein, to Leatherface and Michael Myers, the image of the horror film has always been one that thrives on icon-status. The Munch-inspired Scream mask is another example. And yet, for a genre that boasts thousands of titles, these key images are difficult to find - notice the countless horror movies out there in which the monster inspires nothing more than casual interest (like the screen version of Rawhead Rex, for example). The whole point of designing a screen monster is to come up with something we have never seen before, otherwise what's the point? The best monsters positively revel in their own unlikeliness: that's why low-budget curios like The Deadly Spawn and Godmonster of Indian Flats work so well. Monster movies should be like beauty contests in reverse; the stranger and uglier the better. And with the Cenobites - Pinhead in particular - Clive Barker understood this perfectly and succeeded in creating a unique horror anti-hero.

"They're like sadomasochists from beyond the grave," Barker once said of the Cenobites. Barker even joked that he originally wanted to call the film 'Sadomasochists From Beyond The Grave'. In the sequels Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Hellraiser III we learn that Pinhead was Captain Eliot Spenser, a First World War veteran who had discovered the puzzle box, known as the Lament Configuration, and found his own gateway into hell. By exploring Pinhead in his human form, Barker made him more accessible to the audience, and used the old 'war is hell' metaphor in its most literal extreme.

In the original script, the foremost monster was simply referred to as 'Lead Cenobite'; only after the film's release did the name Pinhead attach itself to the character created by actor Doug Bradley, in reference to the mass of nails that symmetrically encased his head. Pinhead is the voice of the Cenobites, an emissary from hell whose sonorous delivery of lines such as "We'll tear your soul apart" ensured that the threat posed by the Lament Configuration was as real and intense as Barker could make it. "The box. You opened it, we came", Pinhead states succinctly. Most of their contemporaries in 80s horror films conformed to traditional monster-templates, but the Cenobites were the products of a new age of freedom in the arts. Not only was the gore quotient increased, but Barker explored another taboo to the full: sexual perversion.

The slasher sub-genre had always allied sex with death as a prurient excuse to show some naked flesh, but Hellraiser had much more than a hint of sex; it positively reeked of it. The Cenobites' conjoining of pleasure and pain raises disturbing implications that intensify the horror and open doors into the soul that few other films dared to attempt, at least until the advent of 'torture porn' and movies like Lars Von Trier's Antichrist came along. The masochist's kit-bag of leather, rubber, chains, and assorted implements of pleasure and pain have become almost familiar accoutrements in certain types of horror movies nowadays, but in the late 80s, the unfamiliar sight of such sexual extremes was both quite shocking and disturbing.

"I think what the monsters in movies have to say for themselves is every bit as interesting as what the human beings have to say," Barker once stated. "That's why in stalk 'n' slash films I feel that half the story is missing. These creatures simply become, in a very boring way, abstractions of evil. Evil is never abstracted. I want to hear the Devil speak. I like the idea that a point of view can be made by the dark side." Hellraiser is the type of film that lets the Devil speak, a full-on screen shocker in which the almost willfully boring teenage heroes are utterly overshadowed by the twisted monsters. From the skinless body of Frank, to the tooth-chattering torments of Pinhead's Cenobite accomplices, and the sensually earthly corruptions of Julia, who serves up human sacrifices to feed her all-consuming lust, Hellraiser is a true landmark of modern horror.

HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II (1988)

Dir: Tony Randal /UK/USA

Focusing on before and after Clive Barker turned modern horror on its head, following the rip-roaring success of Hellraiser, which had given the world a new horror hero in the form of Pinhead, a sequel (or sequels) was pretty much inevitable.

Having served as both writer and director on his ground-breaking original, Clive Barker decided to take more of a backseat for this second installment, Hellbound. Serving as executive producer and general overlooking eye, and handing over directorial duties to stateside helmer, Tony Randal, and entrusting the script chores to his long-time cohort, Pete Atkins (who was previously skinned alive in The Forbidden). If Hellbound was something less than an artistic triumph, you could lay the blame at the feet of Mr.Randal, who - with the best will in the world - just didn't have a big enough budget to do justice to the ambitious and grandiose script. And although he was clearly more technically proficient than Barker, Randal lacked that chaotic spark of inexperience which ironically made the original a more unruly delight. But having said that, I've probably seen this film more times than I've seen the original; it's so re-watchable.

Picking up where the original left off, Hellbound starts with Kirsty waking up in a psychiatric ward where see is questioned by a detective. The head of the hospital, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), a man who keeps the most disturbed patients locked up in cells below the hospital basement, just so happens to be obsessed with the puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, and its mysteries. His office resembles a museum of hell, and is decorated with magazine clippings and macabre photographs. He already owns three scale replicas of the boxes which he keeps in glass displays on his desk. With the help of a hospital porter, Kirsty manages to escape after receiving a message, allegedly from her father Larry who is in hell, and she gets back to the puzzle box and gains access to hell by evading the Cenobites once more.

Hellbound is much more epic and grand in scale than its predecessor but tends to lack the claustrophobic terror which helped make the original such a classic. Which is not to say that Hellbound doesn't contain its fair share of twisted pleasures; the graphic birth of Pinhead sequence, for example, is a ghoulish, head-hammering treat which no Hellraiser fan would want to miss, nor the transformation of mild-mannered Dr. Channard from a wretched human to a beautiful monster, courtesy of some ectoplasmic cheese wire and a brain-hoovering umbilical cord which matches the visual brilliance of anything in part one. Plus, we get to see what Julia looks like naked. And by naked, I mean without the skin. Unmissable indeed.

Intriguing too is the fact that, of all the Hellraiser movies (including part four which was disowned by its director), Hellbound had the most trouble with censors on both sides of the Atlantic. Released in America were both rated and unrated versions. Hellbound was only ever okayed in the UK in its slightly cut form, with the VHS version losing a few seconds from the film's most notorious scene in which a disturbed psychiatric patient sets about razoring his flesh to ribbons as he imagines maggots crawling over his skin. The British censors also removed the sight of bare breasts, which were clearly far more dangerous and offensive than the sight of a man having nails hammered into his head! That you will get to see thanks to the continuing genius of Bob Keen and his Image Animation makeup effects.

There's more of Christopher Young's majestic score which echoes around the labyrinth of hell with all the pomp and circumstance of Lucifer unbound. All of which leaves more than enough encouragement for you to join Pinhead on his return journey to hell.

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH (1992)

Dir: Anthony Hickox /USA/Canada

"Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of heaven." So says Pinhead, or more accurately, the dark side of Pinhead in this much underrated third installment in the Hellraiser saga. Subtitled 'Hell On Earth', Hellraiser III completes the series' strange turn across the Atlantic, centering on a singly American nightclub whose sleaze-bag owner unknowingly unlocks the gateway to the other side while a TV news reporter investigates the puzzle box phenomenon. Pinhead soon appears with a new band of Cenobites, including Mr. CD Head and the Lensman ("Are you ready for your close-up?"), and pretty soon we see a bunch of clubbers get offed in brutal fashion.

Alongside the present-day action which is clearly designed to entice a new teenage audience, writer Pete Atkins and director Anthony Hickox also serve up a smattering of historic backstory in which Doug Bradley has the chance to explore his lighter side in his pre-Pinhead incarnation as Eliot. Here for the first time, Hellraiser fans get to see the gallant soldier, who sold his soul to the Devil in 1920s India to give in to his desires to experience all the pleasures and pains of the flesh to which war had inured him. This marriage of acceptable teen trashiness and slightly more mature movie myth-making is the key to the success of Hellraiser III, allowing it to be loved by those who enjoyed the subtextual themes of Barker's original, and those who just want to see a goth nightclub go to hell.

One of the best scenes in the film finds Pinhead performing the blackest of black masses in the suitably desecrated surroundings of a church. The fact that a mainstream horror movie with undeniable teen-appeal could deliver such a blasphemous blow, is one of the true pleasures of Hell On Earth. Unlike Hellbound before it and Bloodline after it, Hickox's vision successfully straddles the two worlds of horror fandom, uniting young guns and old flames in a festival of destructive fun. There's also a smattering of knowing cameos for the hardcore horror fanatics to look out for, including Pete Atkins reprising the skin-ripping antics of The Forbidden; here he plays the bartender who has his face graphically re-arranged with barbed wire.

Hellraiser III doesn't deliver quite the same lasting lovebite as the first two in the series, but what it does do is inflict as much damage as possible from within the limited aesthetic of the pop video promo, from which it takes its visual cues. And that is something to be celebrated indeed.

A poor critical reception did not stop the series from marching on with Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1995), which sent the franchise into the past and the future for an interesting tale which explored the origins of the puzzle box from the perspective of the year 2127. Part four was the last in the series to make it to the big screen. Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), Hellraiser: Deader (2005), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005), and Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) all went straight to DVD and serve as nothing more than morality tales in which Pinhead makes an occasional guest appearance to keep viewers awake. At the time of writing, the long-anticipated remake of Hellraiser still hasn't been made.

HIDDEN (2005)

(Orig title: Cache)

Dir: Michael Haneke /Austria

With a disturbing idea taken from Lynch's Lost Highway in which a creep records a sleeping couple in their bed on video and then sends them the tapes in an envelope (a similar idea also cropped up in Thomas Harris' novel, ‘Red Dragon’), Cache spins an entire two hour running time based on that single idea, and cranks up the suspense to unnerving levels... Middle class couple Georges and Anne (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) receive a video cassette on their doorstep that shows the front of their house under a two hour surveillance. The next day a similar tape appears, and family members are sent bizarre, child-like drawings of faces puking blood. As the surveillance continues to intrude on their private lives, it puts a heavy strain on the couple, and the father tries to discover who is responsible for the sinister cassettes. Mystery, paranoia, and accusations follow... Although the stalker doesn't get as close to the family as in Lynch's seminal classic, this film nonetheless has much to say on the price of the bourgeois idyll, hidden guilt, and innate prejudice; and it also works as a slow-burning thriller in its own right. With fine performances from Auteuil and Binoche, Cache was one of the most intriguing and disturbing films at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)

Dir: Alexandre Aja /USA

The Carters, a nice suburban family consisting of mum and dad, son and daughters, son-in-law, baby granddaughter and a pair of pet dogs, are heading to San Diego through the Nevada desert in a camper van. Their vacation plans are dashed, however, when they break down in territory a marauding group of psychotic cannibals whose genes have mutated due to radiation caused by atomic bomb tests in the area.

This remake of Wes Craven’s 70s shocker even takes the original tagline (‘The lucky ones died first’) along with the desert setting and a similar bunch of characters. But, as we came to expect from the remake mania of the 00s, specific details of the plot and the overall shape and vibe of the original have been drastically altered, offering up an hour and three quarters of familiar yet alien scenarios. The monsters of Craven’s original were an evil – if sometimes leering – menace, in sharp contrast to Craven’s later villains like Freddy Krueger and Ghostface, each of whom were much more pantomime-ish. And it’s no coincidence that the films from which those ghouls came - A Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream – were both very successful at the box-office. The success of The Hills Have Eyes, for a long time, was limited to the American drive-ins (as was Craven’s earlier film which depicted a ‘family’ of savage monsters, The Last House On The Left), a place where the more realistic and disturbing type of horror movies were condemned to dwell, far away from the glare of the mainstream and its love of making R-rated comic villains out of archetypal boogeymen.

Many horror movies explore the darkness and claustrophobia of confined spaces (the old dark house in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for example) but here, French director Alexandre Aja replicates Craven’s original by setting the action within the wide-open desert spaces of Nevada, where the camper van sits stranded like a speck of dust in a vast and dangerous landscape. The expanse of rock and sand spreading out in all directions as far as the eye can see soon becomes tainted with an eerie menace as strange noises are heard by the stranded family, and their dog disappears. The father, Big Bob (Ted Levine), is the first to fall victim to the savages as he is later discovered tied to a tree and being burned alive. It then falls into the lap of Doug (Aaron Stanford), the son-in-la, to take on the role of the patriarch and defend his family through whatever means necessary. Indeed, while the original Hills offered a cautious take on revenge, this remake revels in it as a god-given right. Big Bob is a no-nonsense, pro-gun Republican, whereas Doug is more of a liberal in favour of gun-control. In an earlier scene, Big Bob is seen making fun of Doug because of his fears and lack of knowledge about firearms. But once the chips are down, Doug becomes an all-out killing machine capable of the most extreme violence possible in order to ensure the survival of him and his baby (much like David in Straw Dogs who is goaded out of his mild-mannered shell by a group of yokels who attack his home – and Aja’s film even visually quotes Straw Dogs with Doug’s broken glasses lens).

This drastic turn in politics from the original to this remake may not seem to be very significant, but if you consider the fact Wes Craven produced the film – he also wrote and directed the original and is a progressive liberal – his backseat role nonetheless gave this movie his stamp of approval. Thus, accordingly, Wes Craven doesn’t seem so liberal-minded when it comes to cashing-in on conservatives masturbating their gun-loving peckers all over his original films. Fancy that.

But this drastic turn from a cautious exploration of violence to a conservative wank fantasy is hardly surprising in the post-9/11 world where multiplex cinemas stand like garbled molochs that dominate the cultural skylines of the Western world, ready to swallow whole anything that deviates from the beaten track of mindless conformity. And that’s why Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of The Dead (2004) – perhaps the finest of all the 00s remakes – was always destined to ultimately fail, because Hollywood knew damn well that it couldn’t update George Romero’s satire on mindless consumerism without shooting itself in the foot in the process. And instead, the filmmakers chose to re-mold that film into a gung-ho shoot ‘em up, and the closest we get to irony and satire is ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ played as elevator muzak. Like Snyder’s Dawn, the remake of The Hills Have Eyes is designed to satiate the multiplex crowd, and anything even remotely challenging or subversive had to be ‘weeded out’ before Hollywood could give it the seal of approval.

All this hectoring probably sounds like I disliked Hills, but that’s not so. I enjoyed it for what it is. Whereas Craven’s original was inspired by Sawney Beane and his highland cannibal clan, Aja’s take seems to head more in the direction of the genetic mutation angle, with the monsters here looking twice as deformed and grotesque as Pluto and Jupiter and co from the ’77 version. The patriarch of the mutants (dubbed ‘Big Brain’) is especially ugly with a large growth protruding from the back of his head which makes him almost completely immobile, and this looks to have been influenced by the shape-shifting creature in Chris Cunningham’s insane video, Rubber Johnny, which has a similar mis-shaped noggin.

But the centerpiece of Aja’s film is the mutant’s attack on the Carter’s camper van. It’s a gruelling, 15-minute ordeal which begins with the burning of Big Bob and proceeds through a string of cruelty and sexual degradation before two of the characters are shot dead. The sequence plays out in a similar way as the original, but Aja manages to up the ante by increasing the tension and the graphic violence. And this extended sequence not only put the film within the new wave of so-called ‘torture porn’ (which was becoming increasingly mainstream with the likes of Saw and Hostel), but it also got the film in trouble with the American censors. The MPAA threatened to give The Hills Have Eyes the dreaded NC-17 rating, the box-office ‘kiss of death’, until the studio agreed to cut several shots of excessive nastiness (the cuts were later reinstated on the ‘Extended Cut’ DVD release).

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)

Dir: Alejandro Jodorowsky / Mexico/ USA

Dazzling. Demented. Disturbing. Deranged. These words have been bounded around for years as a way of describing Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean artist, mystic, and filmmaker who generally shows up on the scene every decade or so to make a movie and then disappears again. He first made a splash with El Topo, the first ever ‘midnight movie’, in which he also cast himself in the lead role as the leather-clad gunfighter on a mystical tour through the desert lands. The phenomenal success of El Topo allowed him to make a follow-up film which would be bigger, badder and more epic, thanks to former Beatles manager, Allen Klein, giving him a generous budget to go off and capture his vision in ambitious, Cinemascope style. The result is a mind-blowing feast for the eyes and the brain, a hallucinogenic smorgasbord of religion and weirdness and dazzling imagery.

A bearded man awakens from a coma and wanders into a town populated with freaks and crazies – We see flowers growing through stigmata wounds; skinned rabbits are crucified and carried through the streets by an army wearing gas masks; birds take flight from human bullet wounds; a man plucks out his glass eye and hands it to a young girl; a chimpanzee accompanies a group of prostitutes to church; peasant women are raped by soldiers for the amusement of tourists; costumed frogs re-enact the bloody Spanish invasion of South America. The bearded man soon finds himself being used as a body mould for the production of hundreds of life-sized plaster casts of Christ. And when he ventures back out into the streets, he ascends a mysterious tower with the aid of a golden hook which is dangled from the top.

Once inside the tower, the bearded man meets the White Master.

And after a fight – which he loses – the bearded man has a blue octopus removed from a lump on the back of his neck. Soon after, the pair have amassed a group of thieves, each one representing a particular evil of modern society; Venus is a stud of the cosmetics industry who uses mechanical devices to animate dead bodies so that they can do things like kiss their loved ones goodbye at funerals, or a dead Bishop can give himself his own last rites; Mars is a woman who creates weapons of mass destruction; wealthy ‘artiste’ Jupiter has his quirky artworks mass-produced on an assembly line; Saturn is a government official whose job it is to brainwash children into extreme xenophobia; Uranus is the President’s financial advisor, and he orders mass genocide to save the crippled economy; Neptune is the chief of police who castrates criminals and preserves their testicles in jars; and finally, Pluto, a crude architect who devises a budget housing scheme whereby all the homes in the land resemble upright coffins. The White Master’s plan is to scale the Holy Mountain and steal the secrets of the wise men. However, his band of thieves must first learn wisdom by shaving their heads and burning all their money…

Allen Klein and Jodorowsky had their differences which eventually became all-out hostility, and Klein did all he could to have the film banished by refusing to release it in America, a place where most of the film’s profits would have been generated. To make matters worse, John Lennon stopped speaking to Alejandro (they had become friends after El Topo’s theatrical run in New York) when the Village Voice published an article claiming that he had criticized John and Yoko’s artworks. Nevertheless, The Holy Mountain was successful across the rest of the globe, especially in Italy where it became the second highest grossing film of the year behind the Bond caper, Live And Let Die (with that film’s classic theme tune provided by another ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney).

In the UK, the British censors employed an optical ‘fogging’ on the castration, and gave the film an X rating for its 1974 cinema release. All subsequent releases on VHS and DVD are fully uncut and unfogged.

The ending of the film is magnificent; the audience has spent two hours following the characters on their journey, and we’ve become the White Master’s disciples just like the followers in the film. We’ve seen the beauty and the chaos, and we’ve been led to believe that the ending will grant us some kind of knowledge, some wisdom. We’ve reached the point where we’re expecting magic to happen before our eyes. However, at this point Jodorowsky simply ‘pulls the plug’ and breaks the fourth wall by addressing the viewers and banishing the whole idea of magic. It reminded me of the ending to Mario Bava’s original cut of Black Sabbath where Boris Karloff is seen riding a horse in the dark, with the camera pulling back to reveal that he is actually stationary on a prop horse with a wind machine blowing in his face on a busy movie set. But the finale here is much more powerful.

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1969)

Dir: Leonard Kastle /USA

Bad tempered, overweight nurse, Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) lives at home with her overbearing mother. Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), is a Spanish immigrant and a slimy fanny rat who rips off lonely, middle-aged women of their life savings. The pair meet when Martha decides to join a lonely hearts club at the prompting of her friend Bunny (Doris Roberts, who later showed up in the American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond). Raymond (another one whom everybody seems to love) answers her letters and worms his way into her life. After spending the night with her he steals her cash and bails. However, when Martha discovers how Ray makes his living, she contacts him and arrives at his apartment with mother in tow. She doesn't care how he fucks people over for a living, she is in love and desperately needs him.

At the suggestion of Ray, Martha agrees to put her mother into a nursing home, and the pair hit the road together, swindling more women with Martha posing as his sister. Ray promises to never sleep with any of their victims, and this seems to reassure Martha at first, but her jealousy simmers under the surface. Her jealous rage soon enough boils over, and she crosses the line into murder. And before long, Ray joins in the killing spree, strangling the victims and looting their homes for anything of value.

Sticking fairly close to the real life case in the 1940s on which it is based (in real life, Martha actually dumped her kids to be with Ray, not her mother), this sole directorial outing for opera composer Leonard Kastle is right up there with Charles Laughton's The Night of The Hunter and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man in the 'one-off wonder' horror classics. The blunt monochrome imagery, music cues by Gustav Mahler, and powerful performances from the two leads, combine to produce a filmic experience which remains just as raw and visceral today as it must have been to audiences back in the late 60s when it was first released. Actress Stoler, in her debut performance, embodies the role of the vicious Martha with ease, and went on to appear in bit-parts as lesbian prison guards, and also landed herself roles in The Deerhunter and Seven Beauties. Lo Bianco as Ray matches her all the way, and he went on to bigger projects like The French Connection, God Told Me To, and Nixon. The rest of the cast members aren't so good. In fact, if they were any more wooden they'd give you splinters.

Director Kastle admirably refuses to romanticise the brutally cold-blooded criminals at the heart of this film. The result could be read as an anti-Bonnie And Clyde as it deglamorizes the murders after years of movies that portrayed outlaws as 'cool' and sympathetic. Kastle also adds subtle visual tricks without overdoing things. He allows the incredible story to tell itself with very little in the way of fanfare or sensationalism. The scene where Ray and Martha murder an old woman is presented in a cold, detached manner, with the camera poised on the crime like a fly on the wall. "I need a drink" Ray deadpans after strangling her. Indeed, it's this kind of blunt, no-nonsense imagery and down-at-earth realism which has influenced many other filmmakers over the years, such as John Waters and John McNaughton, whose Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer is especially indebted to Kastle's minor classic.

The Honeymoon Killers was originally set to be directed by Martin Scorsese, but he walked off the set due to 'artistic differences' after shooting only a small amount of footage. Kastle was then enlisted to the helm, and he re-wrote the script and stuck to the docu-drama style that Scorsese had initially established. Most of Scorsese's scenes made it into the final cut.

Perhaps people were more trusting of strangers in the 1940s, but even so, the scams Ray and Martha pull off on these women defies belief. If the film wasn't based on a true story, you'd call bullshit when one of the marks hands over $10,000 in cash to a stranger like Ray, who looks like a greased-back porno gigolo, and not a very trustworthy one at that (Ray also fought on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War, and this adds immensely to his overall crumminess as a human being). Lonely or not, it's difficult to feel sympathy for many of these women when they are so blindly gullible.

The couple manages to pass themselves off as brother and sister, and this is also hard to swallow - she's an overweight, explosively jealous Grotbags, and he's a slimy Casanova wannabe with a thick Spanish accent. As blood siblings, they're slightly less convincing than Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins. And as a couple, they're about as compatible as shit and strawberry shortcake.

Both Martha and Ray were executed by electric chair at the cheerfully named Sing Sing Prison in 1951. Ray had to be carried to 'Old Sparky' because he was terrified, whereas Martha stubbornly denied doing any wrong, insisting theirs was a love story, and stomped her way to the hot seat without a care. She was too big for the seat, and a team of guards had to wedge her in. Her brains cooked up nicely though.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) (2011)

Dir: Tom Six /Holland/UK/ USA

A creepy little security officer rents a derelict warehouse and creates a 12-man human centipede as a way of feeding his morbid obsession with the original Human Centipede film.

While the tagline for the original film was “100% medically accurate”, this sequel sheds all such technical authenticity by assuring us that this time we’re dealing with a movie that is “100% medically inaccurate.” If I had to describe this movie in one word, it would be ‘ugly’. Shot on lurid black and white digital video, the story unfolds in ugly industrial surroundings, with a cast of ugly, unpleasant characters acting out some very ugly scenarios. David Lynch’s Eraserhead had a similar black and white industrial feel (not to mention sparse dialogue), but that film looks like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel compared to this. This time around, it’s all very bleak, but writer/director Tom Six manages to convey an ultra-black humour throughout.

This sequel is much more violent and bloody than the original, especially the scene where the human monster, Martin (Lawrence Harvey), smashes his mother’s head in with a crowbar. Martin randomly picks his candidates from the assortment of late night clubbers and perverts who frequent the underground car park where he works as a nocturnal security guard. His victims include a heavy-set skinhead, a pregnant woman and also Ashlynn Yennie, the actress who played ‘Jenny’ in the first film. Here she plays herself as an actress lured to the warehouse by Martin under the pretense of a film audition for Quentin Tarantino. The humour is apparent when Martin begins work on his centipede – Beyond watching the DVD on a continuous loop, and collecting images and cut-outs in a scrapbook, he doesn’t have a clue how to put his centipede together; one of his test subjects bleeds to death when he sets about carving away at the buttock, severing an artery. And unlike Dr. Heiter in part one, Martin doesn’t use anesthetic or stitches to join his humans together, he simply beats them unconscious with his trusty crowbar and uses an industrial-sized stapler to attach their unfortunate gobholes onto unfortunate bumholes, as you do. Disgusting, isn’t it? I mean, what if they didn’t wipe properly? But therein lies the humour, you joyless fucking oafs.

Indeed, many viewers completely missed the twisted humour of part one, and that reaction was only exacerbated by this sequel. It’s one of those ‘like it or loathe it’ movies; you either get it or you don’t. I’ve watched it with friends, with people whom I thought had a sense of humour to match the bleak setting, but often found myself having to explain what I was laughing at, and this made me feel like an absolute bastard. ‘Oh god’, I thought, ‘maybe I’m just a sick fuck’. But no, THIS MOVIE IS FUCKING FUNNY, and bollocks to the lot of you. In fact, the Human Centipede movies are a good way to gauge the humour of people; it’s the ultimate litmus test of your sense of humour. Simply put, if you find it funny you’re awesome, and if not, then you’re an absolute pissdrip. And if you’re reading this and you belong in the latter camp, then I hope the ink from the pages rubs off on your fingers and slowly poisons you to death. And if you’re reading this on a Kindle or other device, I hope the screen shatters and sends red hot shards of plastic right into your stupid, joyless eyes, cunts.

Anyway, during the procedure, Martin is made to feel uncomfortable by Ashlynn’s constant screaming, so he graphically removes her tongue with a pair of pliers. And shortly after, the real fun begins when he injects his subjects with a strong, instant laxative, which causes their bowels to erupt and sends scorching hot diarrhea directly into the mouths of those behind them whose faces are attached to their anal ducts. After this ordeal, when the whole experiment collapses due to the humans resisting the progress of science (the spoilsports), Martin panics and begins killing off his subjects. The pregnant woman, whom Martin thought was dead, awakens in the corner of the warehouse, and runs outside screaming in labor. She locks herself into a car and gives birth. However, as she slams her foot down on the accelerator to make her getaway, the poor baby’s head is crushed under the pedal.

The film also makes fun of psychoanalysis, with the doctor character clearly modeled on Freud, and passed off as a deranged pervert who doesn’t really have a clue what he is doing. Or perhaps Dr. Sebring was Tom Six’s way of poking fun at scholars and ‘serious’ critics who often use psychoanalytical methods for deciphering film. Or more accurately, he is accusing them of using whatever means necessary to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion. For example, when the maniac’s mother informs the doctor that her son has created a scrapbook on The Human Centipede, Sebring immediately responds by pointing out the “phallic nature” of the centipede, and how it is a symbol of aggressive sexuality (an accusation leveled at both the first film and this sequel). But Sebring’s knee-jerk reaction to the mother’s anxieties serves as nothing more than the doctor’s attempts to make the situation worse so that he can continue to prescribe the medication that will allow him to sexually abuse her son, Martin. Overall, Sebring’s character looks to be Six’s way of questioning the ulterior motives of scholars, and showing his distrust of the analytical process. Interestingly, the British censors initially banned Human Centipede 2 because the board members interpreted the film as “the object of the protagonist’s depraved sexual fantasy”, proving that just because a filmmaker can foresee the unfavourable reaction to his movie, doesn’t make it any less susceptible to an outright dismissal.

Just like the previous film, director Tom Six continues with the self-reflexive swipes at the horror genre in this sequel. As with Scream 2, The Human Centipede 2 playfully examines the effects that horror movies can supposedly have on their audiences. But while Scream 2 served as little more than a platform for slasher fans to feel good about themselves (and for Wes Craven to act twice as smug as a man who has discovered he can fellate himself), here Tom Six manages to imbibe some interesting points throughout the film, such as: Why do horror fans love horror movies? Are we sick? Are films like The Human Centipede capable of harming their audiences and society as a whole? Ironically, the British censors certainly thought so for a while, refusing to grant it a certificate. Other self-referential bits to look out for are the shrieking and abusive mother whose mistreatment of her son over the years leads to madness and murder, as seen in previous horror classics such as Psycho and Maniac (and also the lesser-known Don’t Go In The House, reviewed in this book). In addition, the fact that Martin seems to embody every cliché that forms the stereotypical vision of the deranged killer – he was sexually abused by his father as a child, tormented by his unstable mother, is a loner, a social misfit who bottles up his anger and resentments, is sexually perverted (masturbating with sandpaper?), an ugly nightmarish archetypal monster – he even looks like a cross between John Wayne Gacy and Dennis Nilsen.

Like many killers in the movies (and in real life), Martin is just as tragically sad and damaged as he is ruthlessly single-minded. He may be a quiet and slovenly little man, but what makes him a frightening character is his steely determination – Nothing is going to stop him from acting out his dark desire to create a human centipede.

In October 2011, the BBFC relented on their decision and granted the film an 18 certificate after cutting 2 minutes and 37 seconds of footage including the shots of Martin masturbating with sandpaper wrapped around his cock; the sight of a man's teeth being knocked out with a hammer; graphic shots of lips being stapled to anal crevices; the aforementioned sight of liquid defecation into and around other victims' mouths; Martin with barbed wire wrapped around his genitals violently raping a woman; a newborn baby being killed; and the graphic shots of injuries as staples are torn away from individuals' mouths and bums.

Ironically, it was the film’s stance as a self-reflexive swipe at the whole ‘torture porn’ movement of recent years, and the belief that screen violence leads to real life violence, that seems to have gotten the film into trouble with the censors. In an interview for an internet podcast, former head of the BBFC, Andreas Whittam Smith, openly admitted that the link between real and screen violence was hazy and ultimately unprovable. “Nobody’s ever shown the link,” he conceded. “The best research I ever saw took young offenders, showed them violent videos and so on. About six months later, they re-interviewed [the young offenders] and they tended to remember scenes - the graphic scenes - better than a control group of ordinary people. And that suggests that it does have some effect but it's very hard to make that, bring that up to the level required for um, a court of law, where actions had to be beyond all possible doubt.”

Of the BBFC’s initial ban, one of the chief examiners, Craig Lapper said, “If a film goes that far in terms of satirising extreme violence, there’s always the risk it will fall into the same trap as the material it’s attempting to satirise. I’m afraid that’s what we felt had happened with HC2…

“It seemed to us that the film could be read in a variety of ways, as many films can be. However, we also felt the film went to such extremes that it breached the classification guidelines and posed a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk of harm to potential viewers within the terms of the Video Recordings Act 1984, and may have been in breach of the Obscene Publications Acts 1959 and 1964.”

Of course, Tom Six disagreed, “It has a lot of black humour in it, and [the BBFC’s statement] says it was about sexual obsession by the main character, and I think that’s not true. It’s not a sexual film. Of course there are elements in it, but that’s not what the story is about, and everybody was thinking it’s about this sex crazed maniac or something. I’m very glad if people see the film now, they see a whole different film than the BBFC gave in their report.”

As early as August 2011, Six was already at work on a third and final part of the trilogy, to be titled The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence). Six has announced that the film will again be very different from the previous parts but will also start with the ending of part 2, so that the three segments of the trilogy will form one continuous four and a half hour film, making it similar to a centipede. He also promised that the third film will answer some "lasting questions," and will be the last of the series as he does not want to do any more Human Centipede films. In an interview with DreadCentral.com, Six said the third film will "make the last one look like a Disney film. We're going to shoot the third film entirely in America, and it's going to be my favorite... It's going to upset a lot of people."

ICHI THE KILLER (2001)

(Orig title:殺し屋１ Koroshiya Ichi)

Dir: Takashi Miike /Japan

A man cuts out his own tongue with a Samurai sword. A severed face slides down a wall. A man is split in half down the middle like a human Damien Hirst artwork. The title is imprinted on the surface of a glob of semen. Does Takashi Miike have your attention yet?

The above are just some of the sights that await viewers of Miike’s extremely violent Ichi The Killer, which, after being held under close scrutiny at the BBFC office for more than a year, was finally granted an 18 certificate after being shorn of around three minutes and forty-five seconds of sexualized violence. On its original release in Japan, and at festival screenings across the world, there had been untold rumours of mass walkouts, mass queasiness and fainting and vomiting – the latter pleasing the director because smell is one of the factors he cannot control in his films.

The plot of Ichi The Killer centres on Jijii (Shinya Tsukamoto), a man who orchestrates atrocities in order to pit rival yakuza gangs against each other. In this he is aided by Ichi (Nao Omori), a mentally-tortured and gullible young man who also happens to be capable of extreme violence when goaded into committing increasingly deadly acts. Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), one of the heavies of the Anjo gang, is a sado-masochist obsessed with finding the mysterious Ichi so that he can experience the ultimate in masochistic ecstasy.

Banned in Norway, Germany and Malaysia, Ichi The Killer is quite typical for a Japanese film in that the acting is especially good. Tadanobu Asano is excellent as Kakihara. His performance is at once coolly charismatic and terrifying in equal measure, he does a fine job of making the role his own. Nao Omori is also in great form as the title character. The way he expresses a tormented, child-like vulnerability is off-set by his merciless and sadistic side and is incredible to watch. Alien Sun is sexy as hell as Karen (she also makes an appearance on the DVD commentary along with ‘Hong Kong film expert’ Bey Logan who basically spends the whole time trying to get into her panties – and failing miserably). The fact that Karen is the only character who is aware of Ichi's troubled past makes her perhaps the only character audiences can fully empathise with. Shinya Tsukamoto – director of cult classics like the Tetsuo movies, Tokyo Fist and A Snake Of June - is also very good as Jijii. This conniving character is gradually exposed throughout the film, and Tsukamoto is very convincing in his portrayal of what turns out to be quite a complex character. Throughout almost the entire running time, Jijii wears a thick jacket and looks like a shabby weakling. However, at the end of the movie he removes the jacket and – thanks to the magic of CGI – he suddenly has the shiny, bronzed physique of a bodybuilder; he has muscles on top of muscles and crudely resembles a chocolate-flavoured condom stuffed with monkey nuts.

This film contains some of the most shocking imagery ever to be seen in a fictional film, and includes some very disturbing characters that won't be forgotten in a hurry. It’s always a courageous move when a filmmaker attempts to adapt a manga because manga often have aspects within them that are notoriously difficult to translate onto the screen in live-action cinema. Miike makes the transition possible and also succeeds in keeping the streak of black humour intact, too, making for a much-lauded, never-equalled masterpiece of extreme cinema which seems destined to be remembered as one of the most controversial - and unforgettable -  films ever made.

Even in Japan, with its liberal acceptance of graphic sex and violence, Miike’s taboo-breaking films are considered somewhat extreme (and incidentally, Japan happens to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world). Shinjuku Triad Society(1995) wasn’t the first film to depict bloody beatings and anal rape, and a gruesome throat stabbing with a broken bottle in the neck, but these acts – and more – are perpetrated by the cops. Just imagine what the bad guys get up to. Dead Or Alive (1999) shows a naked woman falling from a tower block, a prostitute being beaten by a cop, more anal rape and arterial spray, bad guys shooting up a nightclub with uzis, and a ten-metre line of cocaine is snorted by one man in one go. These aren’t the highlights; just the opening sequence! Ichi’s story of two sadistic killers on a bloody rampage, adapted from Hideo Yamamoto’s cult manga, was actually completed in 2001; the uber-prolific Miike had time to direct a further ten movies in the year it took for the BBFC to decide Ichi’s fate in the UK. Still showing no signs of slowing down in recent years, at the turn of the century ‘prolific’ hardly began to describe his phenomenal output at that time. In a career spanning 23 years, his film tally hovers very close to the 100 mark. At the time of Ichi’s release a decade ago, he had already passed the 50 mark. For argument’s sake, his current output amounts to more movies than the combined works of Sam Peckinpah (with 16), David Cronenberg (25), Wes Craven (30), and Abel Ferrara (23). Churning out four films per year is not uncommon for Miike, a speedy output achieved by a careful mix of guerilla shooting, multi-tasking and a refusal to get mired in the technical difficulties of filmmaking. He prefers to shoot on 16mm, but he’s not averse to shooting on DV if time and budget limitations requires it (as he did to stunning effect in his black comedy, Visitor Q – a disturbing tale of a family succumbing to incest and necrophilia – which he had completed shooting in just seven days on a budget of less than £50,000). “Sometimes, even though it looks cheap,” he said at the time, “it’s still effective. An imperfect movie is more interesting.”

After he graduated from the prestigious Yokohama Academy Of Broadcasting And Film, Miike began work as a second unit director on Shohei Imamura’s Zegen (1987). In the early 90s he progressed to directing, and offered his services as a director-for-hire, churning out distinctly wacky films for the Japanese ‘V-cinema’ market – a kind of straight-to-video production industry that nonetheless holds none of the stigma that they do in the West, and is a vital outlet for young filmmakers, providing them with invaluable training. Shinjuku Triad Society was his breakthrough hit in the mid-90s, and proved to be a major turning point, earning a huge profit from video sales and – ironically – a Best New Director nomination at The Director’s Guild Of Japan. The success of STS allowed him to direct two ‘sequels,’ Rainy Dog and Ley Lines, which would form the ‘Black Society Trilogy.’

Audition was his first hit in the West, and included extended scenes of torture and graphic amputations with a wire saw. After its notorious screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Miike became a media favourite and cause célèbre of the event, with distributers queuing up to make deals and release his films.

As for Ichi The Killer, it has been submitted to the BBFC no fewer than five times since 2002, and has had the same cuts imposed on it each time. In a statement, they explained, “The BBFC has required 11 cuts (approximately three and a quarter minutes of screen time) to the Japanese cinema film Ichi the Killer. The cuts have been made to remove extreme sexualised violence. These are the most substantial cuts required by the BBFC to an 18 rated film since 1994.

“The Board's main concern is with content which is likely to promote harmful activity. The Board's Guidelines constrain, in particular, depictions which eroticise or appear to endorse sexual violence. Of specific concern are sexual images in a violent context which are designed to titillate. The Guidelines take account of academic research which indicates that violence when mixed with explicit sexual images (women forcibly stripped, shots which linger on naked breasts or genitalia during rape or assault) may produce a harmful response in some viewers.

“The scenes cut from Ichi the Killer include naked women being sexually mutilated or beaten or killed. They contain images of erotically explicit violence which have never been passed by the BBFC at any classification level.

The 2010 Tokyo Shock release is uncut.

IMPRINT (2005)

Dir: Takashi Miike /USA/Canada/Japan

An American (Billy Drago) arrives on a strange Japanese island sometime in the mid to late 19th Century. He is looking for a woman called Kimomo, a prostitute with whom he once had a brief relationship. His search at the geisha house proves fruitless, but there is a mysterious girl who sits at the back of the room in the shadows. Could that be her? The woman in question turns out to be a disfigured prostitute who claims she knew Kimomo. She tells him that Kimomo hung herself because she couldn’t wait any longer for the man she loved. Angry at himself, the American demands to know how it happened, so she tells him the story: The older whores were jealous of the young and beautiful Kimomo, and when a ring disappeared one day, she was immediately held to blame. The prostitute tells the tale, but is she telling the truth?

In 2002, director Mick Garris invited some of the most eminent figures of the horror genre to an informal dinner party at a restaurant in California. The ten directors in attendance were John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, Guillermo Del Toro, Garris, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, John Landis and Bill Malone. The event proved fruitful; there was much alcohol and humour and admiration for each other’s work. At the opposite table there was a birthday party going on, and after much back and forth banter between the tables, at the end of the night, Guillermo Del Toro walked across and told the girl in question that “the masters of horror wish you a happy birthday.” The name stuck, and more dinner parties were held. These gatherings became an ongoing thing with such luminaries as the great Dario Argento, Eli Roth, David Cronenberg, Rob Zombie, Bryan Singer, William Lustig, Lucky McKee, Ernest Dickerson, Kat O’ Shea, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, James Gunn, Mary Lambert, Tom Holland, Peter Medak, Ti West, Lloyd Kaufman and of course, Takashi Miike.

Three years later, Mick Garris produced an original anthology television series called ‘Masters of Horror’. The series comprised of thirteen one hour movies, written and directed by many of the ‘Masters’ who attended the parties. The first series was originally broadcast in America on the Showtime cable network. Some of the episodes were even released theatrically overseas. The series debuted to excellent reviews in the US on the 28th of October, 2005 with the premiere episode, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, co-written and directed by Phantasm’s Don Coscarelli. New episodes were aired every Friday at 10pm EST throughout the series' two seasons. Memorable episodes include Jenifer by Dario Argento, Cigarette Burns by John Carpenter, and Fair Haired Child by William Malone. And while those broadcasts passed without any problems, episode 13 proved to be much more problematic than the rest.

Directed by the infamous Takashi Miike, Imprint was originally scheduled to premiere on the 27th of January, 2006 as the last episode of the series, but was shelved by Showtime due to concerns over its content. Mick Garris described the episode as "the most disturbing film I've ever seen". Indeed, with its graphic scenes of horrendous torture, incest, aborted foetuses, bloody violence and a twin sister found in the most unusual of places, it wasn’t the kind of thing that could be passed off as Sunday night family entertainment. To this day, Imprint has never been broadcast on US television (though it did play on the UK cable channel, Bravo, in April 2006), but is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Anchor Bay, along with the rest of the episodes in the first season.

Imprint is often overlooked in Miike’s filmography, perhaps because it was made for TV. But in terms of its twisted storyline and explicit horrors on show, this disturbing little movie easily ranks alongside his full-length shockers like Audition and Ichi The Killer. It has a quiet menace about it which is sustained throughout the entire episode, and it would have been fascinating to gauge people’s reactions to it, had it been broadcast in its original form at the time. By far the most fucked-up entry in both series’ of Masters Of Horror, it’s amazing to think that this little item was given the green light for production; what were they thinking? But credit to Mick Garris for giving Miike the opportunity to ahead and make it on his own warped terms.

I NEVER LEFT THE WHITE ROOM (2000/2007)

(aka My Crepitus)

Dir: Michael Todd Schneider /USA

Jeffery, a psychiatric patient, has disturbing visions, and his psychiatrist follows him in a hallucinatory sorjourn to hell.

Lucifer Valentine meets Fred Vogel in this experimental, shot on video montage, which seems designed to drive its viewers insane. I never saw the original cut, but this is the re-edit version that was released in 2007. Included are images of suicide, disturbing video effects, repetitive scenes, and all kinds of bizarre and nonsensical weirdness. And, as a result, it can only be recommended to fans of Valentine’s and Vogel’s work. Striking scenes include a sequence where a demon fucks a dead woman’s corpse while constantly dribbling blood from each side of its head. We also get strange sound clips and filter effects as part of the collage of disturbing imagery. And in amongst all this is the thinnest of plots which centres on a schizophrenic patient who takes his own life and finds himself in hell (but did he really kill himself, or is he simply going through his own emotional hell? After all, the title is I Never Left The White Room, implying that all the chaos is happening internally in the troubled mind of the main character). For me personally, the most impressive sequences are the ones shot using weird, colour-saturated video set in strange industrial surroundings, reminiscent of that Joy Division video for Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Director Schneider spent seven years working on this film (he also plays the lead role of Jeffery), and it shows. It is almost perfectly edited, and runs as smooth as a direct to video release could possibly look, with jump cuts, slo-mo, fast-mo, backward bits; it has been carefully pieced together in an obsessive and meticulous way. The scene set on the bridge is my fave; it encapsulates everything I liked about the film in one go – the strangeness, the menace, the mystery, the colour bleaching and nods to the Joy Division video (which the band filmed themselves).

On first glance it looks like a jumble of crude clips and demonic imagery, but soon settles into a craftily made concoction of evil psychedelia.

INLAND EMPIRE (2006)

Dir: David Lynch /USA /France

With Inland Empire, David Lynch embraced the freedom of shooting on digital video, meaning he could shoot it on his own terms with no producers or studio interference, not to mention the fact that celluloid is so damn expensive. And if you thought Lost Highway was a confusing tale, then wait till you get a load of this three hour sojourn into weirdness, as it makes Lost Highway seem like a crystal clear exercise in narrative development in comparison.

Inland Empire appears to launch its viewers into a parallel universe as though they're on some kind of collective salvia trip. You enter the theatre on Friday, and when you leave you have no idea what day it is. Much of it was improvised and ad-libbed on camera; large sections of the script were hastily jotted down just moments before the scenes were shot. Some parts look to have been borrowed from the David Lynch website (www.davidlynch.com) where he had created a strange sitcom with actors dressed as rabbits having existential crises complete with a subdued atmosphere and canned laughter. And if you think that is bizarre, I haven't even started on the plot yet.

The 'plot', if you can call it such, follows the journey of Nikki (Laura Dern), a Hollywood actress past her prime who accepts a role in a film which she thinks will be a steamy drama about adultery. The film, 'On High In Blue Tomorrows', will be directed by Kingsley (Jeremy Ions), but before shooting begins Nikki is visited by a strange woman at her home (played by another Lynch regular, Grace Zabriskie) who informs her that the film is not a love story but actually a murder mystery. It is then discovered that the film will be a remake of an unfinished Polish movie which was abandoned because everyone involved with it died mysterious deaths. The unfinished film was also based on a legend about a gypsy curse in which everyone involved in that came to a fatal demise, too. During rehearsals, Nikki and her co-star discover a 'darkness' behind the scenes which she goes into. And about three hours later she emerges - or maybe she doesn't - on Hollywood Blvd... but it might not even be her anymore.

In Lost Highway, Bill Pullman's character, Fred, discovers a 'darkness' in the corner of his room, and he steps into it and becomes somebody else. In Inland Empire, Laura steps into her darkness and seems to become several other characters, and this only makes things even more puzzling for the audience. Added to the confusion are the various asides which seem to have no connection whatsoever to the plot, including the prostitute who sits in a hotel room watching the rabbit sitcom with canned laughter, and the usual Lynchian preoccupations like the strange industrial noises and a haunting drone on the soundtrack which sounds similar to the suspended chord in Henry-Portait of a Serial Killer which plays over the shots of Henry's dead victims. The themes of identity and doppelgangers crops up again here as with previous Lynch movies, with a mystery concerning who Nikki really is; is she a Hollywood Blvd hooker or an actress from the unfinished Polish film, or none of the above? Or is she possessed by the same demon that appeared to control Laura Palmer in Fire Walk With Me?

When Inland Empire was released into theatres, the audience was split between those who ran with it and those who were annoyed by its nonsensical, dream-logic style. But of course, this was nothing new for Lynch whose debut feature, Eraserhead - made thirty years earlier - provoked similar responses. There were those who approached the film like it was a David Lynch Greatest Hits record and enjoyed the familiar surreal motifs, and those who sat there completely befuddled, thinking 'I can't take this anymore. Who are these people? Why are they doing that? Where is this movie going? What's this rabbit shit all about? Who's the woman in the hotel room? Why does none of it make sense?' etc. Of course, there are those who think Lynch's films are deliberately obscure, and Inland Empire will do nothing to change that. I mean, there's a scene where a one-legged woman walks around with a monkey on her shoulder; just an odd little moment that seems to be there for the hell of it. And also the dance troupe in the hotel room gyrating to Nina Simone and doing the locomotion; bizarre interludes contributing to a film which seems to exist in another dimension.

But despite all the confusion, Inland Empire is a film created without compromise. Lynch directed it on his own terms with no studio bigwigs there to stick their noses in and demanding that there be shoot-outs, car chases and exploding helicopters inserted into the script every ten pages. And while this artistic liberty is no doubt a great thing, it also makes the film almost exclusively of interest for hardcore Lynch freaks only. It has nothing there to entice newcomers who are unfamiliar with his work. And as such, even the handful of rave reviews written around the time of its release had absolutely no effect on box-office receipts. However, for those who are unfamiliar with Lynch and his films but enjoy a good scare, you should check out Inland Empire if only for the skin-crawling scene where Nikki tries to dispatch her sinister double only to watch in horror as its face smudges across the screen with a creepy smile.

INNOCENCE OF MUSLIMS (2012)

Dir:  Sam Bacile (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) /USA

Hands down the most controversial ‘film’ of 2012, Innocence of Muslims is a fourteen-minute anti-Islamic movie trailer that was uploaded onto YouTube in July 2012 under several different titles, including The Real Life of Muhammad, Innocence of Bin Laden, and Muhammad Movie Trailer. The uploads were almost identical in content and seemed to be made purely to antagonize Muslims worldwide. And it worked. The clips caused violent outrage and protests across the Middle East and North Africa, and led to seventy-five deaths and hundreds injured. Everyone involved in the making of the video has been issued with a Fatwa, even though most of the cast and crew had no idea of the true nature of the project, and Pakistani Minister, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, has pledged a bounty on the death of writer/director/producer Nakoula.

When the controversy was first broadcast on the news in September 2012, most of us assumed the video was some kind of American-made documentary on Islam which was causing all the problems (the actual title of the video was never mentioned on TV news, presumably because broadcasters didn’t want to be seen as fanning the flames in any way). However, a quick Google search of Nakoula brought up the video in question, and the curious were free to see for themselves what all the fuss was about. Disappointingly, Innocence of Muslims wasn’t some professionally-made production, but a zero-budget, homemade, backyard epic created by a disgruntled Egyptian-American. The clip is presented as an extended trailer and wastes no time in mocking the prophet Muhammad and his early followers, suggesting that they were brutal, tyrannical child molesters. Most of the cast members were made up of white Americans wearing keffiyehs on their heads, along with fake tan and fake beards. The acting and dialogue is atrocious, as is the dubbing (which was allegedly changed in post-production to make the dialogue even more Islamophobic). Added to this are the backgrounds; supposedly set in the deserts, the video was actually shot at Nakoula’s house with still pictures of sandy landscapes in the background.

After the video was uploaded onto YouTube, it wasn’t long before the trouble started. In Benghazi, Libya, heavily armed men used rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, assault rifles, 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns, diesel canisters, gun trucks, and mortars to attack the US consulate and set a fire that killed the visiting United States Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, American private security employee Glen Doherty, former US Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, and ten Libyan policemen; and injured two others. Bystanders reported that the attackers said they were attacking the consulate because they were angry about the video. On September 13, protests occurred at the US embassy in Sana'a, Yemen, resulting in the deaths of four protesters and injuries to thirty-five protesters and guards. On September 14, the US consulate in Chennai was attacked, resulting in injuries to twenty-five protesters. Protesters in Tunis, Tunisia, climbed the US embassy walls and set fire to the trees. At least four people were killed and forty-six injured during protests in Tunis on September 15. The film was supported by the US pastor Terry Jones, who had previously angered Muslims by announcing plans to publicly burn the Quran. Reuters cited the broadcast of an excerpt of the trailer on Egyptian TV network al-Nas on September 8 as "the flashpoint for the unrest.”

Around 3000 demonstrators congregated outside the United States Embassy in Cairo. A dozen men were then reported to have scaled the embassy walls, after which one of them tore down the flag of the United States of America and replaced it with a black Islamist flag with the inscription of the shahada: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God". Some of the protesters also wrote "There is no God but Allah" on the compound walls. According to Sherine Tadros of Al Jazeera, the protestors demanded that the film be taken "out of circulation" and that some of the protestors would stay at the site until that happens.

Thousands of Egyptian riot police were at the embassy following the breach of the walls; they eventually persuaded the trespassers to leave the compound without the use of force. After that, only a few hundred protesters remained outside the compound. Egypt's Prime Minister Hesham Kandil said "a number" of protesters later confessed to getting paid to participate. He did not say whether the government knew or suspected who paid the protesters. On September 14, in the town of Sheikh Zuwayed in the Sinai Peninsula, protesters stormed a compound of the Multinational Force and Observers, designed to monitor the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The peacekeeping force opened fire on the protesters. Two members of the peacekeeping force were wounded. Ahmad Fouad Ashoush, a Salafist Muslim cleric, issued a fatwa saying: "I issue a fatwa and call on the Muslim youth in America and Europe to do this duty, which is to kill the director, the producer and the actors and everyone who helped and promoted the film." Another Muslim cleric, Ahmed Abdullah (aka Abu Islam) tore up the Bible and threw the torn pages on the ground during the September 11 Embassy attack. In Sudan, in anticipation of protests, Sudanese authorities deployed "many, many riot police" near the American embassy. Nevertheless, on September 14, protesters breached the outside wall of the compound and clashed with guards; three people were killed. Also after Friday prayers on September 14, protesters started fires and tore down the flag in the German embassy. Demonstrators hoisted a black Islamic flag at the German embassy, which read in white letters "there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet". Although it was initially assumed that the attacks were to a target of opportunity related to the protests against the film Innocence of Muslims, the incident is now reported as a long-planned deliberate attack against Germany; preachers encouraged the riots by referring to Germany's defending Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in 2012 during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Referring to a demonstration in August 2012 by right-winged German protesters during which pictures of Mohammed were shown, the Sudanese foreign minister justified the attacks by saying that German chancellor Angela Merkel had allowed these demonstrations to proceed and had thereby encouraged "an insult to Islam and clearly violated all rules of religious coexistence and tolerance.” The neighboring British embassy was also attacked, with two people killed in clashes with the police.

Pakistan witnessed widespread protests all across the country. On September 14, security forces clashed with demonstrators outside the US Embassy in Islamabad over the anti-Islam film. Protesters called for the execution of the filmmaker and urged Islamabad to close the US Embassy and expel its diplomats. In the eastern city of Lahore, demonstrators burned the US flag outside the US consulate and shouted slogans against the United States and Israel. On September 16, Voice of America News reported that police fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of demonstrators as they approached the heavily guarded consulate in the southern city of Karachi. On September 19, a businessman who was unwilling to participate in the protests was charged with blasphemy. On September 20, CNN reported that protests continued in Karachi, where according to a police official about "100 small children" repeated anti-American slogans during a protest. Video showed children repeating an adult voice, "Death to America" and "Any friend of America is a traitor." The children, between the ages of 6 and 8, demonstrated across from the Karachi Press Club, led by "at least four teachers." In Islamabad, police used tear gas and fired warning shots into the air to disperse the crowd. Islamabad Police Chief Bin Yamin said eight police were injured. On September 21, a public holiday was held in Pakistan as protests under the banner of "Love our prophet" were held across the country. The newspaper Dawn reported that at least 23 people were killed during the day. In Karachi, a crowd of 15,000 torched "six cinemas, two banks, a KFC and 5 police vehicles" whilst some fired on police, killing two police officers. It was further reported that 10 of the protesters were shot dead afterwards. Meanwhile in Peshawar, four protesters and a policeman were killed.  Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, a Pakistani cabinet minister announced a $100,000 bounty for killing Nakoula. The Pakistani government has sought to distance itself from this award. Some British MPs called for a ban on Bilour's visits to Britain. On September 23, a rampaging mob of protesters in Mardan reportedly "set on fire the church, St Paul's high school, a library, a computer laboratory and houses of four clergymen, including Bishop Peter Majeed." and went on to rough up Zeeshan Chand, the pastor's son.

Nakoula is said to have written the script while in prison for fraud. Upon release, he set about making the film under the alias ‘Sam Bacile’ as a way of raising awareness of what he saw as the persecution of Copts in Egypt. The video violated his terms of probation, and he was sent back to prison in November 2012.

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST (2001)

Dir: Alex Chisholm /Canada

FantAsia was founded in Montreal by Martin Sauvageau, Andre Dubois and Pierre Corbell in 1996. The aim was to establish a film festival specialising in Asian genre films. The first event was a smash success, a month-long extravaganza which focused primarily on Hong Kong action and CAT III movies, including the films of Chow Yun Fat and Ringo Lam. The momentum continued over the following years with submissions accepted from a whole range of genres, and it became one of the great international cult movie festivals in the world.

This superb documentary by Alex Chisholm presents the second FantAsia event from July 1997, and includes the likes of Karim Hussain, Richard Stanley, Nacho Cerda and Jim Van Bebber screening their latest works (and works in progress) for the first time for a North American audience. This film does much to de-glamorize the practice of filmmaking and instead uncovers what is essentially a collection of horror stories as many of the directors in attendance share their tales of woe, from dodgy financiers and distributers, to a lack of funding and heroin addiction, this film will convince all but the most crazed and determined artists from ever taking the plunge and making an independent film.

Early on, actress Deborah Twiss explains how she lost her waitressing job and, at the prompting of a friend, decided to give nightclub dancing a try. And it wasn't long before she felt beaten down by the experience. "It wasn't so much having to take my clothes off," she says, "as the guys who came in thought that if they were giving you a dollar they owned a piece of you for that, and they could do or say whatever they wanted for that dollar." And it was during this time that she began to fantasize about a group of female vigilantes, and a story outline began to form in her mind. She told her friend, Todd Morris about it, a guy who worked in advertising whose job it was to "make a glass of beer look like heaven," and he suggested that they develop it into a screenplay. And off they went to work on the film which was later titled A Gun For Jennifer with Morris at the helm and Twiss in the lead role.

Karim Hussain describes his work in progress as "an anthology film, kind of like a fever dream." Subconscious Cruelty - nowadays an accepted classic of extreme cinema - was still incomplete and three-and-a-half-years into a difficult production at the time. But still, the reels he brought with him to the festival show some fascinating and superbly photographed scenes. It's mentioning too that most of the films shown in this documentary look so much better on DVD than recorded off a cinema screen or on blurry screener tapes, as shown here. Karim reveals that he has applied to the Canadian government for a grant to finish the film. "I think the Canadian movies that really get out there get any sort of recognition are the ones that involve subversive or taboo subjects," he says. "And Subconscious [Cruelty] certainly does that."

Meanwhile, outside, festival programmer Mitch Davis is having to fend off an irate feminist who is outraged by posters advertising movies that are "disrespectful" to women. Davis, with the patience of a saint, calmly tries to explain to her that the poster in question, for the film A Gun For Jennifer, is actually about "women destroying men," but she constantly interrupts him and continues banging on about there not being enough kung fu movies on the bill. After the premiere of Twiss and Morris' film, the general positive reaction is countered by Peter Rist, who expresses his concern for "the acceptance of 'an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth' mentality," and goes on to say, "I see it as a social problem as well; this acceptance of revenge." Director Todd Morris answers by assuring him that "We went out of our way to show revenge never turns out the way you plan it will. You live by the gun, you die by the gun, and very often end up shooting the wrong people along the way. And that was my way of saying that it's not acceptable and it's not right."

South African director, Richard Stanley, discusses his work, Hardware and Dust Devil, the latter having been cut to shreds by the distributers. He talks a lot of sense and is quite calm and articulate, but boy does he go on and on. He's undoubtedly the most verbose director of all time. He's not a motormouth like a Quentin Tarantino, but if you let him speak he WILL NOT STOP. EVER. Until you are dead. His voice is the auditory equivalent The Terminator; it will hunt you down and descend upon you, it will drill itself into your head and drive you brain cells to commit suicide by leaping out of your nose and eyes and ears in a red flood of utter resignation. He was interviewed by Shade Rupe for the book ‘Dark Stars Rising’, and I'm not kidding, Shade could have asked him the simplest question and Stanley could have more or less written the entire book for him just by answering one question.

After a private press screening of Nacho Cerda's Aftermath, a short about a necrophiliac pathologist having his wicked way with a female corpse in an autopsy room, we get to see the reactions of some of those in attendance. Deep Red editor, Chas Balun, was not convinced: "I don't mind being shocked, and I don't mind what kind of feeble statement it may be. If there's something in the context of the film that says something, that speaks, that's okay, I can accept the rest of that. But to me, it was just thumbing its nose at me and the rest of the audience." Mitch Davis disagrees, "I don't think so... It's not like corpse-fucking wall-to-wall, there's a horrific build-up..." The differing opinions continue outside the venue where Jim Van Bebber has his say; "See, that's why I don't understand why Chas Balun is having a hard time with the movie, because he supports Roadkill [Van Bebber's short about a deranged killer], and to me they're like two peas in a pod. I mean, you're in there, you can't escape, with a nutbag, and you're forced to watch what goes on every day in some place all over the world. And there you are. You're not supposed to enjoy it, it's supposed to scare you, it's supposed to freak you out." Balun and Davis continue in their debate with Davis trying to convince him of its merits and Balun dismissing it outright as "a film school graduate jack-off project."

Next up is a screening of Charlie's Family, which later became The Manson Family. Director Jim Van Bebber explains the genesis of the project with footage of him and his entourage walking around the venue where the punters are literally queuing around the block for the sold-out screening. At this point in the summer of '97, the film was only midway through a fifteen-year production nightmare, but Jim was in good spirits on the night, no doubt very pleased that hundreds of horror fans were eager to see his work. Also included in this section is a rare glimpse of Van Bebber's early 8mm animated shorts which, unless I'm mistaken, are not available on any legitimate home video format. So that's a nice bonus. As for Charlie's Family, the version screened at FantAsia looks very different from the one now available on DVD.

But Charlie's Family wasn't the only film stuck in a rut due to production problems. This documentary is full of filmmakers going through hell to get their products up on the big screen, and this makes for some eye-opening stuff and harsh cautionary tales from the frontline of indie filmmaking, which, as I said before, will surely dissuade all but the most passionate and obsessive Fitzcarraldos from trying to hoist their ship-sized operas over the mountains, as Todd Morris warns, "Don't ever make a film with credit cards. It's the worst. They own our lives at this point." Both Morris and his producer/writer/star, Deborah Twiss, go on to explain how they ended up in trouble after securing funding for their film. They were approached by a dodgy financer, a loan officer for a big Japanese corporation, who wanted to "dabble in low-budget American indies." He kept the filmmakers in stock with corporate cheques, but after they had finished their principle photography and were preparing to start on post-production, the loan officer informed them that he had embezzled all the money and that a private detective was coming after them; "He disappeared, never to be seen again." Morris and Twiss were soon hounded by the lawyers of this big Japanese corporation, had their bank accounts frozen and were threatened with having the negative of their film burned in front of their eyes. Luckily for them, a Wall Street attorney was sympathetic to their plight and he got them off the hook, but the filmmakers were still held responsible for paying back all those corporate cheques.

Nacho Cerda paces up and down the pavement prior to the North American premiere of Aftermath. Around 900 people have shown up and are waiting outside, and he admits to being "very scared." Later, inside the theatre, Nacho gives a brief introduction to the movie before the lights dim. During the screening, the scenes of actor Pep Tossar humping the corpse are met with ripples of laughter in the audience. Aftermath was shown on a double-bill with Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox.

Richard Stanley presents a private screening of his 1989 documentary, Voice of The Moon, which depicts the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where the primitive, pre-biblical culture of the Afghans is suddenly under threat from the technologically advanced Soviet army with its planes, rockets and missiles. After the screening Stanly denies that the film had played anywhere else (he jokes that it premiered in "a swimming pool in Brixton," and that "it got a good review in the Guardian"). However, Karim Hussain, in hushed tones, mentions that Voice of The Moon actually played the Montreal Film Festival in 1991, thus exposing Stanley as a teller of porky pies. It's the only moment in the film where Stanley seems lost for words, albeit momentarily. At least it gave him the chance to give his jaws a rest, for fuck's sake. Stanley also looks a lot like the manager of FC Basel, Murat Yakin.

Luckily, Karim Hussain doesn't seem to mind looking foolish, either, as he decides to screen an early rough cut of Subconscious Cruelty without a soundtrack. He instead stands at the front improvising sound effects and a running commentary on the action with a microphone in hand. Obviously, this isn't the best way to preview your film. In the foyer afterwards, there doesn't look to be any enthusiastic supporters of the film waiting around, just a couple of fellow filmmakers. Hussain then informs them that his application for a grant has been rejected. This piece of bad news, combined with the luke-warm reception for Subconscious Cruelty, proves all too much to take. He then ventures outside to face his critics. First, he asks Cerda what he thought of the film, and Cerda's slow, unenthusiastic response speaks volumes. Film Critic Marcelle Perks of Shivers (she also contributed to the legendary Eyeball magazine) suggests he makes some changes to the film as it feels "too silly" in its current form. Curiously, Perks and Hussain standing there face to face look like a couple of crows clashing their beaks together. It's as though they're the finalists in The World's Biggest Nose Contest, a competition Hussain would win by a country mile, almost literally.

Loris Gurci of Rome's FantaFestival tells Karim that his film is "very rough! There are lots of blanks. No dialogue, nothing!" Well, duh! The film was unfinished, as explained by Karim at the front of the stage through a loud PA system, you colon. Mariano Baino (director of the underrated Italian horror flick, Dark Water) asks "I just want to know, from filmmaker to filmmaker, what do you hope to get from the three-and-a-half-years you have spent on the film? At the end of it, for you yourself, what do you get out of it?" And this is when Karim gets all melodramatic, insisting that he makes movies because that's all he's got. "It's either this or a gun to the head," he deadpans. Baino then leans in, pats him on the shoulder, and says "In that case, it's much better!"

By this point, Karim looks visibly upset, and Richard Stanley approaches him. At first you're thinking 'oh no, the last thing he needs right now is Richard Stanley chewing his ear off like a slow-motion coke-head for the next ten hours', but actually, Stanley does an admirable thing of offering reassurance to a fellow artist in need of encouragement, and he simply offers a few words of wisdom before hugging him and pecking him on the cheek. Karim turns away from the camera as he starts blubbing, and heads towards the cinema entrance. It's a scene which has the build-up of greatness, with the staunch artist taking his criticisms before being moved to tears by a few encouraging words and then heading for the entrance for a moment alone. But embarrassingly, the perils of life set in, and Karim finds that the door is locked. And instead of clinging onto his composure while swiftly disappearing from view, he finds himself knocking loud and firm on the glass door with his head dropped in shame. The scene collapses into farce as he waits an excruciating twenty seconds or more for the security guy to let him in. His slumped posture speaks volumes, with his eyes to the ground praying for it to swallow him up. It would have been less embarrassing if he'd have started juggling with pieces of dogshit while fellating the passers-by and playing the kazoo through his arsehole. Such is life.

Later on, and Karim is in a much more composed frame of mind. "I've woken up and realised that Subconscious Cruelty is not a movie that will ever get wide distribution. I'm sure I think the movie works, but it's really a naive kind of movie which would've been really at home in the early 70s, back when there was a lot of naive, angry youth who thought they could change the world with something as fragile and stupid as cinema. So we're still gonna finish Subconscious Cruelty but you get hit not only financially but sort of spiritually. You've got to change your mind-set a little bit and stop thinking that you can make a living working in 'underground movies', because that's just such fucking bullshit. It's impossible. Nowadays we're going out with a 16mm film print. We'll show it at some festivals, put it on some video labels, etcetera. It'll get some underground notoriety, which means you'll get a big fat ZERO in your bank account [...] You'll find that there's not a hell of a lot of public, and there's not a hell of a lot of satisfaction."

So, do you still want to make a movie? Actually, you probably couldn't wish for a better group of people to be around while fighting it out in the indie trenches. It would almost make the torture of making a movie worthwhile if your comrades were as cool and likeable as the people in this extraordinary film. I still haven't been to FantAsia but I hope to, one day. But if I ever do make the pilgrimage it won't be with a movie under my arm, that's for sure.

Programmer Mitch Davis went on to become the face of the festival as co-director. He also got into video game production in the late 00s. Karim Hussain became a professional cinematographer with almost two dozen credits under his belt, including Hobo With a Shotgun (2011), and more recently the Hannibal TV series (20013). Davis and Hussain remain best friends to this day. The Spaniard Nacho Cerda returned with his debut feature, The Abandoned in 2007 (co-written with Hussain and Richard Stanley). He also made a documentary on Juan Piquer Simon, director of the 80s slasher flick, Pieces. Richard Stanley completed his documentary on SS officer Otto Rahn, The Secret Glory, and it was released in 2001. His subsequent output has consisted mostly of writing and directing shorts and contributing to anthology films. He currently resides in

France. Chas Balun continued as a horror movie critic for magazines like Gorezone and Fangoria, and continued with his own publications The Gore Score and Lucio Fulci: Beyond The Gates. He teamed up with Jim Van Bebber and wrote the screenplay for Chunkblower, a project which eventually fizzled out leaving nothing behind but an intriguing trailer. Sadly, Balun died in December 2009 after a long battle with cancer. Todd Morris and Deborah Twiss completed their next feature, Dream Killers, which altered form slightly before being released under the awful title Molotov Samba in 2005. Twiss landed bit-parts in TV shows like Law & Order and White Collar, and even big-budget movies like Kick-Ass and Pawn, appearing alongside the likes of Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker and Lyndsy Fonseca.

Unfortunately, the most promising talent of the event, Jim Van Bebber, has been mostly silent since the release of The Manson Family in 2003. In the making of featurette, 'Jim Van Bebber's Family', he is seen constantly sipping from cans of Fosters and his speech is somewhat slurred. In 2011 he was arrested for drink driving in Florida, and his mugshot is not pretty sight. The critics were merciless on The Manson Family. They basically took turns at kicking him around town for his film, which is really unfair as it's a must-see for anyone interested in cult cinema. He played the role of Terry Hawkins in Ron Atkins' The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell (2011), which is very loosely inspired by Last House On Dead End Street. He is also linked to a feature film called Gator Green, with its story loosely based on the same story which inspired Tobe Hooper's Death Trap. Fingers crossed it gets made and finds an audience.

IN THE COMPANY OF MEN (1997)

Dir: Neil LaBute /USA

A controversial talking point on both sides of the Atlantic, Neil LaBute's low-budget debut is actually a craftily concocted little film and not the misogynistic hate-fest many think it to be. Its basic plot (two men try to seduce and then dump a deaf girl - just for the fun of it) may be outrageous but it never portrays the two men in a favourable light, and offers a heroine far stronger than most. And although the film doesn't have anything in the way of graphically shocking elements, the psychological torture is extremely disturbing.

Handsome Chad and mild-mannered Howard, cogs in the machine of some anonymous corporation, are on a six week project out of town. Both their girlfriends have recently dumped them and so Chad suggests they play a very spiteful game: the pair will simultaneously date the first vulnerable woman they meet on the trip and swear undying love, only to dash the victim's hopes in a manner that will have her "reaching for the sleeping pills". The girl they choose is pretty Christine, a deaf secretary (Stacy Edwards in a phenomenal performance. And no, she's not really deaf) who blossoms under their attentions and falls hard for Chad.

A bleak comedy of amorality, this is neither the misogynistic rant nor the masterpiece it's been labeled by various critics. For all that its subject is the war between the sexes, it's equally about the dog-eat-dog backstabbing that boils just beneath the surface of corporate camaraderie, and Chad the cad is a total scumbag, reeling off sick impersonations of deaf people and lines of the "never trust something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die" calibre. Chad is a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it, with his good looks and charm. Oops – did I say ‘charm’? I meant the opposite. In fact, imagine charm as being a beautiful rare stone. Now imagine that stone placed onto a rocket ship and fired to the far side of the galaxy. And then you accidentally step in some dogshit. Now check out your shoe. That’s what he has instead of charm. And yet he also has countless notches on his bedpost. And as a fellow man, that really pisses me off! If Chad ever contracts pubic lice, I’d like to congratulate them, shake them all individually by the hand, and buy them all a drink.

The film's weak link lies in the performances - perhaps LaBute's directing skills will never equal the proficiency of his writing. While Stacy Edwards is astonishingly good as Christine, both Eckhart and Malloy too often seem as though they're participating in a dress rehearsal exercise, pausing just a little too long between lines, posing just a bit too self-consciously, feeling their way through the dialogue whose barely repressed venom should slip off their tongues like rancid butter. But that's a relatively minor criticism; this film is worth seeing, and LaBute's subsequent work has never been as interesting as this. It remains a disturbing glimpse of male bonding at its most ugly and reprehensible.

In The Company of Men sparked outrage among feminists, and even a filmmaker's trophy at the Sundance Film Festival couldn't protect LaBute from their ire at the event; one young woman approached the director after the screening and spat in his face. Actor Eckhart was also under attack; a woman approached him after the screening and screamed “I fucking hate you!” in his face. What she really meant, Eckhart then pointed out, was that she hated the misogynist character, Chad, whom he played in the film. “No,” the woman insisted angrily, “I hate you!”

With his debut feature (and also its corrosive follow-up, Your Friends & Neighbors), writer/director Neil LaBute became one of cinema’s most infamous agent provocateurs of the late 90s. He didn’t just touch a few sore points here and there, he took a sledgehammer to viewer sensibilities across America. While Hollywood continues to paint the relationship between men and women in a rose-tinted, happy-ever-after glow, LaBute casts an ironic eye on the nasty, deceitful reality of adulterous partners and callous, womanizing bastards. He doesn’t use shock tactics for Tarantino-style cool; instead he wants to create conflict, leaving it up to the audience to make moral judgments on his characters. “I really appreciate the power of what words can do,” LaBute said at the time. “After everything that film can do, words can still unnerve people.”

IRREVERSIBLE (2002)

Dir: Gaspar Noe /France

A seat snaps upright as one offended viewer heads for the exit. Bang. Bang. Bang. More seats are vacated. Footsteps march towards the exit, then run up the isles. The foyer door swings open and swings closed. It's May 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival. On screen, a blood-red light beats on and off, the camera moves around wildly, and abstract noises can be heard on the soundtrack. It's the premiere of Irreversible, the first of many walkouts.

Within ten minutes a steady flow of people are leaving the cinema. They have just witnessed one of the most graphically realistic murders in movie history, as a man has his face repeatedly smashed in with a fire extinguisher until his skull disintegrates. But they've spared themselves the film's main point of contention - a nine-minute long, single-take, stationary shot of a woman being anally raped and kicked around after taking a wrong turn on her way home after a party.

Not a re-watchable kind of film, Irreversible utilizes the same story telling technique used in previous films like Memento by presenting its chronological sequence of events in reverse. We briefly spend a few moments in the company of two men who appear to be in a prison cell. One of these men (Philippe Nahon, who had previously starred in Noe's Carne and Seul contre tous) admits to having slept with his own daughter, the only person he ever loved. "Time destroys everything," he announces. His cellmate is more optimistic, "We all think we're Mephisto. It's no big deal. We fuck up and they say it's bad news. It's tragic. Can't forget the pleasure, the joy. There's no bad deeds. Just deeds." We then hear police sirens outside, and in a superb overhead tracking shot, we glide out of the building and down to the outside of a nightclub below where a man is arrested and another is carried out on a stretcher. The film then backtracks to a few moments previously as we see the same two men, Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) barging their way through Rectum, a gay S&M type club, in search of a man known as la Tenia (the tapeworm). The style of the film is dark and abrasive, with an onslaught of strobe lights, underground music, and shots of gay men fucking and being involved in various S&M practices. They finally approach the man they believe to be la Tenia, and a fight breaks out. Marcus has his arms broken and is about to be buggered right there in the middle of the club, but then Pierre steps in and smashes their victim in the face with a fire extinguisher a nauseating twenty three times until his skull caves in. Later scenes reveal the two men had entered the club seeking revenge after the brutal rape and beating of Marcus' beautiful girlfriend, Alex (Monica Belluci), a woman whom Pierre once had an affair with and still loves.

The rape is one of the most disturbing and difficult scenes ever filmed, and culminates in a vicious attack on Alex's face. The scene takes place in an underpass lit red, and was shot in one long take by a static camera. There's no nudity as Noe admirably tries to avoid all possibility of titillating the perverts in the audience and steering towards exploitation. The result is sustained horror, and has resulted in audience members fainting and walking out at international screenings. "I never thought about that scene," Belluci insists. "I always thought about the film in general. I love films that open people up to discussion. When I decided to do this film I didn't even have the script. I worked with 15 pages of synopsis. We'd rehearse and improvise one day then shoot the next. The camera would keep rolling for 15, 20 minutes, so for me it was like working in the theatre [...] The rape scene takes a very long time. We did it four or five times. After the third time I didn't think I could go on anymore."

Earlier events leading to the rape suggest an underlying theme that our fates are mapped out in advance. A series of incidents are shown, all of which is significant in defining the fates of the characters; each of them acts in a way designed to enliven their own enjoyment of the evening but which ultimately leads the way to dreadful events. Alex wears a revealing designer dress to the house party which shows her figure beautifully, but when she leaves alone, she immediately assumes an air of vulnerability which makes us fear for her. Marcus attempts to enliven his evening by taking a large quantity of drugs, and this results in an argument with Alex, and her decision to leave the party without him. Their mutual friend, Pierre, stays calm in an attempt to win the affections of Alex, and his laid-back manner leads Alex to re-think her relationship with party animal Marcus. And knowing full well that Pierre is still in love with her, she turns down his offer to escort her home.

Other occurrences also seal Alex's fate. Pierre intended to take them to the party in his car, but it breaks down, so they opt for the subway instead. There's a good chance they would have left together if they went by car. It's little details like this that suggest alternate timelines trailing off in which things happen otherwise. Another example is when Alex leaves the party she decides to cross a road to hail a taxi, but a passer-by tells her it's safer to use the under path. Also, when she is assaulted in the tunnel she doesn't scream out loud for help from anyone who could be nearby because of the rapist's threat to beat her (and this is when we learn that the man beaten to death in the club wasn't the culprit). It is later revealed that Alex is pregnant and would naturally do anything to avoid causing harm to the baby she is carrying.

Like Mephisto, we believe we are in control of our destinies and can obtain the objects of our desires through our actions, or become heroes, but like Faust, we are doomed to our fate. This is touched upon with Alex citing the book she is reading which claims "the future is already written", proof of which "lies in premonitory dreams." Another scene has Alex awaken from a dream in which she "was in a tunnel... all red" that she believes is accountable to her late period - though she is actually pregnant. It is believed by many cultures that a woman can have psychic visions of the future at the time of her menstrual period.

Despite the arguments from Irreversible's detractors, this is not an exercise in shocking nihilism or gratuitous violence against women; most of the film takes place after the controversial rape scene. Noe's intention here is to mourn the beautiful thing that has been destroyed, not to glorify its destruction. That's why telling the story backwards isn't a gimmick - He is literally undoing a crime to make a profound artistic statement. The film progresses from an animalistic orgy of violence to an embryo's serene spirituality (a la 2001: A Space odyssey). In this film it's from a noisy nightclub hell to a peaceful outdoor heaven. The graphic depiction of rape and murder is not in itself wrong: to cut the scenes to make it palatable for viewers - that would be immoral. The result is a film designed to make us think and feel at the same time. This is not entertainment but meaningful, devastating, provocative art.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978)

(Orig title: Day of The Woman)

Dir: Meir Zarchi /USA

A film that has always provoked a passionate reaction from those who see it, I Spit On Your Grave is one of the most well-known movies to come out of the controversial rape-revenge genre, and has been cited in countless books and articles on feminism.

The simple story sees New York writer, Jenny (Camille Keaton, granddaughter of Buster), driving out to the sticks where she rents a house in the woods. She plans on settling down there for a few months, where the peace and quiet of country life will allow her to concentrate on writing her debut novel. However, her presence in the rural area drives a group of local yokels to a sexual frenzy, and while walking in the woods one day, she is attacked and raped. On her way back to the house, she is ambushed by the same men and raped a second time – this time in the arse – and she screams in agony. And when she makes it back to the house, the men show up once again; and this time they coax a bespectacled simpleton, Matthew, into raping her. During the third rape she is battered and bruised, and is also violated with a wine bottle. She is pretty much terrified and puts up very little resistance. As the men leave, Matthew is given a knife and ordered to go back to the house to finish her off by stabbing her in the heart. But instead, Matthew just wipes some of her blood onto the blade to make it look like he has committed the deadly deed as instructed.

Jenny cleans herself up and then visits the church where she asks God for forgiveness in advance before embarking on a brutal retribution mission in which she uses her sexuality to lure the scumbags to their grisly demise (the church forgiveness theme was also touched upon in other rape-revenge thrillers, such as Thriller: A Cruel Picture and Ms.45, for example). Matthew, the slack-jawed imbecile, is hung from a tree in an implausible scene which would require super-human strength from the heroine to execute sufficiently; the first rapist – and assured leader of the gang – has his dick cut off in the bathtub; the final two men are dispatched with an axe and a speed boat propeller, respectively.

The film’s original title was Day of The Woman, but was given the more lurid namesake by distributer Jerry Gross (director of the cult classic, I Drink Your Blood), for a very successful theatrical run at the grindhouses and drive-ins across America. The film’s huge success brought it to the attention of mainstream critics like Roger Ebert (who hated it; he was particularly appalled by the audience indifference he saw during the screening, and their jaded attitude towards Jenny’s suffering), and this has given the film more attention over the years than it perhaps deserves. It’s a competently made production; there’s nothing wrong with it as such. But it also has a flat, middle-of-the-road vibe about it; there’s no ambition here at all from the filmmakers, it’s just a straight-up, low-budget cheapie made to cash-in on the Last House On The Left controversy. There is very little in the film that could lift it above the sum of its exploitation parts… save for the rape scenes.

The rape scenes are long, sustained and harrowing, with the camera never flinching from the horrors of Jenny’s ordeal. And the revenge scenarios are equally drawn-out, with the yokels thinking that they’re being invited by Jenny for some consensual sex, when in fact they’re being lured to their deaths (except for Matthew, who for some reason, she consents for him to “come inside her” before she hangs him). And while it’s impossible to understand how anyone could sympathize with this bunch of cud-chewing, dangle-mouthed low-lives, there is undoubtedly an element here of the filmmakers attempting to excite and titillate the audience with Jenny’s rape scenes.

In her book, Men, Women and Chainsaws, Carol Clover argues vehemently against the idea that viewers take pleasure in the rape and consequent vengeance in films like I Spit On Your Grave. She also points out the ‘city/country axis’, as the city girl invades a rural area, suggesting a cultural ‘rape’. And in addition, she suggests that city folks are usually presented as sophisticated and affluent, whereas the country folks are more often presented as a menace due to their indiscipline and lack of law and order.

For many years, I Spit On Your Grave was considered by many as a radical feminist film. But it falters in too many areas for it to hold up to scrutiny (writer/director Meir Zarchi delivers too much of the exploitation elements, like nudity and violence, thus giving his critics lots of ammunition to accuse him of not giving the subject-matter the seriousness it deserves). The film also includes many flaws which are apparent throughout the rape-revenge genre. A film which depicts a woman getting even with a bunch of chauvinistic rapists does not in itself denote its legitimacy as a feminine ‘text’. Some of the most prurient movies around adopt a superficial level of feminism as a way of gaining kudos, when usually, the opposite seems to be the case (see Jess Franco’s Faceless, for instance). As Clover says, “Horror is built on exploitation and appropriation, and I Spit On Your Grave’s exploitation and appropriation of feminism are no cause for surprise.”

Much of Clover’s work is concerned with responsibility, and who is to blame for rape, claiming “if a woman fails to get tough, fails to buy a gun or take karate, she is, in an updated sense of the cliché, asking for it”. In the movies, it is often the women who are blamed for their rape because they are beautiful or they make themselves vulnerable, or dress in a skimpy, revealing way, inviting violation. In I Spit On Your Grave, Jenny’s second victim bases his entire excuse on this idea, claiming “That thing with you was a thing that any man would have done. You coax a man into doing it to you… You come into the gas station and expose your damn sexy legs to me, walking back and forth real slow, making sure I see ‘em good… And then, you’re lying in a canoe in your bikini, just waiting, like bait.” By allowing the scumbag to assert such a pitiful defense, films like I Spit On Your Grave simply invalidates them. Clover’s assertion, however, is that the rape-revenge genre tends to justify the rape scenes through the female character’s refusal to get tough.

One of the principal titles on the ‘video nasties’ list, I Spit On Your Grave was banned in the UK for around 22 years. The BBFC passed it with 7:02 cuts for the Anchor Bay DVD release in 2005, removing all of the heavier rape footage but leaving the revenge killings intact. The film was submitted to the censors again in 2010 prior to the 101 Blu-Ray release, and some of the cuts were waived, leaving it still missing almost three minutes of footage. This latter version was banned in Ireland in 2010.

On YouTube comments for the trailer of I Spit On Your Grave, people were typing things like “You fucking slut” and “I hope you get cancer lol.” Some would interpret this as being the behavior of men enraged by the representation of Camille Keaton in the film, but really, they probably blurt this type of abuse at anything female. I say “blurt.” I mean type. And not in person. The most annoying aspect of this type of thing is that these moronic pebbledicks represent only a tiny fraction of men, and yet the movie industry, from the dens of Meir Zarchi’s basement to the heights of the Hollywood hills, feels it has to pander to these monumental man-turds by having female characters abused on screen so that the audience can objectify them. It doesn’t, and it will only gain acceptance across the board when it decides to ignore them. Then finally we could move on, as a species.

J'ACCUSE (1938)

(I Accuse)

Dir: Abel Gance /France

An excellent anti-war film, J'Accuse is all the more poignant considering it was released in France shortly before the Occupation. Francen invents a device he believes will stop war forever, only to see it used by his government as a defense measure against the enemy. Driven mad by this exploitation, Francen decides only the war dead marching through the streets will stop the people's thirst for an upcoming war. In his delusion, bodies rise from their graves, and the sight of war's actual horrors so terrifies the patriotic countrymen that all thoughts of war are abandoned.

What makes this film so remarkable is the aforementioned sequence in which the bodies of the war dead rise from their graves. Many of the people used for this stunning sequence were injured veterans of the First World War who would ordinarily have been killed. But due to the increasing sophistication of medicine, many of the war heroes survived their horrific injuries and physical defacements, and lived on as a warning to others about the horrors of war. We see veterans with missing limbs, shattered bones, and even a few who have their noses missing and much of their faces almost completely obliterated. It's difficult to imagine what audiences must have made of this back in the late 30s with World War II rearing its ugly head on the horizon.

Gance's plot is a very simple one, but told with enormous power and passion for the theme. The ravaged faces of the war dead are still disturbing today; they remain very powerful images not so easily forgotten. The message is conveyed clearly, without preaching, and with a sensitivity towards pacifism, which even in the late 30s was still very much frowned upon by patriots on all sides of the upcoming war. Like so many films of this nature, its message was considered unsuitable by Nazi Germany, and the film banned in that country.

THE KILLER (1989)

(Orig title: Die xue shuang xiong)

Dir: John Woo /Hong Kong

In the world of John Woo’s over-the-top action movies, it seems there’s no problem that can’t be solved by a hail of bullets. Don’t be fooled; The Killer is far more than the sum of its plot elements.

Jeffrey Chow (Chow Yun-Fat) is a professional hit man with his own code of ethics and a lethal two-handed draw. Detective Lee (Danny Lee) is a cop at odds with the system: he’d rather get the scum off the streets than play departmental politics. Sydney Fung (Chu Kong), a hit man past his prime, is Jeff’s only friend. Jennie (Sally Yeh) is a nightclub singer caught in the crossfire and blinded when Jeff slaughters a room full of gangsters. Guilt-stricken, Jeff befriends and then falls in love with the blind woman. And when he agrees to one last contract killing, with the intention of using the money to pay for a cornea transplant for Jenny, the hit doesn’t go off as cleanly as it should, and he gives away his identity. Before long, the criminal underworld – along with detective Lee – vow to hunt him down, using Jennie as bait.

The Killer rings a genuinely delirious set of changes on American movie themes, careening between brutality and mawkish sentiment without missing a beat. Western audiences were almost literally stunned in their seats by the excessive gunplay and extravagance on view in the film; the insistent visual and narrative symmetry, the barely repressed homoeroticism (there are moments of male bonding in this film that looks like the whole thing will descend into some romantic brown-dicking at any moment), the cute comedy of blind Jennie – unaware of the gunplay going on around her – trying to serve tea. One moment Woo’s heroes are .44 magnum dervishes, the next they’re spinning some outrageous fiction about childhood friendship and their nicknames for one another – “Tom” and “Jerry”. The original title translates as Bloodshed Of Two Heroes, and is more accurate a title as the film is just as much about cop Lee as it is the lone ‘killer’ of the anglicised namesake.

And the bullets… Ah, the bullets. They fly freely at the drop of a hat, splatter bad guys all over the walls while miraculously missing the protagonists (special credit to the sightless Jennie, who shows a particular flare for dodging speeding projectiles), and generally make the world go round. For Western film fans unfamiliar with Hong Kong gangster films, there’s no better introduction. Described by Kim Newman as “a genocidal film with more corpses than Total Recall and Die Hard combined,” The Killer is quite simply one of the greatest action movies ever made.

KINSEY (2004)

Dir: Bill Condon /USA/Germany

After a repressed childhood and a nightmare first night of marriage, biologist Alfred Kinsey makes it his mission to free America from its hang-ups by publishing the first ever in-depth study of human sexual behavior.

Before the publication of Kinsey’s ‘Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male’ in 1948, the subject of sex was still very much taboo. These days, when sex is everywhere – on TV, in books, movies, magazines, internet, commercials, etc – it’s hard to imagine the impact the 800-page tome had on the millions of Americans who read it. The book reads like the Mein Kampf of perversity, compiled from meticulous data. Most of the subjects and case studies thought they were the only ones who got off on the things they did, or thought that engaging in those types of things would lead them straight to the nuthouse, the prison and then onwards to Hell.

A biologist by day, Kinsey set out to investigate mankind’s sexual desires in exactly the same dispassionate way he had examined gall wasps, of which he had amassed a collection of more than a million. He interviewed thousands of Americans for his study, asking them about their desires and sexual histories – the kind of questions that would normally get you head-butted. The result was a book that was at once fascinating and shocking, but one that helped prise open the way to debate on what was actually going on under the sheets – and at the bus stops and lavatories – across America. But the man at the centre of it all remained a mystery. Why was he doing this? What was his motivation? Was he really an impassive scientist or a forerunner for an early version of free love? Or was he simply trying to justify his own sexual desires?

With his previous film, Gods And Monsters, director Bill Condon demonstrated an ability to pin-point the contradictions of complex characters – in that case Frankenstein director, James Whale – while at the same time leaving an air of mystery behind. And here with Kinsey, he does the same again with a similar type of soft dexterity. Liam Neeson, in as good a performance as any in his career, delivers a fine turn as the obsessional scientist who, while undoubtedly seeking the truth, could also be seen as immersing himself in the research to make sense of his own sexual identity, as well as using the data as a battering ram to force open society’s repressive attitudes, as represented by his bigoted father.

KISS OR KILL (1997)

Dir: Bill Bennett /Australia

The opening scene shows a woman being doused in petrol and burned alive on her own doorstep in the presence of her young daughter. The plot falls into place with Nikki (Frances O'Connor) and Al (Matt Day), a young couple who run a scam whereby she lures rich married men to hotel rooms on the promise of sex, spikes their drinks, and when the mark is unconscious, they loot his possessions. This night, however, things go terribly wrong; their victim dies. And added to the couple's troubles is the man's briefcase which contains a video tape showing a famous footballer, 'Zipper' Doyle, sexually abusing a young boy. Nikki makes a phone call to the footballer in anger, and calls him a sick prick and announces that she has a copy of the tape. But Doyle is part of a powerful paedophile ring, with members ranking high in the media. The couple soon find themselves on the run from both the cops and Doyle, and are hunted down through the scorching hot outback.

Written, directed, and produced by Bill Bennett, Kiss Or Kill is a tense road movie that comes on like an Australian version of Badlands, with an amoral young couple on the run across wide-open spaces. However, there is an originality here in Bennett's immaculate screenplay which spins a few twists of its own in this familiar sub-genre, such as the themes of trust - or lack of it - and the film also asks interesting questions like how well do we really know those who are closest to us; our friends, lovers, family, and colleagues? Nikki and Al's relationship comes under strain when everyone they meet seems to die. But who's to blame for the killings? They both suspect each other and feel they don't actually know who each other really are, despite having being romantically involved for years. This alienation also stems to the two detectives on their case, who, in a hilarious scene in a cafe, also show how little they know about each other, despite being partners in a dangerous job. And the same theme also relates to the film's villain, 'Zipper' Doyle, a famous ex-footballer and respected member of the public who is actually a sick paedophile.

Indeed, the fictional character 'Zipper' Doyle has recently been given an added chill as his crimes relate to the real-life story of Jimmy Savile, a British celebrity who raised millions for charity and was a well-loved - if eccentric - character. After his death in 2011, it was discovered that this man, who had been loved and trusted by an entire nation for decades, was actually responsible for abusing countless children over the years, and is suspected of being part of a paedophile ring that included friends in the worlds of showbiz and the media who for years were covering up his despicable crimes.

As a side note, I still don’t understand how someone like Jimmy Savile managed to blag himself a career in TV. Maybe it’s because back in the early days, television screens were tiny and people couldn’t see him properly. The public didn’t have these huge, wall-sprawling abominations we call TV sets nowadays. In the early days of TV, Savile was creepy but tiny. However, his sudden reappearance in the media as one of society’s most despicable boogeymen demanded that his face be suddenly plastered everywhere. Your TV became a kind of twisted horror show, with his huge hideous face filling up the whole wall, his gargoyle skull in a white wig chomping a cigar and laughing at us from the other side of the grave.

Kiss Or Kill dispenses with any kind of musical accompaniment, and this gives the film a downbeat edge. But despite the grim subject-matter and serious tone, this film is loaded with a deep and biting sense of humour; in fact, it's just as much a dark comedy as it is a road movie. The result is a low-budget but remarkable piece of work that explores many dark areas of the human soul while somehow managing to make us laugh.

LAKE NOIR (2011)

Dir: Jeff Schneider /USA

A fat guy is beaten to death with a baseball bat and dumped in the lake while his female companion is seemingly raped. Cut to the present day, and a group of friends head out on a fishing trip to the lake, where - you guessed it - the fat guy returns in ghostly form to exact his vengeance on the squealing shitcakes... You can accurately predict the entire movie after watching the first five minutes. And that's exactly what I did, not because I'm clever or psychic or anything like that, but because this film works in an uninspired, cookie-cutter, boring old template style.

En route to the 'slaughter' we're forced to listen to these utter buffoons dribbling on about wanting to get laid, and slating each other with their wisecracking idiocies, and referring to each other as 'dude' and 'bro', etc... Here's a little example of dialogue:

HAIRY BUFFOON - (sighs) Dude, I can't believe the girls just took off without blowing these fucking things up [inflatable mattresses]

BLACK BUFFOON - Yeah, we all know how good Eve is at blowing...

SHORTARSE BUFFOON - (laughs) Yeah.

HAIRY BUFFOON - Hey, don't be a dick.

BLACK BUFFOON - Hell yeah she is, the best I've ever had (laughs)

SHORTARSE - I can't believe it, man. I swear she's the only chick to have taken your nasty dick...

HAIRY - Hey, at least she's taken my nasty cock, bitch... Hey, Ash likes my dick...

FUCK WAD - Yeah, just not inside her (smiles)

Someone come along and slaughter these morons, pleeeaaase!!! If you're going to inflict a bunch of idiotic characters on your audience, at least have the decency to make sure they are then brutally butchered in graphic detail before our eyes. You know, just to make being in their presence for ninety minutes worthwhile. We need some kind of 'pay off' to make these characters even scarcely tolerable. The girls are pretty enough, but serve as nothing more than human vacuums in thongs, and they basically do nothing. The boys are a bunch of abnormally twattish rodent brains, whose punchably stupid faces are probably displayed on dollar bills in Dumbland. And as a whole, they constitute the kind of 18-30 package holiday tugwads whom you'd love to forcibly remove from the human gene pool with a bloody iron bar.

The film's monster is 'Wetman', the fat guy from the lake, and when he shows up, it's all rather tame. We wait for an agonizing 75 minutes before his first killing, in which the black 'dude' is cracked in the back of the noggin while having sex. The hairy buffoon and Fuck Wad are also killed during intercourse. And the final guy, Shortarse, is pushed against a tree, and this causes his death. Pathetic! Where's the blood? Where's the violence? The final girl, Ash, is then approached by the overweight ghoul, but because she refused to have sex with Shortarse, her 'purity' saves the day, just like they do in all slasher movies, see? The big bald monster then returns to the lake...

Making a decent body count movie isn't difficult; in fact, it's probably the easiest sub-genre to master in the whole of cinema. All you have to do is slaughter a bunch of idiots in bloody and graphic ways... That's it! It's not rocket science. The body count movie is the most stripped-down and basic in all horror - Just make sure to give the audience the pleasure of watching your idiot characters die their gruesome deaths. Is that too much to ask? But director Jeff Schneider can't even create a basic body count movie. His characters deserved to die in horrible ways, and yet when the killings start, Wetman finishes his prey in a very tame and bloodless way, like something from an Ed Wood Jr. movie. The black guy should've had a pot of his own boiling blood poured down his throat; Shortarse should've had his spine ripped out of his arsehole and beaten with it 'til his corpse turned cold. Those characters deserved it. And what can I say about the monster? The fat guy is 'Wetman', and let's not mince words here: Wetman is fat. He's so fat he resembles a pile of discoloured, blubbering tits heaped on top of each other, with a huffing, puffing, sweaty little face perched on top. He looks like he has swallowed a waterbed with a topping of cheese duvet and ham pillows. In summary: Wetman is fat. Tip: If you want to make your bad guy interesting and menacing, don't waste hours painting him blue and gluing dick hair on his face, and giving him a silly name like 'Wetman'. Simply show him masturbating into the mouth of a severed head while watching BBC News 24. Then you'll grab your viewer's attention, and automatically you've made a film that is worth checking out.

On the technical front, Lake Noir suffers from bad dubbing - It was shot in English but dubbed in post-production, and the lip-synching is non-existent. Director Jeff Schneider doesn't show any kind of visual flair, but at least keeps the camera relatively still, and doesn't pollute the film with showy, optical effects bullshit which has ruined a fare few of these types of films. That's the closest to a compliment I can muster right now. Overall, Schneider may as well have dropped his trousers, squatted down, and unleashed a curler right there on the spot. And then ordered his cast members to then gather round and poke it with sticks while giggling and calling each other 'bro'. You need this movie like dick dribble.

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972)

(aka Sex Crime Of The Century; aka Krug And Company)

Dir: Wes Craven /USA

Although he’s more well-known nowadays for his ‘postmodern’, self-referential slasher movies of the Scream franchise, and the surrealist horrors of A Nightmare On Elm Street, which gave the world a new horror icon in the form of Freddy Krueger, there is something altogether more dangerous and sinister tucked away in Wes Craven’s filmography which for more than thirty years was considered harmful and obscene by the British censors. Last House On The Left is an uneasy melding of art house seriousness and grindhouse sleaze which continually throws viewers into confusion by adding a bizarre banjo soundtrack and moments of ill-advised comedy. Just like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Last House had long been outlawed in the UK, and it wasn’t difficult to see why; the BBFC have never been kind or lenient on films which flaunt chainsaw mayhem and death by blowjob. Even hardened New York exploitation fans on the 42nd Street Deuce were appalled, with audiences invading the projection booth and knifing the film print to shreds. This was all publicity heaven for the filmmakers who marketed Last House with the much-borrowed tagline: “To avoid fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie… only a movie…”

Right from the very beginning, Craven and his producer, Sean Cunningham (who later went on to launch the Friday The 13th series), knew exactly what they intended to do with their film, “One of the key aims was to show the harsh, brutal reality of interpersonal violence.” They weren’t interested in giving viewers ninety minutes of cozy, perilous fun. Instead, they wanted to send their audience home truly disturbed and afraid. Back in the days of the ‘video nasties’, Last House On The Left was one of the sickest puppies in the litter. An ugly, harrowing cult favourite which is much more complex (albeit crudely made) than its reputation would suggest. Loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, Wes Craven’s film depicts the atrocities committed by a ‘family’ of Manson-esque rootless criminals led by Krug, who kidnap, rape and torture two teenage girls before murdering them. The sadists then make their way through the dense New Jersey woods and take refuge with a suburban couple, posing as a family whose car has broken down. Little do the killers know that the house they have picked for their refuge is owned by Dr. and Mrs. Collingwood, the parents of one of their victims. After discovering the truth, the nice, liberal, middle-class couple exact savage revenge on the Krug and co, with the husband wielding a chainsaw and the wife her teeth for an unhappy ending.

Made on the tiniest of budgets, this drive-in exploitation pic decisively transcends its limitations. The intense violence is never played for thrills; indeed, Craven has said he wanted to “re-sensitize” Americans to the reality of violence in the wake of the Vietnam War. Craven – who would go on to polish his themes in the slicker The Hills Have Eyes (1977) – never for a moment allows the viewer to sympathize with the killers, but he does provide a window of understanding into how seemingly senseless acts of violence occur. The killers initially toy with the girls, as if playing a game; but when the game gets out of hand and the girls end up dead, the killers look at their corpses with saddened confusion, like children who have broken a favourite doll. Some have seen the film as a critique of the nuclear family, exploring the threat of patriarchal violence that lies beneath traditional structures of domestic authority. Undeniably, the good Dr. Collingwood’s behavior, from his surreptitious appraisal of his daughter’s figure to his spectacularly violent revenge, is not the kind of behavior you would expect from a liberal. And like David in Straw Dogs – which was made at around the same time – we see an otherwise sane and benign character resorting to savage behavior. Both Last House and Straw Dogs make you think about how you’d react if you found yourself in a similar situation; if I was David in Straw Dogs I’d defend the sanctity of my home to the death. And if I was Dr. Collingwood, I’m not sure if I could react any differently to him in that situation.

And now for the long history of censorship of this film. The Last House On The Left was banned outright in the UK when it was submitted for a planned theatrical release in 1974. The British censors claimed that no amount of cuts would make it acceptable for public viewing. In June 1982 it was released briefly on VHS by Replay Video, and in little over a year it fell afoul of the ‘video nasties’ panic and was prosecuted and banned on video, too. In 1999, Feature Film submitted the film for classification, and although the BBFC were now prepared to lift the ban, they would only do so if the distributers agreed to around 90 seconds of cuts “to remove images of the horrific stripping, rape, and knife murder of the two women.” And after Feature Film declined to cooperate with cutting the guts out of the film (who could blame them?), the censors simply kept it on the banned shelf. Not long after this, Exploited Films – a subsidiary of Blue Underground – began holding public screenings of Last House in the UK in uncut form. The idea was to show that the BBFC were out of touch with public opinion (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had also been subjected to illegal screenings in the UK, and this had resulted in its eventual uncut release after being banned for around twenty-five years). Last House was shown ten times at the ICA in London without a public outcry or police intervention, and this convinced the folks at Blue Underground that the film was now considered acceptable for adult audiences. But still, chief censor, Robin Duval, insisted on cuts. By now, the situation was beginning to look like Duval had a personal problem with the film; for horror fans at the time, Duval’s unmovable stance was reminiscent of former chief censor, James Ferman, and his strong dislike for films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Exorcist, both of which were only okayed in the UK after he resigned from the Board.

Blue Underground was informed that sixteen seconds of cuts were needed to secure a DVD release in the UK. But, spurred on by the encouraging words of film critic Mark Kermode, the distributers decided to go to the Video Appeals Committee (VAC), where concerned bods heard arguments for releasing the film uncut on the grounds of its great historical importance – this was also known as the ‘Last Appeal On The Left’. Central to Blue Underground’s case was an essay written by Kermode – the ‘specialist witness’ – which put the troublesome film into context as a legitimate work in the evolution of the horror genre, and verified its importance as a work of American independent cinema. “It was a bravura polemic,” Kermode later joked, “weighty, profound and forthright.” However, after considering the evidence, the VAC announced that in their opinion, the sixteen seconds of cuts being contested were actually too lenient for such a harrowing and disturbing film. And accordingly, the BBFC prevailed in their ruling. Kermode was particularly disheartened by the outcome; after all, it was his erudite and informed essay which was all but ignored in the lead-up to the decision. “The BBFC not only held up the cuts – they doubled them!” he later said.

It was a bad day for horror fans, as Blue Underground’s Carl Daft made clear, “I’m frankly astonished and appalled at the VAC’s decision. Not only is it incorrect on the basis of the evidence put before them, it makes a mockery of the established rules of fairness on conduct applicable to public bodies such as the BBFC. Contrary to what we might expect under Article 10 of The European Convention of Human Rights, we are a very long way from having our right to free expression in this country guaranteed. Such actions make us the laughing stock of the rest of the Western World. The right to free speech in the United Kingdom died today, and for that I have to say that I am ashamed to be British.”

The late 00s saw the release of the violent video game, Manhunt 2, which the BBFC immediately banned. However, the developers, Rockstar Games, appealed their decision, and ultimately, the Video Appeals Committee voted that the game could be released with an 18 certificate. The case was taken to the High Court and the game granted a release. Central to the decision was the Board’s ‘sexual violence policy tests’ which consisted of in-depth research carried out by Ipsos MORI which looked at the potential for sexually sadistic images to cause harm to viewers. In 2008, Second Sight submitted Last House On The Left to the censors, and the film was finally given an uncut bill of health. Interestingly, it was the furore surrounding Manhunt 2 which altered the censor’s guidelines, as a BBFC statement points out, “On the basis of the authoritative interpretation of the harm test as directed in the High Court in the Manhunt 2 case, the Board considered that the dated nature of the work had reduced much of the impact of the sexual violence previously cut. The Board’s sexual violence policy tests had been applied afresh since the previous submission, and the Board did not now believe that the work posed a realistic possibility of harm, so it was classified ‘18’ uncut.”

BBFC director, David Cooke, claimed that the High Court case which saw the release of Manhunt 2 had actually helped the Board. “We actually got a fairly substantial benefit from the Manhunt episode,” said Cooke. “We went to the High Court, and it clarified the harm test – actually a benefit that flies across a whole range of games and film. It all gets quite technical, but for instance, it showed it was not necessary for us to show devastating effect, which was what the arguments had said previously. So we’ve ended up with a clearer legal definition of that test than we had before the case started.”

As for Last House On The Left, director Wes Craven had always described the film as an angry response to TV images of the Vietnam War, and addressed the more contentious elements in terms of confrontation and catharsis. Of the film’s many vocal detractors, he has always supported the audience’s right to destroy film prints if they felt compelled to do so, whilst disagreeing with the official censors for being so biased against low-budget, independent films. Those are sentiments that can almost make you like the guy! Indeed, there has always been an air of smugness about Craven, especially since Scream. As a teenager I disliked him for being a ‘know-it-all’ prick, for being oh so clever and, like, so ‘postmodern’ and stuff? In interviews he was always quick to point out the cerebral aspects of the horror genre, making sure we know how intelligent he is, and reminding us that he’s just way too clever for this horror business, and that we should feel lucky for having an intelligent guy like him stooping to such a level as directing slasher movies (and, contrary to what many will tell you, the Scream movies are no more clever or sophisticated than an episode of Friends). I realised it was unhealthy to dislike someone that much; every time he appeared on screen I twisted in my seat in agony. It got so bad I would hallucinate little rat ears poking out of the top of his stupid hairdo. To me he was barely human – he struck me as being way too ‘normal’ and nondescript - something had to be wrong. I was convinced he had a warped perverted side, and probably enjoyed fucking handfuls of his own shit while no one was looking, or something. But oh well, I’m getting over it now, and Last House On The Left is a good enough reason to forgive him. Plus, he made The People Under The Stairs, one of the most underrated horror movies of the 90s, so I can’t hate him too much.

In fact, I’ve forgiven him so much I will let him have the last word. “[The Last House On The Left is] a protest against real violence in the world, and the downplaying of the reality of violence in films. We showed violence in its true ugliness, rather than taking the usual Hollywood path of making it glamorous and exciting and entertaining, which is in essence a lie. I’ve had many people over the years tell me it’s my strongest film and most truthful film. And I think there is a sense that the film was ‘pure’ in that it didn’t pull any punches or cater to any form of censorship.”

THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994)

Dir: John Dahl /USA

In one of his books, Nietzsche described women as having developed a strong sense of cunning over the centuries due to their historical position of being under the dominance of patriarchal societies. According to Nietzsche, if a woman had a problem with her spouse she couldn't openly complain about it due to fears of being beaten, killed, or banished from the household; the structure of old societies would ensure she would lose the confrontation regardless of whether she was right or wrong in her grievance. Thus women have developed a highly-evolved sense of cunning, and in order for them to get what they want from life they have become adept at manipulating situations and circumstances around them, and portraying themselves as victims, but are in fact just waging their ruthless and amoral will to power.

Director John Dahl seems to have taken Nietzsche's aphorism to form the basis of his film, The Last Seduction, which stars Linda Fiorentino as Bridget, a cold-hearted super-bitch who goads her husband into stealing and selling pharmaceutical drugs, and then makes off with the $700,000 loot while he's in the shower. Husband Clay (Bill Pullman) desperately needs the money to pay off his gambling debts so he hires a private detective to find her... Meanwhile, Bridget arrives in a small town hoping to sit it out whilst her dodgy lawyer secures her a divorce. In a bar she picks up Mike (Peter Berg), an amiable local stud whom she exploits for sex and then ensnares into her complex web while she severs her past ties with a ruthless and deadly precision.

The Last Seduction is a modern-day noir thriller that effectively puts the 'fatale' back into femme fatale. This is a very dark film, but also darkly amusing in places, superbly pieced together and contrived. It's so gleefully nasty that only the most soft-hearted viewers could resist the film's ghastly spell. Unlike the more bloated erotic thrillers like Basic Instinct, which seem to revel in their own excesses, The Last Seduction doesn't mess around in getting right down to the cold heart of classic noir - It's a film which presents life as being like a nasty game of cut and run, where only the most twisted and ruthless characters stand a chance of surviving. It's one of those thrillers that is loaded with genuinely surprising plot twists.

Fiorentino is perfect as the praying-mantis-in-lace, a spectacularly cynical bitch. There's a part of me that couldn't help but admire her a little but I sure wouldn't want to get involved with anyone like her. Director John Dahl, who had previously helmed a couple of low-key noirs (Kill Me Again and Red Rock West, which are both well worth checking out, too), does a fine job of showing how a Hitlerian attitude is worshipped in the business world, and subversively exposing how society secretly embraces the things we love to condemn.

The Last Seduction premiered on America's HBO cable channel, but was eventually given a theatrical release. The film's overwhelming critical success led many to believe that it would receive some good attention at the Oscars for director Dahl and actress Fiorentino, but because the film had debuted on television, this wasn't to be. However, The Last Seduction did at least grace many critics' top ten lists of the year and helped to transcend the stigma attached to TV movies. Perhaps the only thing that stops this film from being a masterpiece is the soundtrack; an uninspired jazzy lounge tune that seems to be playing on a constant loop with no variation, and becomes very annoying. It plays throughout the opening credits, throughout most of the film itself, and then throughout the entire duration of the end credits. I wish they would have changed the bloody record!

LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (1992)

(Orig title: Urotsukidoji)

Dir: Hideki Takayama /Japan

Japan is a country obsessed with animation. It's a cartoon culture, and you're never far away from a place where cartoon junkies can get their fix. People read cartoons, or 'Manga', everywhere; at home, during their lunch breaks, and on the subway. They buy their animated films, or 'anime', in their millions, too. With so many average consumers of cartoons, the market caters for every taste. Each year there are over two billion Manga books sold in Japan. That's almost half of everything printed. If you look at it from a different angle, that's fifteen books per year for every man, woman, and child in Japan. That's a lot of books. And part of this massive market has always been erotic. It started with the woodblock prints in the 17th Century; in amongst the beautiful fabrics and contrasting patterns, genitals are aplenty, and clearly not modeled on the local Samurai, but his horse.

In modern Japan, entrepreneurs were quick to see the opportunities for adult anime. Thus was born the animated feature series Urotsukidoji, created strictly for the adult market where it was massively popular. It broke new ground in depicting graphic sex, and initiated a long line of imitators. But when the film first opened, it caused an uproar in Japan. In fact, the Japanese were just as shocked by the film as Western audiences, and it was just as much a landmark title in Japan as it was over here.

It's a typical plot. You know the kind of thing; a thousand foot high super-being comes down to earth to be reincarnated, destroys the world, and then re-creates it again. Bizarrely, for such a supernatural film the setting is spookily common place, a city college. There are several candidates for the overfiend (or the person who will father him), and there are also several candidates for the woman who will give birth to the reincarnated overfiend.

Like any other porn business, the majority of the viewers for anime erotica are young men. Legend of The Overfiend is a sick but clever way of showing not just pornography but also the feelings and fears of an adolescent male. The original author of the film, Toshio Maeda, is a master craftsman at exploiting the moment of standing at the threshold of adulthood. His characters are usually young people and they see the adult world as a place where everyone is having sex, everyone has power and authority, but they don't. And this triggers a violent reaction.

The Japanese censor is often quite a fussy individual because the job is usually handed out to those who are eased out of the regular police force. And although it isn't law in Japan, there is an unwritten agreement that the censors should avoid showing pubic hair wherever possible, which often results in the use of those optical smudges, or 'pixelations' to blur out any offending pubes on display. It is also standard practice in Japan for censors to blur out the sight of penises on screen. But rather amusingly, Legend of The Overfiend found a clever way of avoiding the restrictions by having 50 foot tall super-beings sprouting strange phallic-like tentacles that would penetrate pretty young girls. The tentacles even had glans, but the censors were unable to do a thing about it. And, as if to rub the authorities' face in it, the sequel, Legend of The Demon Womb, seemed delighted with its notoriety and pushed its luck even further with the penis/tentacle ambiguity.

Whilst putting together a film show for the British National Science Fiction Convention, Helen McCarthy, co-author of The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, opted to screen Legend of The Overfiend with an open warning that "This film will offend everybody." And still, the theater was jam-packed with those eager to see the notorious film everyone was talking about. And this goes to show how controversy definitely sells.

LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

Dir: David Lynch /USA /France

Jazz musician, Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) receives sinister videotapes on his doorstep which were made by someone walking through his house at night with a camcorder recording him and his wife (Patricia Arquette) while they slept. After somehow killing his wife, but having no memory of it, he finds himself on death row and literally transforms into a different person whose life turns out to be even more nightmarish...

Lost Highway is one of the most puzzling pictures from the master of weird, David Lynch. If you're hoping for a straight forward narrative drive and an easy-to-digest plot then look elsewhere because this movie isn't for you. Instead, what we get is a deranged, psychogenic trip through the nightmarish world of the unconscious, a film completely lacking the traditional three-act structure, and which owes more to the surreal goings on of Eraserhead rather than the candy-coloured nightmares of Wild At Heart and Blue Velvet. Made four years after the director was subjected to an almighty critical drubbing when he was dragged through Tinseltown by his testicles and burned at the stake for delivering the wonderfully sublime Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway shows all the signs of a scarred filmmaker who, nonetheless, showed absolutely NO intentions of playing straight or conforming to critical demands or expectations.

Co-writer Barry Gifford (whose novel, ‘Wild At Heart’, provided the basis for Lynch's earlier film) described Lost Highway as "a film about a man who finds himself in a dire situation and has a kind of panic attack which fractures him in some way." And that's about the closest you'll get to a comprehensive explanation of the film whose protagonist falls into a murky world of suspicion and death, and who inexplicably transforms into an entirely different person while trying to deal with his own murderous deeds. Lynch himself was even less forthcoming about explaining Lost Highway, but he did claim that the first third of the film came to him in a vision on the final day of shooting Fire Walk With Me. Following this, he also insisted that he was awoken in his home in the middle of the night by someone ringing his doorbell and informing him that "Dick Laurent is dead" on the intercom, a creepy and disturbing incident since Lynch didn't know anyone called Dick Laurent, and he had no idea who the person was who seemed so keen to bring him the news in the middle of the night. The vision and the Dick Laurent incident stewed in his mind over time and became connected when Lynch chanced upon a phrase in Gifford's novel Night People, 'lost highway'. He immediately began working on the screenplay with Gifford using that title and using those strange incidents which had haunted him for weeks as the starting point. Little wonder the end result turned out so weird.

The film opens on a POV shot of a car cruising on a dark highway with the headlights illuminating the space ahead, and David Bowie's sublime 'I'm Deranged' playing over the top, its signature bass line complementing the mesmerizing opening. The narrative is structured like a maze; just as you're beginning to make some kind of sense of the thing, you suddenly hit a dead-end. New openings become apparent, and ghostly outlines of overall themes begin to emerge, but come to nothing when you reach yet more dead-ends, and you find yourself confronted by impossible situations, such as characters being in two separate places at the same time (the ugly vampiric Mystery Man who will only go where he is invited, and also Fred's own bilocation as he is somehow able to listen to himself speaking on the intercom in his home while he is also outside the door speaking into it), and characters changing physical bodies, becoming different people with their own traits and histories.

It seems Lynch had purposely constructed a film that is impossible to decipher. Actually, there could be an explanation for the film but it's so carefully concealed in a labyrinth of noir horror mystery that, just like Eraserhead before it, no one has adequately offered an entirely convincing interpretation. And in this sense, Lost Highway reminded me of Andrzej Zulawski's enigmatic masterpiece, Possession (1981), a film which also presents its audience with impossibilities (Isabelle Adjani's character is somehow impregnated by her 'offspring', a monster whom she hadn't even given birth to yet. Thus, she gives birth to the father who is also the baby who could not possibly have existed when he got mamma knocked up - wrap your head around that). Possession also seems to have been purposely constructed with tangible yet abstract themes and ideas, and both films are like cinematic equivalents of a Max Escher drawing; you may be able to follow the flights of stairs but only until they start running upside down, and you find yourself hopelessly lost. Lost Highway is best experienced as a dream-logic type of film, with the narrative suddenly shifting to different characters in different situations, becoming a whole new narrative that is only very loosely connected to the first. It's okay if you don't 'get it'. No one seems to get it. I've seen it about eight times and I still don't get it, but it doesn't matter. Just go along with it and enjoy the ride.

When Lost Highway opened in America, it provoked a similar hostile reaction as Fire Walk With Me, with mainstream critics taking an instant dislike to it. Actually, if truth be told, their reactions were probably based on them not 'getting it', and can be summed up in the following; 'We don't know what this film is saying, so therefore it MUST be bullshit'. Amusingly, the hostile reaction also seems to stem from them feeling somehow duped by the film, as if Lynch had somehow got one over on them, and they were determined to punish him for making them feel like bemused canines trying to follow a card trick. Lynch even took a quote from a particularly negative review by stuffy critics Siskel and Ebert ("Two thumbs down") and plastered their verdict on huge advertising billboards across the city as a perverse form of recommendation. The European critics were much more kind with their assessments, if no less confused. The film also received overwhelmingly positive reviews when it was previewed in Madrid. It was later discovered to have been accidentally screened with a couple of the reels in the wrong order, and this generated some fascinating interpretations of what the director had intended.

LOVE IS THE DEVIL: STUDY FOR A PORTRAIT OF FRANCIS BACON (1998)

Dir: John Maybury /UK

It's certainly not a pretty picture, but painter Francis Bacon - who depicted the human form as distorted lumps of flesh, tooth, bone, and gristle - was never very interested in pretty. In this brilliant, stylistic tour de force, writer/director John Maybury offers a scathing portrait of the tormented artist, and the film palette itself is designed to resemble Bacon's own grotesque visions.

The film focuses on Bacon's life during the 1960s, and the years he spent with George Dyer, an ex-con who served as model, lover, and deeply troubled muse. Francis (Derek Jacobi, baring a striking resemblance to the real-life Bacon) first meets George (Daniel Craig) when the would-be burglar tumbles down the rabbit hole of the artist's own private hell: intending to rob the place, George comes through the skylight of Francis's London studio. He ends up spending the next seven years by Francis's side, much to the savage amusement of the artist's pub-crawling, art-world cronies, including photographer John Deakin (Karl Johnson) and Muriel Belcher (a fully transformed Tilda Swinton), the caustic proprietor of the Colony Room, one of Bacon's haunts. But George is prey to demons of his own - terrifying nightmares, debilitating paranoia, and an uncontrollable death wish - and as Francis continues to gain international acclaim, George begins to unravel.

Maybury's film is a harrowing examination of artistic and emotional interdependency, and he's unsparing in his depiction of Bacon as heartlessly self-serving, dishing up all the lurid details of the artist's masochistic sexual obsessions. But Maybury stays clear of a facile psychological angle, offering instead Bacon at work amid the legendary chaos of his art studio, slashing at his canvas with brushes, hands, and even a bin lid. Jacobi's and Craig's performances are both gut-wrenching and startlingly raw, and the whole film, thanks in large part to John Mathieson's inspired cinematography, has the chilling look of a Bacon canvas come to life.

MANIAC (2012)

Dir: Alexandre Aja /USA /France

Frank (Elijah Wood) is a deeply disturbed loner who spends his days restoring antique mannequins and his nights stalking, killing and scalping young women. His grip on reality is so delicate he has to down anti-psychotic pills just to keep his hallucinations under control. He then meets the beautiful French photographer, Anna (Nora Arnezeder). They strike up a friendship based on a mutual appreciation of each other's art. But instead of the hope of redemption, their relationship is doomed to end very badly.

I avoided watching this remake of Maniac for a long time, not only because William Lustig's original is one of my all-time favourite slasher movies and I didn't want to see it ruined, but also because Elijah Wood was cast in the lead role. He was okay as the blank-faced serial killer in Sin City, but that sounds like a back-handed compliment (just like Vinnie Jones's finest performance was in Midnight Meat Train; ironically, it was a role which required him to express ZERO emotions). The thought of Elijah Wood stepping into the shoes of Joe Spinell did not fill me with joy. I mean, he's a foetus-faced, fun-size version of maniac. Hey Hollywood, if you want to give him a funny role, why not cast him as a baby Jesus butt-plug instead. Actually, Elijah Wood is not as bad here as I originally feared, but he's got nothing on the hulking, sweaty mass of self-loathing scum that is the original Frank, played by Spinell.

This remake marks the change that has spread across the horror genre in the 32 years since the original was made. The maniac is now a pretty boy whom the girls can fawn over. The action has been shifted from the grotty downtown red light district of New York to the trendy hipster hive of Los Angeles (physically and aesthetically right on Hollywood's doorstep). The retro inflected score by 'Rob' serves more as a cool 'in-thing' rather than an attempt to create any kind of atmosphere or dread. Instead of the street hookers of the original, the victims here are mostly trendy young women whom the killer meets on internet dating sites. The whole thing has a slick, MTV vibe about it, full of colour and tricky visuals. For some stupid reason producer Alexandre Aja thought it was a good idea to hire Franck Khalfoun to direct the film. Khalfoun was a dancer and a business man, and is as far removed from the horror genre as, um, a dancing business man trying to make a horror movie.

The film's major gimmick is presenting the entire story from the perspective of the killer in continuous POV shots, which basically means that the audience has to trail behind the lead character breathing in his farts for 83 minutes. But rather than enhance the story (as in Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void), this just serves as a masturbatory camera fetish; 'ooh, check out the colours, look how we pan down from a ceiling mirror to the bed where Frank is strangling the cool tattooed chick. Check out the fluidity of our cameras; isn't it sexy?' What a trendy world it must be to be a serial killer. It's all surface, surface and more surface. Frank himself is portrayed as if he is slowly transforming into a mannequin dummy. His line delivery is so utterly blank and monotonous he makes Norman Bates seem like the life and soul of the party, in comparison. The POV technique should implicate the viewers in the crimes (as it did in such controversial works as Salo and Henry-Portrait of a Serial Killer); the voyeuristic merging of the viewer's gaze with the killer's POV would have worked much better if it was designed to make us feel uncomfortable by questioning our complicitness with a murderer. But, because Frank's face is often seen in reflective surfaces during or after the killings, it is still possible to view the carnage in a detached manner, thus rendering the whole POV technique redundant; it's used here as nothing but a useless gimmick and an excuse to show off some fancy MTV-style camera techniques.

After delivering the gruelling - if finally silly and nonsensical - slasher movie, Haute Tension, Alexandre Aja was hailed as the savior of modern horror. But his subsequent output has consisted of nothing but producing and directing remakes of previous horror hits like The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008) and Piranha 3D (2010). Is that all there is to working in the industry nowadays? Is that all genre filmmakers can hope to achieve, a little golden ticket to head out to Hollywood to churn out sub-par remakes? It's either remake or bust. It's a sorry state of affairs to be in, and will drive all but the shallowest and money-driven 'artists' from ever wanting to pursue a career in mainstream movies. And the situation is rapidly getting worse as the years go by. Aja the savior of horror? The savior of his bank account, more like.

Maniac ultimately serves as a typical example of what modern mainstream movies have become; 21st Century feature-length music videos designed to dazzle the mannequins in the audience. Ironically, the deadweights in the audience who enjoyed this film are exactly the type of unfeeling psychopaths who think MTV Cribs is a show about moneyed gods. Are you one of those? You hipster prick. You little ipod-wearing cunt. Modern fucker. You make me want to throw up. You and your youth, I hope you enjoy it. It will all go pear-shaped, mark my words. It always does. Enjoy your ipads and your Nandos and your party-sausage maniacs while they last, you happy, confident little fucker.

THE MANSON FAMILY (2003)

Dir: Jim VanBebber /USA

On August 9th 1969, actress Sharon Tate was brutally murdered in her own home. The wife of film director Roman Polanski was eight months pregnant, and was hung from a beam in the living room before being stabbed more than a dozen times. Several of her friends were also killed during the attack. The following night, around ten miles away, two more people fell victim to vicious knife attacks. The crimes were seemingly unmotivated, the suspects unknown. Beverly Hills was soon gripped with fear as the killings were reported as random and ritualistic. It seemed there was a group of savage killers on the loose with celebrities in their sights.

When Charles Manson and members of his hippie following - known as ‘the family’ – were brought to trial for the murders in June 1970, the world’s media portrayed the man at the centre of it all as “the most dangerous man alive”. Many books were rushed into print which claimed to tell the true story of the crimes. One in particular, ‘The Family: The Story Of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion’, was a silly and insensitive account written by Ed Sanders, who was lead singer of the band The Fugs. Sanders wrote in a style that was often giddy and flippant (he is often credited with bridging the gap between the Beats and the Hippies), and this resulted in a book that was quite atypical for a non-fiction work. Sanders claimed that the Manson Family may have been involved in the making of snuff films – indeed, he is the first credited source for the word ‘snuff’, as a means of killing on camera, to appear in print – and that the film reels were buried somewhere out in the desert. And along with the lurid details of the murders, and the fact that many of Manson’s followers were seen on TV news reports with shaved heads proclaiming the end of the world, captured the imaginations of millions worldwide. The Manson killings shocked the world in the late 60s, and helped turn the hippie dream into a nightmare.

In the summer of 1988, just as Deadbeat At Dawn was wrapping up production, cinematographer Mike King suggested that their next film should be a quick exploitation horror based on the Manson killings. Writer/director Jim VanBebber agreed, and, convinced that Deadbeat would prove a financial success, they jumped right into production on the film which they originally entitled Cult Killer. “I thought yeah, let’s do it,” VanBebber later said. “Whatever happens, it couldn’t possibly be any worse than Deadbeat, because I thought that was a production nightmare!” Little did they know the filmmaking hell which awaited them and which would keep the production stuck in the mud for more than ten years.

In researching the case, it wasn’t long before VanBebber realised it would be a disservice to anyone still sensitive to the killings to just churn out an exploitation pic, and instead spent a great deal of time immersed in the minutiae of case documents and studies in order to create as real a film version as possible. After shooting almost 50% of the film’s footage by the autumn of that same year, the filmmakers saw ‘Murder America’, a very popular television show presented by Geraldo Rivera, which was broadcast from death row and included a ten minute interview with Charles Manson in his jail cell. This show (which was later satirized by Oliver Stone in Natural Born Killers) and its interview-based format, inspired Jim to remold his film into a faux-documentary style. The idea was to show the Family members contradicting each other when asked about specific details of the crimes, as a way of underpinning the overall allusive nature of the truth (as previously explored by Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon, for example). The filmmakers decided not to contact the Family prisoners for interviews and research purposes. “I’m not going to talk to those fuckers,” Jim said, “because they would lie to me anyway. Especially Manson. I don’t need that shit. I’m just making a film about something that happened in history. It’s no different from, say, the Donner Party. Get that straight, Charlie!”

Right from the start, Van Bebber’s intention was always to focus on the family members like Tex Watson, ‘Sadie’ Atkins and the people who actually committed the murders, and leave Manson himself as a peripheral figure. Hence the filmmakers eventually settled on the working title, Charlie’s Family. Money for the film ran out before the end of the year, and the production grinded to a halt. For the next few years, Jim could only shoot snippets of footage here and there on scraps of 16mm film when small funds became available. He survived on very little during that time, even ‘donating’ his plasma to the local blood bank (unlike the UK, American hospitals pay their blood donors) as often as he could to keep afloat. “I would open the refrigerator and see there was nothing to eat,” Jim later said. “Maybe a hotdog or something. But right there next to the hotdog was the film cans, with the film just sitting there waiting to be processed. That kept me going.”

In a desperate bid to raise spirits and to capture the interest of potential investors, the filmmakers decided to put the last of their money into making a short film which would showcase their talents. The result was My Sweet Satan in 1993. And like Charlie’s Family, that film was also based on a true crime – specifically, Satanist Ricki Kasso who murdered a fellow teen and later hung himself while in police custody. My Sweet Satan was a success; the 20-minute, 16mm short, shot on a budget of just $5000 went on to win the Grand Prize at the first New York Underground Film Festival, and got people talking about the mysterious feature film, Charlie’s Family. Unfortunately, the short didn’t usher in a rush of investors as hoped, but enough funding did become available to allow Jim to shoot some new footage. The new sequences for the film would be set in the present day, and would show a new generation of Manson fans – sneering, alienated, cynical, embittered, nihilistic, etc – VanBebber insisted that a contemporary viewpoint on the Manson case would keep his film relevant in the present day. Or, as he put it, “it will show you that those people are still out there.”

In 1996, VanBebber had put together a rough cut of Charlie’s Family and submitted it to the Chicago Underground Film Festival. The buzz generated from that screening carried it up to Montreal for a screening to a packed-house at the Fantasia Festival the following year (as seen in the excellent documentary, In The Belly Of The Beast, which just so happens to be included on Anchor Bay’s 2-disc set of The Manson Family). And as a side note, that cut of the film included the song ‘Jail’ by Down on the opening titles sequence. The song didn’t make it into the final cut, which is a shame because it’s a great song from one of the great albums of the 90s, and helps to set up the right kind of edgy mood for the film from the get go.

Production seemed to be near completion when, in 1998, VanBebber was invited over to L.A. by Spanish filmmaker, Nacho Cerda (of Aftermath infamy), to add the finishing touches to post-production. However, Cerda changed his mind and decided he would pump the money into completing his own short film, Genesis, instead (and, for the record, Genesis was an award-winning – if overrated – companion piece to Aftermath). Feeling deflated and frustrated by the sudden change of circumstances, VanBebber went back home and began raising funds in the way he knew best, by giving blood. It was around this time that he also found work directing music videos, including Skinny Puppy’s Spasmolytic and Pantera’s Revolution Is My Name. Pantera frontman, Phil Anselmo (himself a horror movie fanatic), even provided the voiceover for the scene in which Tex grows Devil horns and leers at the camera, shouting “You’re all going to die!”

With the production now crossing into the 21st Century, VanBebber was at last given the opportunity to finish his film when David Gregory and Carl Daft of Blue Underground UK put their money where their mouth was and showed their faith in the project by investing in it. And it was at this last moment when Jim agreed to the final name change, settling on The Manson Family. As part of its makeover at Blue Underground, the film was blown up to a beautiful 35mm print, and mixed in 5.1 surround sound, making it almost a different movie from the bootleg version which was floating around on video at the time. Added to this was the altered soundtrack which now included numerous songs written and performed by Phil Anselmo, a new song from the new lineup of Skinny Puppy, a handful of tunes written and performed by Manson himself (bloody awful, by the way), and also a speech from Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple cult. And after a few adjustments here and there, The Manson Family was at last released on DVD in 2003, fifteen years after the production got under way.

So, was it worth the wait? Absolutely. This is a film which presents the Manson story unlike any other. And, as promised by Jim, Charles Manson (played by Marcello Games) is not the main figure of focus here. Instead, the film follows ‘Tex’ Watson (Marc Pitman), ‘Sadie’ Atkins (Maureen Allisse), Patty Krenwinkel (Leslie Orr), Bobby Beausoleil (VanBebber) and Leslie Kasabian (Amy Yates). Each of these individuals is a drifter, a lost soul, who finds a place of belonging with Manson and his teachings. The story of how the Family members’ isolation and insanity paved the way to the Tate/LaBianca murders forms the narrative basis of the film. But VanBebber adds extra layers to this by presenting a disjunctive narrative style that includes a modern-day Mansonite gang who sit around in a squalid basement taking intravenous drugs and listening to Jim Jones tapes. These youngsters are plotting to kill a television newsman who dared to broadcast a show critical of Manson and his followers. These parallel stories are linked by footage of modern-day interviews with the much older incarcerated killers – and this adds a third layer to the story, showing how those involved in the crimes reshape the events to suit their own ends.

The sequences set in the 60s remain the most impressive, and boasts a vivid, hallucinatory style. We get jump-cuts, fish-eye lenses and a bold colour scheme in the style of filmmakers like Kenneth Anger (Scorpio Rising), Roman Polanski (The Fearless Vampire Killers), Nicolas Roeg (Performance) and Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider and The Last Movie), giving it an authentic 60s feel. And it isn’t just the 60s vibe that feels authentic; the violence too is vicious and appalling to watch, knowing that VanBebber based the entire sequences on testimonies and crime scene photos. Ritualistic dog-blood orgies and trippy, psychedelic sequences are bathed in a stark red glow to give the scenes a hellish vibe. As for the murder sequences themselves, VanBebber doesn’t shy away from depicting the bloody carnage in a manner that will leave most viewers feeling nauseated. The Tate/LaBianca massacres are among the most savage and realistic ever filmed. But having said that, VanBebber is careful to present those grisly events in a truthful manner; and despite levels of NC-17 sex and violence on view, it never feels gratuitous or dishonest.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect film. The modern-day sequences featuring the Mansonites really doesn’t work in the way that it should; those sequences tend to crop up from time to time throughout the film, disrupting the fascinating scenes set in the 60s. It’s a theory that works well in concept but less so in the actual finished film, and comes off as too self-aware for it to work. And because of this, the modern-day killings of the ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ kid and the newsman feels much less compelling than the actual Manson massacre shown earlier in the film. Also, Marcello Games who plays Manson simply isn’t menacing or charismatic enough; he’s about half as scary as an Argos catalogue. He looks like a fancy-dress version of Manson; an otherwise decent and normal guy who is not quite suited to the aggressive and controlling nature of the role. Whereas the real Charles Manson could have his disciples behead you and orgy in your blood if you so much as said a wrong word to him, Marcelo Games, on the other hand, merely looks like he might, at a push, dispute the price of a dented tin of baked beans with a supermarket checkout girl.

VanBebber’s director’s cut of The Manson Family was released unrated in the States, and unbelievably, was also passed fully uncut in the UK. The end result is a film which, despite the high levels of sex and violence, is perhaps the most honest depiction of those crimes ever committed to film. It’s not a police-based procedural piece like the 1976 TV miniseries, Helter Skelter, for CBS, or Vincent Bugliosi’s book (which formed the basis of the miniseries). Nor is it an overblown piece of hokum in the vein of the more recent TV movies, Helter Skelter (2004) and Manson (2009), the former running for more than two hours in length. Unlike those examples, VanBebber’s movie doesn’t mess around in de-mythologizing Manson and his followers, and showing how awful and cruel real-life violence really is. It’s a stunning and horrifying piece of work, but of vital importance for those wanting to understand how crimes of that nature can unfold. This isn’t a throwaway exploitation piece, but a comment on how people can justify their own actions by tossing the blame around like a hot potato, and how the media peddles lies and how this is damaging to society. In sum: Anyone interested in the Manson case or in filmmaking as a whole really ought to see this film.

MENACE II SOCIETY (1993)

Dir: Albert & Allen Hughes /USA

A young street hood attempts to clean up his game and escape from ghetto life.

Along with classics like Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers and Bad Lieutenant, Menace II Society is another one of those ‘back from the dead’ movies from the 90s which was initially refused a video certificate in the UK until the controversial furore surrounding its release had died down. Those videos had fallen victim to some unwritten rule which kept them out of our homes. While many of the tapes weren’t officially prosecuted (most of them – Reservoir Dogs, NBK and True Romance, for example – eventually hit the video shelves uncut), they were nonetheless held captive by the censors for a while, presumably as a way of enforcing some kind of temporary banning order without having to go to the trouble of paperwork or seeing out the long process of making it legislation; you know, of making the process legitimate and above board. And as such, we could probably call this practice the Guantanamo Bay of British censorship, if that’s not too glib. But anyway, in many respects, Menace II Society was one of the unfair recipients of that kind of treatment, because despite scenes of shocking violence, the film actually delivers one of the most hard-hitting anti-violence statements of the 90s. The Hughes brothers take the viewers on a candidly brutal tour of a ghetto in South Central L.A. where trigger-happy maniacs and reckless, brain dead gang-bangers ensure that pain and tragedy are a normal, everyday thing for the community.

The main character is Caine (Tyrin Turner), a young man torn between his desires to break out of the ghetto and improve his lot in life, and his obligations to his friends who are very much stuck in the dangerous game of street life, and are described in the film as “America’s nightmare: young, black and doesn’t give a fuck”. Although Menace was quite a late entry in ‘hood’ movies, after Boyz ‘n’ The Hood and Juice, it remains perhaps the finest of its type – or at least a supreme example of it – and still raises a chill even after two decades since its release, thanks to its powerful and visceral vérité style. In the opening scene, Caine and his psychotic homie, O-Dog (Larenz Tate), are captured on surveillance camera shooting dead a shopkeeper. If the film has any flaws, for me it would be Caine’s tolerance for a loon like O-Dog – I know they’ve known each other all their lives, but tagging along with a psycho who would blast your head off if you so much as say the wrong thing, is not my idea of buddy material, I’m sorry. And seeing a decent character like Caine constantly trailing behind O-Dog and making sure he kisses his bumhole clean is quite disturbing – he definitely drops down a few notches in my estimation because of this. O-Dog, in turn, lives out every crummy drug dealer’s wet dream – standing on ghetto street corners wearing an immaculate white vest, drinking bottles of “O.E.” (what’s that, Olde English cider? Yuk!), and busting caps in any motherfucker who disses him, yo. The guy is a hostile little toby jug with a chip on his shoulder almost as big as his pathetic, offended ego. It only takes someone like him and a few gormless bumlickers in tow to wreck a community. In short, he’s a cee to the yoo to the enn to the tee of monumental, towering proportions. I don’t like him.

On the plus side, Menace II Society does an excellent job of showing how routine violence echoes down the generations, to the point where black kids learn how to load a pistol before they can even ride a bike. The acting, for the most part, is spot on; harsh, gritty, emotional, foul-mouthed – all too believable, while the direction from the Hughes brothers is raw and consistently unflinching.

On the censorship front, the film didn’t fare too well in America where the MPAA imposed a number of cuts in order to obtain the R rating. The cuts included the scene where Samuel L. Jackson’s character kills the man at the poker game, the revenge shooting by A-Wax, or Ear-Wax, or whatever he’s called, and Caine’s bloody demise. And it was this same American R-rated version which was passed uncut for a British cinema release. On home video, however, the BBFC removed a further ten seconds of violent footage, mostly of gunshot squibs and exit wounds. Those ten seconds of cuts were later waived in 2003 for the release by Entertainment, but that version is still based on the American R-rated cut. It wasn’t until 2009 that the original director’s cut was released in an ‘uncut’ DVD and Blu-Ray. However, this version is still missing the legendary prison riot scene that the Hughes brothers had filmed but was dropped by the studio to avoid the NC-17 rating. (It’s a similar situation to that of Candyman, a film which has never been released uncut on any home video format; the original theatrical cut of Candyman includes extra footage of the psychiatrist being gutted with the hook.) The so-called director’s cut of Menace also includes an extra scene which shows Caine and O-Dog breaking into a car.

MONDO CANE 2 (1963)

(aka Mondo Pazzo, ‘Crazy World’)

Dir: Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi /Italy

Starting eerily similar to the original Mondo Cane, this sequel opens with a scene involving caged dogs. But this time they are locked up in individual cages with bandages on their throats. The dogs are seen to be barking, but only let out faint squeaks – this is because their vocal chords have been cut prior to vivisection. An Alsation under anesthetic has an operation on its abdomen, a procedure which seemingly has nothing to do with its throat. Of course, this being a mondo movie, it’s always wise to question the authenticity of what is happening on screen, and Mondo Cane 2 is no exception there. Jacopetti and Prosperi are simply up to their old tricks of shaping the ‘reality’ around them for their own ends. They even go as far as to poke fun at the British censors who had banned Mondo Cane (although it was screened illegally several times in the UK). The narrator asks if the censors would like to cut this sequence in the same way as the vet cuts the dog’s voice.

It’s clear that Jacopetti and Prosperi wanted to take the mondo format further than their previous film, and with the political upheaval at the time, they had the perfect opportunity to out-shock the original Mondo Cane. About halfway through this sequel is a scene that was shot in Saigon in 1963. It’s a scene which supposedly shows the infamous suicide of the Buddhist monk, Quang Duc, who was protesting the Vietnamese government’s suppression of Buddhism. On first glance, this all looks horribly real, and for years many had assumed it to be genuine footage of the event – the man sits in the middle of a public square, a fellow monk pours petrol over him then pours a trail away from Duc to a safe distance. The crowd of protestors and police watch on in horror as the monk sets fire to the trail of flammable liquid, and Duc is engulfed in flames. The stoic monk sits calm and lotus-like as the fireball ravages his flesh, putting years of meditative power to the ultimate test. According to a New York Times reporter who had witnessed the incident, Duc remained unmoved throughout. “As he burned, he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.” And because Duc was assisted in his death, this makes the incident technically murder.

On first viewing, you could be forgiven for thinking it was real footage. However, in their book, ‘Killing For Culture’, David Kerekes and David Slater compare the footage with the original photograph from the Associated Press to argue that the scene was faked. In addition to noting a suspicious edit in the film when a spectator backs into the lens, obscuring the view just before the fire is lit (the perfect place to sneak in a cut and replace the man with a mannequin ‘double’ to burn), they also point out that in the real photo (which is helpfully printed side by side with a still from a scene in the film) there doesn’t look to be a trail of fuel there at all. They go on to add, “Furthermore, the petrol container is positioned about a metre behind Duc, while in the film, the canister is taken away and placed in the vicinity of the vehicle visible in the background. The assisting priest, kneeling by the vehicle in the film is not evident in the photo. As the fireball engulfs the man it travels from the right, yet the photograph shows the right side of Duc’s face and shoulder to be free of flame.”

Kerekes and Slater put forward some interesting points, and viewers should bare those ideas in mind while watching the film. The photo – which was later used as an album cover by Rage Against The Machine in 1992 – shows various inconsistencies when compared with the scene in the film. Self-immolation was a common form of protest used by Buddhists in Vietnam at the time, and for that reason alone the scene does at least have some credibility (many similar types of protest were also filmed, if not for the purpose of entertainment). But whether real or not, it’s very unlikely that the scene in Mondo Cane 2 shows the burning of Quang Duc.

The rest of the film presents the usual bizarre practices from across the globe, including American cops disguised in drag as a way of capturing street muggers and sex offenders, a brief S&M sequence shot in a torture dungeon, Indian fakirs demonstrating various stunts, such as having pins pushed into flesh, and, in the final sequence, we get to witness a supposed real slave auction in the Congo; drought and destitution has led to many villagers deciding to sell themselves as labor. The villagers are beaten by their potential owners as a way of testing their strength. Real or staged, this is all very depressing, especially when the slaves smile through their ordeal to show that they’re a tough and durable slave force.

Mondo Cane 2 (pronounced ‘Mondo Cannay’) comes across as even more sensational and exploitational than its controversial predecessor. But surprisingly, the film didn’t receive the same kind of world-wide press coverage as the original film. International journalists were perhaps aware of how their collective column inches dedicated to the first film had helped to catapult it to box-office gold (as the famously stuffy critic, Leslie Halliwell noted, “It’s huge commercial success made one worry for the world”), and this time decided not to aid the sleazy sequel in achieving the same goal. No matter how much the critics disliked the film, Jacopetti and Prosperi did at least have inexperience and naïveté on their side, which perhaps spared them from the ultimate condemnation by the press. This sequel, however, shows the filmmakers more in their true colours – as a pair of immoral opportunists prepared to orchestrate anything for the sake of sensationalist filmmaking, no matter how crude or debased it may be. Ultimately, Mondo Cane 2 does a lot to drop the pretense of it being a factual documentary, and instead seems happy enough to parade its shock sequences with a gleeful edge – It’s a film which wears its vulgarities on its sleeve. The pair returned with the even more disturbing Africa Addio in 1967.

I suppose the worst thing you could say about Mondo Cane 2 is that it presents to us the pessimism and inhumanity that Jacopetti himself was often accused of in his private life – the fact that he personified the very evils that he purported to condemn in his films. Born in Northern Italy in 1919, Jacopetti was the only child of a wealthy middle class family. His childhood fascination with Italy’s colonial wars in Africa led to his life-long passion for travel and adventure. He volunteered as a soldier in Mussolini’s army (the very same army that struggled to conquer Ethiopia in the Abyssinian War of 1935-6. It took the Italian army six months to defeat the Ethiopians who were armed with nothing more than spears and determination. In the end Mussolini resorted to using poison gas, in addition to air strikes, to secure victory. The war exposed some serious deficiencies in the Italian army, which were largely ignored by Mussolini who was deluded by the fact of the victory). Jacopetti was then stationed in Albania, an experience which opened his eyes to the cruelty of his fellow man as he witnessed various atrocities as part of serving in the fascist army. According to The Center for Relief to Civilian Populations (Geneva), Albania was one of the most devastated countries during the war.

During the early post-war years, he tried his hand at acting but wasn’t very successful. He later spent some time as a globe-trotting photojournalist, where his intention was to shock by travelling to the most war-ravaged parts of the planet and documenting everything he saw there. His work for the Italian ‘News From Around The World’ newsreel service made him famous. Those featurettes which made his name were similar to the British Pathé reels (1910-1970), except the Italian versions often included lots of explicit violence – and naked women – to spice things up. Working freelance in a very freewheeling way, Jacopetti was very much his own boss. After years out in the wilderness of the world he secured his reputation of being a seasoned veteran, a hard-nosed pessimist who would venture absolutely anywhere to find ‘newsworthy’ shots. Even at this point of his career, sensationalism was the only thing that seemed to interest him. Anything sleazy or offensive and Jacopetti would be there, camera in hand. Fellow cynic Bill Landis described him as “the eyeball peeking into hell and bringing it home.”

It’s easy to view Jacopetti as a glamorous adventurer, he had that restlessness and danger about him. Indeed, he seemed to live his life much in the same way as Candide in Voltaire’s novella (which happened to be his favourite book). He was a free agent, a lone maverick travelling the world, doing as he pleased, and getting paid for it; the envy of millions. But he was also the subject of many a scandal in his time, which in retrospect makes his constant travelling look like he was running away from something. And his behavior – both with a camera and behind the scenes in his private life – makes it difficult to admire him, even if you want to. He hit the headlines in Italy in the mid-50s when the father of his thirteen-year-old ‘girlfriend’ coerced them into marriage. He later told the papers he was impotent, even though the girl was pregnant with his baby.

Jacopetti got involved with feature production in the late 50s; he wrote the narration and also shot some of the footage for Mondo Di Notte (World By Night). During this time he was in a casual relationship with British actress Belinda Lee, who had appeared in the St. Trinians comedies. She remained romantically attached to him even though he was caught in a hotel room in Hong Kong with two girls aged just ten and eleven. He spent time in jail in 1960, but was typically defiant, arrogant and in denial about the seriousness of his crime (a trait not uncommon in paedophiles). He insisted he had done nothing wrong, claiming “the two girls were prostitutes and I paid.” A year later, while drink-driving to Los Angeles, he was involved in a high-speed collision which killed Belinda Lee and injured members of his film crew who were also in the car. Jacopetti himself badly injured his arm and almost had to have it amputated. In the aftermath of the accident, he received much attention from the paparazzi who would photograph him attending events accompanied by women who were much younger than him.

It was also in the early 60s when he teamed up with Franco Prosperi, and together they created Mondo Cane. And the rest is history. The power of their mondo movies came from avoiding the Italian traditions of neorealism, a filmic trend pioneered by people like Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini. They abandoned the neorealist principles in favour of ‘hyper-realism’, often referred to as ‘shockumentary’ because of its brutal edits ("shock cuts", Jacopetti once called them), rapid zooms, heightened post-production sound effects and sharp contrasts between the rough and ready mise-en-scène and Ritz Ortolani’s hauntingly beautiful music scores.

After Mondo Cane 2, the mondo genre flourished across the world, reaching a saturation point in 1967, just in time for the dubious duo to return once again with Africa Addio. This book is filled with characters whom straight society would call shady – Jodorowsky, Buttgereit, D’Amato, et al – people of supposed ‘ill-repute’ who shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing; people who use filmmaking as a smoke-screen for other – sometimes illicit – purposes. Buñuel made his movies as a way of attacking bourgeois values; Todd Solondz makes his films to highlight the overall crumminess of humanity. During the late 70s and early 80s, Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi looked to be in some kind of competition to see who could create the most outrageous film (it’s a tough call, but I’d give the victory to Umberto, whose Cannibal Ferox ranks among the sickest and silliest attempts at film entertainment ever made). But even among such outrageous company as those mentioned above, Gualtieri Jacopetti is still among the most disagreeable men to have ever held a movie camera; a “depraved hedonist” and heartless narcissist – he not so much attracted controversy as actively sought it, which made him the perfect individual to head out into the big bad world with a big bad attitude, to ‘document’ the worst he could find in human nature, and shove the results in our faces. As Bill Landis put it, “He was born for the job.”

Jacopetti died in 2011 aged 91. Upon his death, he received many write-ups in the press, including the Guardian, but none of them addressed his darker side; all the articles I read had smoothed over his convictions for sleeping with underage prostitutes and his inhumane activities in making his films. Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Jacopetti was paid by JG Ballard in his novel ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’, in which he included a fictional “Jacopetti exhibition” which incorporated his aggressive filming style.

NAKED POISON (2000)

(Orig title: Shou xing xin ren lei)

Dir: Cash Chin /Hong Kong

Naked Poison tells the tale of Min (Leung Cheuk Moon), a timid, nerdy-looking wimp, a bit like the mop boy in Toxic Avenger but more perverted. Min lives in a crowded tenement block above his uncle's traditional herb pharmacy, and is caught spying on his neighbours while they have rough sex. The boyfriend Richard confronts him; Min denies spying on them but his tent erection says otherwise, so Richard beats him.

Min spends his days traipsing around the city following girls and pathetically taking discreet photos up their skirts on the escalator whilst they're unaware. And in the evenings he secretly experiments with making potions using his uncle's herbs. He concocts a lethal potion that kills Uncle Kim, and then he inherits the pharmacy. After experimenting a bit more he succeeds in creating a potent aphrodisiac that allows him to have complete control over the attractive women in his life who ordinarily wouldn't give him the time of day. And with the help of this potion his wildest fantasies soon become a reality as his victims don't remember a thing when the date-rape drug has worn off.

Min saves a young woman from being raped and as a reward he almost gets laid, but at the last moment she says her goodbyes and leaves, leaving Min desperate and hornier than ever. So he goes home and uses the potion on the sexy neighbour whom he was caught spying on earlier.  Her boyfriend Richard is a long-distance truck driver away on a job, and when the drug kicks in she wanders over to Min's room and rides him into ecstasy. Of course, the next day she has no memory of the night before and accuses Min of stealing her underwear.

He later slips her another pill and fucks her in her office. But this time she is rushed to hospital, and Min then blackmails her boyfriend into paying HK$2 million for the antidote. He then connivingly manages to dose Richard with a nasty potion that causes a gangrene-like skin-eroding disease. Soon enough, Min becomes self-assured, arrogant, nasty, deviant, a total control-freak who literally fucks people over to satisfy his own power hunger and sexual gratification. His sudden Messiah-complex makes it so that he thrives on having desperate people fawning and begging at his feet for the antidote for their nasty afflictions.

At the hour mark the films becomes even darker, with brutal rape and violence, and bodies dumped in drainage systems as Min's God-complex spirals out of control. The police eventually close in on Min and his antics but not before he sets his sights on Ling, the pretty young woman whom he had rescued from rape earlier... And there's also a nasty surprise lurking under the bed.

Naked Poison, would you believe, is based on a true story (very loosely, no doubt). It's one of those typical Cat III movies so prevalent in the 80s and 90s in its use of lighting and music and photography. Viewers could be mistaken for thinking this film was made in the 80s, the only giveaway that it was actually made in 2000 is the scene where Min has a wank whilst watching internet porn. There are also lots of funny details to look out for, such as the often hilarious subtitles ("Freeze or I'll smash your head"), and the sound effects during the sex scenes which include a very loud tapping of balls against arse.

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994)

Dir: Oliver Stone /USA

Deliberately unconventional, wildly satirical, brutally violent and vulgar in equal measure, Natural Born Killers is more self-consciously radical (in form, if not necessarily in content) than any other major studio release of the 90s. If it isn't the masterpiece it aspires to be, it's unquestionably a must see for film fans.

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play Mickey and Mallory Knox, a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde on a cross-country killing spree. If Bonnie and Clyde liked to think of themselves as Depression-era Robin Hoods, Mickey and Mallory have no such illusions - as a TV psychologist observes: "They know the difference between right and wrong. They just don't give a damn." On their way to racking up 52 victims, the couple becomes international celebrities, thanks mostly to the attentions of a lurid TV tabloid show, American Maniacs, hosted by the unapologetically vile Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr. with an awful Aussie accent). After a series of increasingly bizarre adventures on the road, Mickey and Mallory are apprehended and imprisoned. Nothing, however, can stand in the way of true love (or TV ratings): While deranged warden McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones) schemes to have the Knox's murdered, Mickey plots escape, using a live interview with Wayne Gale as a pretext for inciting an apocalyptic prison riot.

This often violent and technically brilliant satire of televisual culture baffled critics at the time of its release, and its indecorous brand of humour will strike many as insolent and repellent. Director Oliver Stone opts for an instinctively pulp style with NBK, and paradoxically, the result may be his most significant film. Accessing some of the farthest reaches of marginalized culture - direct-to-video movies, cyberpunk, S&M, anime, serial killer fandom, etc - NBK decisively wrenches mainstream cinema into the anarchic realm of postmodern pop. The film succeeds as a risk-taking, audio/visual overload that is all too rare in the movie world, with Stone creating a chilling vision of America that would have the Founding Fathers turning in their graves.

If the film succeeds as pure visual overload, its failings lie in its attempts at social commentary and satire. Seemingly unaware of his own status as a self-created media object, Stone's hardline critique of an America which makes celebrities out of psychopaths is trite and hypocritical. He condemns the media's obsession with killers whilst simultaneously glamorizing his characters and their brutal murder spree, and does all he can to turn this homicidal couple into heroes. As a result, Stone kind of resembles his own hate-figure, Wayne Gale, in the way he exploits violence and suffering with the facade of a moral crusader. Bad bad bad! For every sequence that works, such as the sitcom parody at the beginning, we get a bunch of scenes that fail miserably, and Stone seems content to continue driving home his point that was already made pretty obvious within the first few minutes of the movie. By the half hour mark you'll be screaming 'Yes, we get it, now move on!' The violence becomes dull long before the climactic prison riot, and the snipes at consumerism and the state of the modern world are way too glib and obvious to hold the entire film.

Inevitably, Natural Born Killers was always going to be controversial. Quentin Tarantino publicly criticized Stone for taking liberties with his original screenplay, and the film only opened in America after much hassle between the filmmakers and the MPAA. The American censors demanded 150 cuts to the film to secure the R-rating. As a result of all the negative publicity, the film's UK release was also postponed. Scheduled to hit the screens on 18th November 1994, NBK didn't see the light of day on these shores until 25th February 1995, with an uncut 18 certificate from the BBFC. And during that time the British tabloid press simply repeated all the negative hyperbole from the American papers, and called for an immediate ban, and accused the film of being to blame for real-life acts of violence (see postscript below). Some UK papers even announced it had been banned, despite the head of the BBFC at the time, James Ferman, issuing a statement claiming that the film was merely "under consideration". But credit to the British censors for not being swayed by the media trial and releasing NBK uncut.

The UK video release was also beset with problems when Warner Home Video delayed it indefinitely following the Dunblane shootings in Scotland and the mass murder in Tasmania in 1996.

POSTSCRIPT: SCAPEGOAT CINEMA

As much as I dislike Wes Craven's Scream movies, there is a very interesting scene in Scream 2 at the end when the killer is unmasked. The legal repercussions of the killer's crimes don't seem to bother him in the slightest. Actually, quite the opposite: he is relishing the opportunity to have his day in the dock. "I've got my whole defense planned out," he gloats. "I'm going to blame the movies... This [the spate of killings] was just a prelude to the trial. These days it's all about the trial. The effects of cinema violence on society. I'll get Cochran to represent me. Bob Dole on the witness stand. Hell, the Christian Coalition will pay my legal fees."

I've got to admit it's a fascinating point to make. The Scream movies lampooned the cliches of the horror movie, from the supposed 'rules' of the slasher sub-genre and iconography, to the inevitable sequels (and with the recent release of Scream 4, even this 'high-and-mighty' series is slipping into the dirt of diminishing sequels, becoming exactly the type of movie franchise it delights in mocking and looking down on). Here, Wes Craven - or more accurately, scriptwriter Kevin Williamson - takes a dig at the effects of violent movies on an audience. But, as the scene indicates, blaming the movies for violent crime is most often just a smokescreen for a more shady motive.

As the OJ Simpson case indicated, court trials often become sensationalist media events (hence the killer in Scream 2 mentioning Jonny Cochran, who was Simpson's defense lawyer) and can be an important stage for publicity, or a career improvement for both those in the legal profession and the journalists who report and speculate on the cases.

It is in mitigation when films are mentioned in criminal trials. Mitigation happens when a case is unlikely to win and the defense pleads for a short sentence, expressing whatever factors could be reason enough to account for the defendant's crime. And it's in this area where the tabloid press clamour as a way of shifting the blame from the actual culprit, and attempt to lay the blame elsewhere.

On 19th August 1987, loner Michael Ryan left his home with a 9mm pistol and a semi-automatic rifle, and drove to his home town of Hungerford in England to Savernake Forest. There he shot dead mother-of-two Sue Godfrey who was there with her children. He left the kids alive but severely traumatized, drove to a petrol station to refuel his car and a petrol container, which he used to burn down his house. He then killed his mother, dressed up in survivalist gear, and took a walk to his old school whilst casually gunning-down sixteen people he encountered on the way. The police tried to negotiate with him at the school building, but he turned the gun on himself.

Ryan's death ensured that he would never account for his crimes. He was a loner, and he was also obsessed with military equipment and know-how, neither of which can be necessarily linked to sociopathic actions. And yet the tabloid press was quick to pin the blame on the film Rambo: First Blood, and whipped up a firestorm of hyperbolic scare-mongering that was so powerful that, even after twenty-five years since the incident, the name 'Rambo' is still strewn across newspaper headlines whenever a sociopath, through no other reason than his own psychological problems, commits an act of violence.

In Melbourne, Australia, just days before the mass murder in Hungerford, this kind of thing had already happened; Julian Knight shot and killed six people. He intended to shoot himself too, but had run out of ammunition. The press described him as a "Rambo sniper."

In the case of Michael Ryan, the press ignored two important factors in their clamour to find something to blame for his crimes; the Wiltshire Shooting Centre who had supplied him with the ammunition and weaponry, and most importantly, Ryan himself. Crucially, it was Ryan who decided to massacre the people of his home town by his own volition, but the UK tabloids - namely The Sun, The Star, the Daily Mail, and The Mirror - all decided to pin the blame on Rambo: First Blood because it had been broadcast on BBC1 before the incident. This trial-by-media was so powerful the BBC decided to never screen the film again.

An interesting twist on this media-led assault became apparent in the mid-90s with the release of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, a film which attempts to satirize the media's obsessions with making 'heroes' and celebrities out of murderous scumbags, and which perfectly encapsulated the tabloid's witch-hunt mentality whilst simultaneously falling victim to it. In March 1995, teenage couple Ben Darras and Sarah Edmondson shot two people, killing one and seriously wounding the other as they took a cross-country drive through America. In Paris six months earlier, Florence Rey and Audry Maupin shot dead four people during a gun battle with police. The only similarities with Stone's film, in both cases, was that both sets of couples were romantically involved. But this didn't stop the media from blaming Natural Born Killers, claiming the film had a negative effect on the killer couples. With this kind of simple reasoning the media could have blamed a whole range of movies, from Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Wild At Heart, Kalifornia, and True Romance, because all of those films also depict murderous lovers on the run.

However, the most spurious and insensitive example of the tabloids using a movie as a scapegoat was the heartbreaking case of James Bulger. On 12th February 1993, the two year old was led away from a busy shopping center by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. Evidence indicates he was sexually abused. They took him to the canal to drown him, but when this failed they dragged him onto nearby railway tracks, poured paint on him, and threw bricks at him until he died. Thompson and Venables were just ten years old.

Infanticide is a hideous crime; hard to comprehend and impossible to understand. When adults commit this type of crime, such as in the case of the Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who tortured and killed three children between 1963 and 1965, objective reporting is difficult. The only words that seem to fit are 'pure evil'. But when the culprits are a pair of ten year old boys it makes the upsetting subject even more difficult. We search for rationality to make sense of the hideous crime, but we have to face up to the fact that ten year old boys are old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.

Unfortunately, the tabloids weren't so clear-sighted, and instead of directing the responsibility at Thompson and Venables, or considering the roles of their parents in their upbringing, they went looking for a scapegoat. And in the low-budget horror sequel, Child's Play 3, they had found what they were looking for. The film's villain is Chucky, a creepy-looking doll that is possessed by the spirit of a serial killer and goes on a violent killing spree. In this third installment of the franchise the setting is a military college, and there are scenes on a ghost train and Chucky is hit by a paintball gun. The media drew the very loose connection between paint and the railway line, and ran with stories claiming the film had influenced the crime. They may as well have blamed Home Alone 2; after all, it features a kid being terrorized by two older males after being separated from his family.

In the end, this video witch-hunt was nothing more than a self-serving moral crusade at best, and at worst a cynical sensationalist way of selling newspapers. The police did not find copies of Child's Play 3 when they searched the homes of Thompson and Venables, despite numerous claims that they did. The simple fact is the denunciation of the film was unfounded on fact.

It was this kind of shoddy journalism in the wake of the James Bulger case that led to an amendment of the Criminal Justice Act which caused a major clampdown on film censorship in the UK in the mid-90s. But most damagingly, the media's comparisons between Child's Play 3 and the James Bulger case implied that the monstrous Chucky was a stand-in for James. An innocent two year old boy who had been brutally murdered was being compared with an evil cinematic doll in the hope of selling a few newspapers. How much additional heartache this must have caused James's parents can only be guessed at.

There is a tradition in the UK of blaming horror movies for violent crimes, which has often led to an increased censorship. However, the tide does look to be changing. In April 2009, news was coming in from court proceedings about the murder of a seventeen year old student, Simon Everitt, who was tied to a tree, had petrol poured in his mouth, and was then burnt to death. It was suggested in court that somehow this murder had been 'inspired' by the British spoof horror film, Severance. I still don't know the full details of the case, but I'm always deeply suspicious of anything that uses horror movies to explain violent crimes. Unsurprisingly, the story was picked up by the press; in The Mirror we had a story that said the crime was "inspired by a scene in the spoof horror, Severance," in the Times it said it was "a gruesome re-creation of a scene from a horror film," and The Press Association reported it by saying "The idea for the murder came from the spoof horror film, Severance."

What's interesting is this: At the time I remember thinking 'here we go again, we're going to have another moral panic, we're going to have another campaign against horror movies, in much the same way we have seen time and time again with the 'video nasties' witch-hunt and the James Bulger case'. But what's encouraging is the fact that despite those awful news stories the panic didn't really happen. The British censors (BBFC) were expecting to be inundated with calls and emails from angry journalists and outraged members of the public demanding that the film be banned, but it didn't happen. It seems like such a gift to the tabloids; 'HORROR MOVIE INSPIRES HIDEOUS CRIME'.

Perhaps I'm being optimistic, but on the evidence of that it seems the tide has genuinely changed. That, perhaps for the first time, when faced with a genuinely hideous crime, and the possibility of blaming a horror film, the British press have decided no, that's just a sideshow, the real story lies somewhere else - with the perpetrator. And on that evidence we may have finally grown up.

NEKROMANTIK (1987)

Dir: Jorg Buttgereit /West Germany

The film equivalent of eating a month old moldy sandwich, Nekromantik was a popular video that did the rounds by mail-order in Europe before being bootlegged and spreading across the underground of North America like a vomit-inducing plague. By the time Film Threat magazine had officially released it on video in America, Nekromantik was already a legendary title among 80s videophiles. And for the record, this is the closest I've ever come to being physically sick while watching a movie (though Forest Gump and Waterboy came pretty close, too).

Forget that slew of German amateur crap that lined video shelves at the time, and which were content in churning out ludicrous and unrealistic blood and gore (The German Chainsaw Massacre and the Violent Shit trilogy, for example), Nekromantik, for all its grubbiness and cheap origins, has genuine artistic merit and was directed by a man with considerable filmmaking talent. However, if you have a weak stomach you might want to give this a miss, for if any film out there will cause you to puke, this is probably it.

Director Jorg Buttgereit makes it his priority to shock and offend sensibilities as the opening scene drops us into the middle of a bloody car wreck in which a woman's body has been severed in half. Along comes Rob (Daktari Lorenz), an employee of Joe's Streetcleaning Agency, whose job it is to body bag the mangled corpses. Rob just happens to be one of those guys who likes to take his work home with him, and has amassed himself a horde of human organs and eyeballs he preserves in formaldehyde (he must've been pretty legendary during games of 'truth or dare' as a kid). His morbid curiosity is shared by his girlfriend Betty (Beatrice Manowski who, amazingly, made an appearance in Wim Wender's Wings Of Desire in the same year); only, her death fixation is sexual, so when Rob returns home one night with an entire human body, she's delighted. They take the corpse to bed for a disgusting ménages à trois, where they stroke its decaying flesh and Betty has sex with it, but not before she removes its eyeball and places it in her mouth (yep, that's the bit that almost had me puking).

After this encounter, Rob and Betty's relationship is never the same. She eventually leaves him when he fails to bring home any more bodies, and he sinks into madness and depression, seemingly fully-aware of how sexually jaded he has become. To him, after the arousement of necrophilia, everything else just seems bland and too ordinary to excite him. And so his ever-escalating search for sexual gratification leads him to the ultimate thrill: death itself. He lies in bed masturbating, and just before he comes, he repeatedly stabs himself in the stomach, causing his penis to jettison blood and sperm.

This is a film which notoriously embraces the eroticism of death, and which warrants its repulsive reputation. It's a pean to mankind's darker obsessions, and is told in a lyrical style. It will evoke many conflicting emotions in its audience; on the one hand it will leave you with feelings of shock and revulsion, and on the other, you may even find curiosity and amusement here too. Indeed, for those into morbid movies, Nekromantik will be positively hypnotic as it forges ahead into its exploration of the absurd. Imagine if Albert Camus wrote a play about necrophilia and it was adapted to the screen by Fernando Arrabal, and was inspired by Luis Bunuel... Yeah, something like that.

The special effects are generally spot on, which was a rarity in micro-budget horror at the time, especially the corpse which looks very real, and this only adds to the viewer's discomfort. The scene involving a head being decapitated with a shovel looks like it wandered in from George Romero's Day of The Dead. Buttgereit doesn't shy away from injecting a dose of black humour here either (as he would do again later in Schramm), and Rob's expression when he enters a cinema showing a slasher movie is hilarious (the film shown on screen has the soundtrack of Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters, and this only adds to the bizarre mix). Without a doubt, Nekrmantik would be a much more difficult viewing experience were it not for the superb music score which is co-credited to Lorenz. It's honestly one of the finest horror movie tunes of the 80s. And kudos also goes to whoever arranged the set design (probably Buttgereit himself); Rob and Betty's place is littered with macabe decorations similar to Ed Gein's and Leatherface's homes in Deranged and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Horror fans had long speculated on Jorg Buttgeriet, trying to work out what type of person would create such a film. Many of them concluded that only a sicko, a man completely ill of mind would make Nekromantik. So it came as a surprise when the director turned out to be a fun-loving, well-presented guy with a deep love of horror cinema. There's the story of when Martin Scorsese met David Cronenberg at a film festival. Scorsese admitted that after seeing Cronenberg's films, he was expecting to meet one of those creepy guys you'd rather avoid, "a Renfield catching flies with his tongue", as he put it, but was stunned when a nerdy-looking, bespectacled man in a suit offered his hand with the words "Hi, I'm David Cronenberg". Their meeting lasted several hours, and Scorsese was amazed by Cronenberg's intelligence and easy-going nature. The moral of the story is: Although we all do it, we shouldn't judge artists on the basis of their work alone. It's extremely rare for a macabre artist to live a macabre lifestyle, and I struggle to think of any examples. Carravaggio often created violent paintings and he eventually committed a violent murder. And there's John Wayne Gacy, of course, a sadistic serial killer of young men who would occasionally paint creepy pictures of sad clowns (if that counts). And, according to Patricia Cornwell in her book, ‘Portrait of a Killer’, we could also add the British artist Walter Sickert to the list too. In the book, Cornwell accuses Sickert of being the real perpetrator of the 'Jack The Ripper' killings of 1888. Many 'Ripperologists' have since dismissed her claims, but it's an interesting read and I'll never be able to look at his dark self-portraits such as Jack The Ripper's Bedroom, in the same way.

But anyway, anyone who has listened to his audio commentaries on Combat Shock and Killer Condom will agree, Jorg Buttgereit is a decent fellow with a wacky sense of humour, despite his films being among the top of the list of those you should never watch with your family, or anybody's family, or anyone who isn't you and your fucked-up movie deviant friends. On the commentary track for Nekromatik he explains how he filmed a rabbit being killed and skinned; the footage was shot at a working rabbit farm and is the most disturbing scene in the film because it's real. "Just because we show it doesn't mean we like it", he explains.

Shot on 8mm and blown up to 16 for cinema and video releases, Nekromantik is banned outright in the UK even though it was shown uncut at the Shock Around The Clock Film Festival at London's Scala Cinema, causing much trouble when the British bobbies attempted to intercept it.

NEKROMANTIK 2 (1991)

(aka Return of The Loving Dead)

Dir: Jorg Buttgereit /Germany

After releasing the somber and meditative Der Todesking in 1990, many believed Jorg Buttgereit's next film would be a sure-fire opportunity for him to head more toward the mainstream as his directorial talent was clearly head and shoulders above most of his peers slogging away in the cine-underground. But instead, he returned the following year with Nekromantik 2, a film which manages to be even more outrageous than its perverted predecessor whilst at the same time surpassing the original in both thematic and technical skill. Make no mistake, this sequel to one of the most notorious movies ever made is a bona fide art film, but this didn't stop the German authorities from attempting to destroy the print.

Coming on like one of Sylvia Plath's most morbid poems written on her darkest day, Nekromantik 2 centres on a twisted necrophiliac nurse, Monika (Monika M). She enters a graveyard in broad daylight and digs up the body of Rob, the anti-hero of part one. She sneaks off home with the putrid corpse and places it in her bathtub. And after dressing him up she takes a few snapshots of herself posing with the stiff. In an attempt to infuse her life with semblance of normality, she strikes up a relationship with Mark (Mark Reeder), a strange but nice guy who works for a video distribution company dubbing porn movies into German. Monika's attempts to get intimate with Rob in the bathtub ends with her being violently sick, so she decides to spend more time with Mark, tagging along with him to art films and house 'parties' to watch seal brutality videos. Mark's kinkiness means he spends much of his time hanging from the ceiling by his feet. Pretty soon, Monika has Mark playing dead during sex, and with this she feels she has finally found her ideal partner. She wastes no time in dismembering Rob's body, keeping his head and penis as mementos that she keeps in the fridge. Meanwhile, Mark becomes concerned by how morbid his girlfriend is and he dumps her. They eventually agree to meet up again, only this time Monika has an extremely perverse solution for the men in her life.

The film concludes with one of the most shocking scenes in history: Whilst having sex with Mark, Monika decapitates him with a hatchet and replaces his head with that of Rob's. She tightens a tourniquet around his still erect penis, and with blood gushing everywhere, she finally has that elusive orgasm.

Aside from the aforementioned seal scene, a needless attempt to best the killing of the rabbit in part one, Buttgereit seems determined to avoid any scenes of graphic bloodshed in this film until the finale. And yet it still manages to haunt with its bleak and morbid atmosphere that is sustained throughout. The scenes with Rob's corpse are repulsive, and this is somehow made to feel even more disturbing as there is a strange fairytale quality that lingers like a nightmare of Cinderella discovering her dark side and digging up a sexual playmate from the local cemetery. It leaves you feeling slightly defiled. You know how sometimes people refer to shock movies as leaving them wanting to take a shower afterwards to cleanse themselves of the disgusting imagery they have subjected themselves to? Well, Nekromantik 2 is one of those movies.

So while much of the dense narrative concentrates on mood and plot, Buttgereit certainly delivers on the gorehound's expectations in the last reel for the sequence in which Monika literally swaps her boyfriend's head for that of Rob's. This outrageous scene easily surpasses Daktari Lorenz's 'climax' in part one. And aside from the corpses and the blood and the grim atmospherics, Nekromantik 2, like its predecessor, also offers a touch of humour here and there, including the romance between Monika and Mark, and Mark's work which sees him improvising sound effects and dubbing porn very badly into German.

Buttgereit breaks new ground in the horror genre by presenting the story from a feminine perspective. And because we view the film through Monika's eyes, her twisted necrophiliac perversion is presented as perfectly normal (and this is helped tremendously by Monika M's gutsy performance - she also contributed to the music score). Early on in the film when she laboriously digs up Rob's body, Buttgereit films a bird's eye in close-up as it gazes down on Monika's immoral actions. The bird's eye represents us the viewers, the judgemental voyeurs gazing at a transgression over which we have no control. And with this scene we witness a cinematic first - a woman stealing a corpse from a graveyard for her own sexual gratification. The body could be mine or yours, and just like Rob's body and the observing bird, we are completely helpless to do anything about it.

Shot on 16mm but looking superb on the DVD transfer, Nekromantik 2 is at once a detailed exploration of outsider love and one of the most disgusting and provocative horror movies ever made. It's a masterpiece of horror, but one that is all out to grate on viewer sensibilities; and for this reason it's not a film you could watch over and over again like Repo Man or Evil Dead II, but you've probably gathered that anyway. Like its predecessor, I've only ever seen this movie once (even though I own both films on DVD), and that's the way it will stay. I think I'll be cremated when I die.

In June 1991, Nekromantik 2 was deemed obscene by the German authorities and the Werkstattkino cinema was raided by Munich police who had been ordered to seize the print. Director Jorg Buttgereit was facing a custodial sentence, and even the projectionist was threatened with jail for screening the film. The police had a warrant for the film's arrest, apparently, but thankfully someone had the presence of mind to sneak out of the back door with the film cans, leaving the police unable to locate it. If the negative had been discovered it would have been destroyed, but fortunately it survives. I think that little incident speaks volumes about how rigidly closed-minded some people can be when it comes to provocative art; the attempts to destroy the film were eerily reminiscent of the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s, the fascistic purging of 'degenerate art' and literature that didn't sit right with the status quo. The film is still banned in Germany to this day.

THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982)

(Orig title: Lo squartatore di New York)

Dir: Lucio Fulci /Italy

Perhaps Lucio Fucli’s most controversial film, The New York Ripper follows detective Williams (a scary-looking Jack Hedley) on the hunt for a nasty serial killer who, according to witnesses, quacks like a duck while he hacks and slashes his prey. We soon find out this is no lie as we see for ourselves some young woman being slashed to death in a parked car on a boat while the killer goes “quack quack!” (there’s probably a joke in there somewhere along the ‘Wheels On The Bus’ go round and round nursery rhyme, something like “the killer on the ship goes ‘quack quack quack’ all day long”).

The killer mostly uses a handy cutthroat razor to slay his victims, but broken bottles and other sharp implements are wielded by the maniac, too. Each murder sequence is more graphic and gruesome than the last, and the soundtrack startles with its absurd and ridiculous blasts of quack quack! Most of the killings are of women, and this has led to accusations of misogyny at director Fulci, but the film is actually a pessimistic barrage of misanthropy and nihilism; the target of the film isn’t women, but the whole of mankind. Hooray!

After a university professor (Paolo Malco) helps out with the case, and a young woman narrowly escapes the killer with her life (in a superb dream-like sequence), the mystery begins to unfold. And when the killer strikes closer to home, detective Williams becomes increasingly obsessed with finding the maniac, and the final revelation explains the madness behind the killer’s motive.

The New York Ripper touches on almost every convention of the giallo formula, and also boasts an excellent jazzy score by Francesco De Masi. Made around the same time as Dario Argento’s Tenebrae and Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, Fulci’s film takes a grittier approach to similar themes. Indeed, it’s remarkable how many similarities there are between this film and Argento’s masterpiece in terms of structure and female butchery (also, the film has a sleazily evocative style similar to the New York scenes in Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox, too). With Zombie Flesh Eaters, Fulci effectively turned a tropical island into a plague-ridden wasteland of the living dead. And with House By The Cemetery, he turned a spooky Lovecraftian sensibility into a ghoulish, arbitrary nightmare. With The New York Ripper, however, he brings a gritty and grounded roughness to the project, making New York feel like a cold and hostile place. Many of Fulci’s critics have accused him of being unable to tell a simple story without it falling into incohesion, but here (as elsewhere) he proves them wrong; New York Ripper has a gripping, disturbing narrative, and is very well put together (most of the film was shot in Italy except for a few brief location shots, and this only makes the film even more impressive, considering how closely it resembles early 80s downtown New York).

The film’s hostile reception is not surprising, even many of Fulci’s fans object to much of the material on screen here. But even with such misgivings, and flaws (of which there are many in this film), there are still numerous noteworthy elements to keep fans of Eurohorror interested, such as Luigi Kuveiller (of Profondo Rosso fame), whose camera work is quite impressive, and much of his scope compositions in this film were lost in murky and badly cropped VHS and bootleg copies. The actors do a decent job despite the clumsy dubbing here and there, adding much in the way of unintentional humour. Jack Hedley’s detective Williams is of the old-skool, un-PC variety, and he seems just as interested in sleeping with hookers as he is with finding the killer (‘the detective on the case goes ‘uh uh uh,’ all day long’). His face is determined and intense – even on the rare occasions when he smiles, it doesn’t look genuine; he actually looks like he’s trying to rectally ingest a cheese grater. If that face ever showed up unexpectedly outside your bedroom window, you’d scream in terror for eight months straight. They’d have to lock you up in a padded cell and ram a mop down your throat to stop your relentless scream from unnerving the other patients. Also of note is the ending which probably inspired the ‘bullet through the cheek’ sequence in Argento’s The Stendhal Syndrome.

The New York Ripper was banned outright in the UK in 1984, with all prints of the film escorted out of the country. The BBFC later passed it with 22 seconds of cuts in 2002, removing the close-up shots of the woman tied to the bed being cut up with a razor blade (as a side note, Shameless released the film in the UK on DVD in 2007, and that version has 34 seconds of footage missing, even though the censors did not require any additional cuts). The 2011 DVD and Blu-Ray release is missing 29 seconds of cuts that were imposed on the same notorious scene. In America, the MPAA left all the violent scenes intact but insisted on the removal of scenes involving sex; the scene in the Puerto Rican bar in which the wife of a wealthy sleazeball is toe-fucked under the table was missing on American prints for years. It wasn’t until 2009 that a legitimate uncut copy was released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Anchor Bay, and that version reinstates all the footage – good news for toe-fuck fans.

In Germany, New York Ripper was subjected to a bizarre form of censorship; the film could be legally shown in theatres, but because of the extreme nastiness on view, it was illegal to mention the title in the ad campaign. This, of course, led to some odd poster blurbs, such as one which read, “An Italian horror movie made in the early 80s about a New York serial killer.” Horror fans knew which film was being described, but advertisers and cinema chains were forbidden from actually mentioning the title. Ridiculous. Not surprisingly, this silly form of censorship didn’t take off, and part of me feels a bit disappointed that it didn’t – Imagine billboards across the city trying to advertise something like, say, Soul Vengeance (1975), with a short blurb (“the one starring Marlo Monte as a brother who kills people with his big black schlong”), or Teeth (2007) (“a girl’s vagina grows teeth and bites off the dicks of her sexual partners”). Wouldn’t that make censorship fun? Especially hearing parents struggling to explain these blurbs to their inquisitive children (“Mummy? What’s a schlong?”). Imagine how much fun students would have in advertising their latest 8mm pervo short – something like “A short film in which a retarded man takes a dump in a bucket, shot from the bucket’s point of view, so that it looks like a fat brown snake slowly squeezing its way out of a knothole.”

Err, I don’t get out much these days. New York Ripper is a good film. Check it out.

THE NIGHT PORTER (1974)

Dir: Liliana Cavani /Italy

(Orig title: Il Portiere Di Notte)

Vienna, 1957. At an upmarket hotel, head porter, Maximilian (Italy’s chief British Nazi, Dirk Bogarde), is shocked when he locks eyes on a female guest, Lucia (Charlotte Rampling). Max is considered a vitruous and hard-working man, but it soon becomes clear he was once a Nazi SS officer who engaged in a torturous, semi-sadomasochistic relationship with Lucia while she was held in a concentration camp. Upon meeting again at the hotel, Max is surprised when she seems willing to continue in her submission to him, and they become so carried away in their passion that they lock themselves in a room and explore the darkness that draws them together. Meanwhile, Max’s former colleagues are being tracked down by Nazi hunters, and are worried that Max and Lucia’s relationship will reveal the details of each of their dark pasts, and so they conspire to have the lovers killed.

The Night Porter is a meditative drama that mixes stylish, erotic scenes with a background of concentration camp ugliness, resulting in a disturbing and prurient fascination. While many subsequent Italian movies took ‘Nazisploitaton’ down some very unsavory paths, descending to the pits of tastelessness (The Beast In Heat, Gestapo’s Last Orgy, etc), Liliana Cavani’s film remains perhaps more controversial because of the seriousness with which she treats her subject-matter. And though it was Tinto Brass’s Salon Kitty, made in the following year, which really kicked off the Italian Nazi cycle, this earlier film is much more concerned with mood and – sometimes unconvincing – psychology rather than bombarding the audience with ludicrous and tasteless thrills. But anyone watching the film expecting an easy ride will be shocked by some of the kinky goings on here, such as broken glass and a severed head on a platter used as a means for dominance and sexual excitation.

Along with the rare and hard to find Beyond Good And Evil (1977), The Night Porter shocked and offended many bourgeois Italian critics at the time (which is no doubt what Cavani intended). Back in the 70s, Cavani was serious filmmaker who had much to say on the subject of sexual transgression, so it’s a shame that much of her subsequent work consisted of mediocre TV movies, clearly not the place where her heart was. Both Rampling and Bogarde had previously starred in Visconti’s Nazi-themed epic, The Damned.

THE PIANO TEACHER (2001)

Dir: Michael Haneke /Austria /France

The amazing Isabelle Huppert reminds me of Julianne Moore in the way she is always willing to take on challenging, unglamorous and often unsympathetic roles which push the viewer's patience about as far as it will go. She's the type of actress who will dedicate herself to a performance with all the endurance and dedication of a long distance marathon runner. And the audience is often asked to take that exhaustive journey with her, too. Her performance in The Piano Teacher offers up perhaps the finest of her career, and here she perfectly illustrates everything above as she plays Erika, a music professor at the Viennese Conservatory.

She lives with her mother in a small apartment and continually admonishes her piano students as a way of dealing with her frustrations and long-repressed sexual desires. She also seems equally fearful of rejection and has created an armour-plated persona for herself, that of a professional, emotionless droid. A bit like Margaret Thatcher, only prettier. However, this 'iron lady's' inner turmoil soon becomes apparent when she's alone: we see her sitting on the edge of her bath tub cutting her vagina with a razor blade, and visiting a public porno booth where she retrieves cummy scummy tissues from the bin and has a good old sniff (I wonder if Maggie Thatcher ever had similar experiences in parliament or the White House; 'ooh, Mr President, your cum smells like a lava lamp!').

Erika eventually meets Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel), a handsome young student eager to enroll at the Conservatory. Although he's much younger than Erika, he's immediately attracted to her but she does all she can to thwart his application. However, her decision is out-voted by her colleagues and pretty soon Walter becomes her student. She continues with her ice-cold approach to him during lessons, but this only makes him more attracted to her. And one day in the toilets she sucks him off until he's on the verge of climax, then cruelly refuses to finish, even threatening to never see him again if he takes care of it himself. Of course, Klemmer continues to pursue her but she remains standoff-ish until she urges him to read a letter which details her masochistic fantasies, including being tied up, gagged and beaten. Klemmer doesn't react well; he accuses her of being "sick" and "repulsive", and wants nothing more to do with her. It then becomes Erika's turn to beg as his rejection of her seems to fuel her obsession. She approaches him after hockey practice and talks him into having conventional sex on the floor. However, as soon as he penetrates her, she vomits. And Klemmer takes off again. Late one night, he bursts into her apartment in a rage like Frank Booth in Blue Velvet as he finally gives up his protests and attempts to satiate her masochistic desires. But here, his actions are less 'Baby wants to fuuuck!' and more 'Baby is angry and confuuused!', and Erika remains as tragically unhappy as ever.

Based on the uncompromising, semi-autobiographical novel by Elfriede Jelinek, director Michael Haneke seems to have created his film as if the notions were housed in the Hadron Collider, by combining an assortment of opposing particles - maturity and youth, aggression and submission, high and low-brow culture, suppression and gratification - then taking a few steps back to witness the inevitable 'big bang' in which everyone gets hurt. It's a fascinating, if gruelling, character study, seemingly designed to leave audiences reeling as the film closes on its bleakest note. It's one of Haneke's coldest films to date, but even here some viewers will find moments of humour, such as in the scene where Erika visits the porno booth, or later when she is caught 'flicking the bean' at a drive-in theatre, or attacking her mother in bed. But it's a film which was taken seriously enough by the BBFC to warrant it with an uncut 18 certificate, despite there being some clearly visible hardcore porn shots inserted during Erika's visit to the kabine.

In her book, ‘House of Psychotic Women’, Kier-La Janisse admits to having an admiration for Erika; "There are many reasons why I feel an affinity with the character of Erika Kohut, even though it's frightening to admit, given that she's one of the most disturbed and obsessively ritualistic characters I've ever encountered [...] I have so much love for this character that it's hard to even describe." Indeed, in a book teeming with hundreds of neurotic movie characters, including Isabel Adjani in Possession and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist, Erika's slow unraveling is right up there with the most memorable in the 'psychotic women' sweepstakes. Janisse also points out Erika's need for control in the letter she writes for Walter; she may give him permission to hit her if she disobeys his 'orders', but ultimately the letter serves as a list of commands for him to carry out at her behest. They're both attracted to each other, and yet they both have very different desires for each other. And they both demand control. Disaster is thus pretty much inevitable.

REGARDE LA MER (1997)

(See The Sea)

Dir: Francois Ozon /France

Francois Ozon's disturbing film sees Sasha, a young British woman living in a quiet French community suddenly have a neighbour, Tatiana, who pitches her tent in her yard. The two women begin to build a rapport and the tension between them mounts.

Ozon's use of visual rather than dialogue to tell the story is masterful, and the story is allowed to tell itself gently and beautifully. French filmmaker Ozon rose to prominence with the acclaimed black comedy Sitcom, and his immense promise is confirmed by this earlier, equally unsettling drama. Ozon has a great talent for conveying an enormous amount of psychological complexity and ambivalence with a few lines of dialogue, the movement of an eye, the almost invisible tensing of a muscle. What's more, he leaves us the viewers with the time and space to project our own experience, fear, and desire onto the situation. He manipulates audience expectation with considerable authority. The location's unpopulated beaches, woods, and hills serves as a hint at both beauty and menace, and the uneasy tone is deftly echoed in the performances of Hails and DeVan.

Lasting just 52 minutes, Regarde la mer recalls taut classics such as Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques and Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm, and was one of the most unnerving films of 1997.

SEUL CONTRE TOUS (1998)

(aka I Stand Alone)

Dir: Gaspar Noe /France

This savage foray into extreme cinema is a classic of confrontation and controversy which won the 1998 Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival before going on to incite the wrath of audiences and censors across the globe. Seul contre tous (which translates literally as 'alone against all') was an accidental feature debut for writer/director Gaspar Noe. Having already introduced us to Phillipe Nahon's existential butcher in his previous short film, Carne, Noe had originally intended to make a 40 minute sequel which would play on a double-bill with the original short, but due to Noe's frustrations at being unable to raise the necessary funding, Seul contre tous as a project kept growing in parallel to his increasing anger, and the film gradually mutated into a monstrous feature that could indeed stand alone.

Upon his release from prison for killing a man mistakenly thought to be molesting his severely autistic daughter (as seen in Noe's short, Carne), Jean Chevalier settles in Lille. With him is his pregnant mistress who has promised to find new shop premises to allow him to practice his trade as a butcher of horse meat. For some reason she eventually decides against the investment, forcing him to take a job as a hospital night watchman. Enraged, he repeatedly beats her hoping to abort their baby, makes off with her gun, and then hitchhikes to Paris. In desperation he rents a room in a grubby hotel and goes out looking for work. After feeling humiliated and refused work in an abattoir, and wandering the streets with a desire to kill, Jean has an epiphany: He will find his daughter, bring her back to the hotel room, and use their incestuous love to stand firm against the cruel world.

Rarely since Scorsese's Taxi Driver has such a hopeless, misanthropic view of the world been so clearly articulated; that, even more than the film's graphic violence, is what makes it so disturbing. With his intensely bulging eyes and three bullets in his gun, the butcher wanders the streets, his breathless, relentless monologue returning repeatedly to his favourite themes: We live and die alone; morality is an invention of the rich; there's no purpose to life beyond sex and death; nobody in this selfish world loves anybody else. Between Nahon's superb pressure-cooker performance and Noe's assaultive directorial style (he's fond of brooding long takes interrupted by startling gun blasts of lurching, skip-frame edits and bold inter-titles), the film would be an unbearable expression of rage, except that Noe's winking, almost absurd sense of humour offers a disconcerting reminder that this is 'only a movie'.

The filmic reference points for Seul contre tous are as varied as they are bizarre. According to Noe himself, the inspiration for the vile voiceover came from Gerald Kargl's Austrian shocker, Angst. The ironic inter-titles (one of which informs audiences they have thirty seconds to leave the cinema before a particular graphic and gruelling murder scene) looks like a direct homage to William Castle's Homicidal. Noe claims to have never actually seen Castle's film but had heard about its intriguing 'Fright Break' gimmick. The allusions to Scorsese's Taxi Driver have been identified by many critics as being the central reference point, and this comes to a head during the butcher's visit to a porno cinema where he muses on his belief that there is nothing to life but sex and death.

The British censors clearly took Noe's film seriously, but the problem with the porn cinema scene is that it contains sustained images of hardcore sex, the same type that were being regularly prosecuted under sections 2 and 3 of the Obscene Publications Act. Scenes of explicit intercourse had been okayed in previous films like Ai no corrida and The Idiots, but the sex scenes in those films were much more fleeting than in Noe's pic. The BBFC insisted there was no way they could pass the film uncut. Instead, the distributers agreed to cover the offending penetration shots with digital pixelations (as is customary in Japanese sex films where even pubic hair is forbidden on screen). According to the censors, this optical blur "reduced the pornographic explicitness to an acceptable level whilst retaining a reasonable sense of what the director had intended." Now, this may all sound well and good but it's hard not to conclude that it is exactly what the director had intended that caused all the problems in the first place! With that scene, Noe effectively shows human bodies being joined together in sex whilst a human soul tears itself apart in despair. And it's this idea that the BBFC were uncomfortable with, because as the film constantly informs us, we are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone.

Some will be put off by the flashy technique, and others will take offence at the stream of consciousness monologues presenting the bitter thoughts of a twisted sociopath, a man whose notions of morality and justice have been pieced together by frustration and poverty. But this film will demand you stick with it no matter what your response.

A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (1987)

(Orig title: Krotki film o Zabijaniu)

Dir: Krzystof Kieslowski /Poland

A Short Film About Killing is an extended version of Episode 5 of late director Krzystof Kieslowski's Dekelog, a ten-part series made for Polish television interpreting the themes of the biblical Ten Commandments in modern stories. This episode, focusing on the Fifth Commandment ('Thou Shalt Not Kill'), brilliantly portrays the dynamics between the killer, the victim, and the legal system.

Jacek (Miroslaw Baka) is a young thug from the countryside, unhappy and restless, who wanders the city aimlessly. Piotr (Krzystof Globisz) is an idealistic law student who takes and passes his bar exams. Waldemar (Peter Jan Teserz) is a simple taxi driver and a thouroughly unpleasant character. The film intercuts the lives of these three apparently unrelated figures throughout the course of the day in which their fates will intersect irretrievably. It is with apparent arbitrariness that Jacek finally hails one cab and not another, instructs the driver to take them on a desolate alternative route, and then brutally murders him. Jacek will be unsuccessfully defended by the young lawyer Piotr, given the death penalty, and hanged by the state.

The relative speed with which the film moves from the murder to capital punishment serves to highlight their moral equivalence. The long build-up that precedes the murders engenders no sympathy but rather adopts the cold perspective of a stranger. In this sense, Kieslowski relies entirely on the crimes themselves to reveal the meanings of the moral commandment.

Jacek's feelings of alienation and lack of respect were emphasised by DP Slawomir Idziak who shot the film through a green filter that not only reinforced the contrasting light and darkness, but also gives viewers the sense that Warsaw and its environs was a cold and cruel place to be. Both Jacek and the taxi driver's actions before their meeting shows little in the way of humanity, with Jacek dropping stones onto passing cars and insulting the elderly, whilst Waldemar refuses his neighbour a lift and frightens a man out walking his dogs.

And yet neither of them deserve to die in such a manner - Waldemar being strangled and beaten around the head with a rock whilst begging for his life, and Jacek at the hands of a chillingly merciless hangman. The murder scenes are completely unflinching and are shown for the whole duration - for something like seven and five minutes respectively - and are among the most harrowing deaths in film history. It is the killings themselves, presented so cold and brutally, that leave the most indelible mark of emptiness and cruelty at the state of society. Poland has since abolished the death penalty since it joined the EU.

Released in Poland in 1988, this film preceded the success of Kieslowski's later French films, such as The Double Life of Veronique, and the much acclaimed trilogy, Red, White, and Blue, which take up similar themes of contingency, fate, and coincidence surrounding and defining human actions and responsibility.

SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS (1971)

(Orig title: La Corte Notte Delle Bambole Di Vetro; aka Malastrana; aka Paralyzed)

Dir: Aldo Lado /Italy

A man (Jean Sorel, star of Lucio Fulci’s Perversion Story) is found unconscious one morning by a street sweeper, and is rushed off in an ambulance. He is pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital and his body is stored away in the morgue. However, it turns out that the man is still very much alive and conscious but in a completely paralyzed state due to a drug he was given. Through voiceovers we listen to his thoughts as he desperately tries to piece together the events which led to his nightmare predicament, and flashbacks are interspersed with medical professionals trying to work out why his body temperature hasn’t dropped and why rigor mortis hasn’t set in. We soon learn that the man’s name is Gregory Moore, an American journalist reporting on the political situation in Prague, and whose girlfriend, Mira (Ringo Star’s wife, Barbara Bach) had vanished. While investigating her disappearance, Gregory stumbles upon murder, a sinister cult, black magic, ritualistic orgies and human sacrifice. It’s no spoiler if I tell you that Gregory is in for an excruciating fate.

An underrated and fairly obscure offering from writer/director Aldo Lado (whose only other horror movie was Night Train Murders), Short Night of The Glass Dolls is a tightly-structured horrific thriller which kicks off with a nightmarish scenario – conscious paralysis, and medical professionals casually discussing your impending post-mortem procedure – and only ratchets up the tension as it goes. With stunning cinematography from Giuseppe Ruzzolini, which captures the beauty of Prague, an effective score from Ennio Morricone, which begins with a simple riff before reaching intensity as the strings come thick and fast, and lots of bizarre and unsettling set-pieces – such as the scene on the railway bridge, the catatonic audience watching the musicians play, the sinister cult orgy, etc – Short Night of The Glass Dolls does a fine job of keeping the viewers mesmerized throughout before the infamous ‘autopsy’ at the end, a scene so intense you’ll be gripping your arm-rest for sure.

SITCOM (1998)

Dir: Francois Ozon /France

Sitcom was Francois Ozon's debut feature, a scathing assault on the bourgeoisie of the middle class and the politeness of televisual farce, which has been called eveything from "a page ripped from the Luis Bunuel handbook of bourgeois contempt" to "A Hotel New Hampshire of the 90s." Both of which were meant - I think - in the nicest possible sense!

The starting point of Ozon's film is the typically safe, 'leave-it-to-be' style sitcom setting. A middle class family with a fussy mum, stuffy dad, edgy kids, and a slightly naughty maid, are all thrown together in a gilded human cage whose doorbell goes ding-dong every few minutes to allow some new character into the wacky house. In this week's episode, dad brings home from work a magic lab rat with hilarious results... Except, of course, that in Ozon's world the results are often less rib-tickling than jaw-dropping. No sooner have the family got their hands on this cute rodent and their darkest desires are being unleashed, resulting in homosexual orgies, attempted suicide, incest, sadomasochism, and murder. And as this nuclear family heads closer to meltdown, that pesky doorbell just keeps on ringing...

How you react to Ozon's bizarre blend of bland comic format and outrageous subject-matter is up to you. To some, Ozon is a class warrior intent on tearing out the hearts of the bourgeoisie and stuffing them down their well-bred throats, and to others he's a sexual liberationist, a pioneer of new gay cinema who was once labeled as "a young homo who seems to have been spoon-fed on queerness to the extent that he is simply coughing it up again in his works." Personally, I don't think either of those descriptions entirely fit; one of the real joys of Ozon's early work is that it's extremely hard to categorise, and much of the pleasure in watching comes from not knowing quite where his off-beat vision is going to take us next. You're never in safe hands with Ozon, and you can never relax.

His short films - including the masterful Regarde le mer - indicated a vibrant imagination at work. And Sitcom confirms his early promise as it gives free rein to his feverish vision, best seen in the character's descent into sexual perversity, and the bizarre figures sharing their world. Ozon's inspirations are easy to spot (Luis Bunuel and John Waters fare big), but there's enough visual and thematic flair here to make the film unique. Audiences and critics agreed, awarding Sitcom two European festival prizes for Best Film at the Sitges and Namur festivals.

Without giving away the insane ending, I think it's safe to say that this is a film which divides audiences; you'll either love it or hate it. And chances are you won't be able to decide until the end credits roll.

SONATINE (1993)

Dir: Takeshi Kitano /Japan

Where do old gangsters go to die? To the seaside, if you're to believe this pensive crime film by Japanese cultural phenomenon, 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano.

Yakuza big shot Katajima sends his trusted, middle-aged underboss Murakawa (Kitano himself) to Okinawa to settle some gangster in-fighting. Murakawa gathers together a group of young guns and does as he is told, but suspects there's more to the assignment than meets the eye. Is he being set up? After Murakawa and his henchmen are ambushed, they retreat to the beachfront home of a local yakuza and spend a few weirdly idyllic days horsing around by the sea, wondering when the horrors of real life will intrude.

Hugely praised on its initial release, this 1993 Japanese film hit Western screens shortly after Kitano's more recent Hana-Bi. The difference in Kitano's appearance is shocking (Sonatine was shot before Kitano was almost killed in a motorcycle accident, while Hana-Bi was made afterwards), but his sly, acid-tipped sense of humour and melancholy twists on genre conventions remain the same. Sonatine has a very unusual angle for a gangster movie; it's premise being that to understand violence you must explore the moments of calm that punctuate it - A real break from the norm and very refreshing.

Kitano delivers a perfectly-measured performance as Murakawa, a man who wants out of the crime world, but retains the strength to recognise that circumstances and obligations will never allow it. The film's uneasy but perfectly calibrated mix of brutal violence and goofy humour is pure Kitano - the scene in which Murakawa and his henchmen play a variation on the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots with paper sumo wrestlers is just too bizarre (and hilarious!) - and its convulsively nihilistic ending is unforgettable.

SPETTERS (1980)

Dir: Paul Verhoeven /Holland

A flashy, fast-paced drama, Spetters is the story of Dutch teenage motorcross enthusiasts Eve (Toon Agterberg), Hans (Maarten Spanjer), and Reen (Hans Van Tongeren), all of whom dream of being as tough and successful as motorcycle champ Witkamp (Rutger Hauer). Their youthful rebellion ends tragically for both Reen, who is crippled in an accident, and Eve, who is raped, beaten, and killed by a gang of violent homosexuals. Providing a sexual outlet for the teenagers, and just about every other biker on the wharf, is Fientje (Renee Soutendijk), a conniving creature who runs a greasy spoon with her gay brother.

Spetters is a violent, action-packed assault on the sensibilities of all but the most hardened filmgoers, not surprising given that it was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who would go on to score major successes in Hollywood with Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers, all of which were pretty excessive for mainstream audiences. With Spetters he demonstrates his penchant for startling visuals, explicit sex, and graphic violence, though his intelligent direction is anything but careless or irresponsible. Soutendijk and Joroen Krabbe would later co-star again in another classic Verhoeven film, The Fourth Man.

The film caused a scandal in its native Holland where critics, financiers and the public slammed Verhoeven for his harsh depictions of homosexuals, Christians, the police, and the press. The film was described as "perverted" and "decadent," but despite the controversy Spetters became a hit with audiences.

STORYTELLING (2001)

Dir: Todd Solondz /USA

Todd Solondz's mischievous masterpiece opens on a section called 'Fiction', in which students at a creative writing class have their work verbally torn to shreds by their teacher in a calm and ruthless, dead-eyed manner. One of the students is Vi (Selma Blair), who is later dumped by her pretentious boyfriend Marcus (Leo Fitzpatrick), who happens to be afflicted with cerebral palsy. Later that night, Vi heads out on the town to get drunk, and she bumps into her teacher from the writing class, Mr. Scott. Even with a few drinks down his neck, Mr. Scott refuses to loosen up or even smile, and their conversation remains as stilted as ever; she asks the questions and he answers them in a very blunt and unmoved way (she asks "Do you think I could make it as a writer?" and his deadpan reply is simply "No"). They eventually go back to his place. The lead up to sex is very cold and clinical - He basically sits on the bed and tells her what to do in a blank and matter-of-fact manner: "Take off your shirt... turn around... bend over", etc. Even while he's fucking her, he insists on keeping a tight control of the act, instructing her on what to say. He demands that she shouts "Fuck me hard, nigger" and demands that she keeps shouting it while he fucks her from behind. He comes across as some kind of stereotypical super-stud pimp, circa 1979.

Back in class the next day, and Vi has written a short story about her encounter with Mr. Scott. She reads it aloud to the class, and none of the students are aware of the fact that they had slept together the previous night. And what follows is a hilarious scene in which the students take turns at offering 'feedback' on her story. Solondz as a writer is clearly in his element here as he points out with great skill the student's PC awareness and their prejudice from the various intellectual angles they use to attack her story. "Why do people have to be so ugly and write about such ugly characters?" a human twiglet sniffs. "It's perverted. (sighs) I know you all think that I'm being prissy but I don't care. I was brought up in a certain way, and this is... mean-spirited".

"Yeah" another agrees. "Well, it did seem a little... sexist... Like, by using taboo language you were trying to shock us about the hollowness of your characters."

"I think it was a little bit racist", a young man offers.

A girl concurs, "It was completely racist, and beyond that, I felt deeply offended as a woman. As if women can only operate from experiences of objectification."

"Totally phallocentric" a female voice pipes up from the back.

"And so weirdly misogynistic", another agrees. "I mean, why does Jayne go through with this, is she stupid?" Young man again -       "Hey, but wasn't this a rape? Or did I miss something, because I'm confused. Because if this was rape, then why would she be a whore?"

Another woman, Catherine, calmly offers her own take on the matter, “It was confessional yet dishonest. Jayne pretends to be horrified by the sexuality that she in fact fetishizes. She subsumes herself to the myth of black male sexual potency, but then doesn’t follow through. She thinks she respects African-Americans, even thinks they’re cool and exotic. What a notch he’d make on her belt. But, of course, it all comes down to Mandingo cliché, and he calls her on it. In classic racist tradition, she demonizes and then runs for cover. But then, how could she behave otherwise? She’s just a spoiled, suburban white girl with a Benetton rainbow complex… It’s just my opinion, and what do I know? But I think it’s a callow piece of writing…”

She then turns to Mr. Scott for his input. And his reply is interesting: “Callow… coy. Jayne, once more, isn’t honest enough to admit it. Then she returns to the safety of her crippled translation, sexually impotent boyfriend.”

Marcus then interrupts (and he also has no idea the story is true) “This is bullshit! Her story was the truth!”

Many critics have sided with Catherine’s viewpoint with regards to the ‘Fiction’ segment in this film, as if Vi is the only one who is at fault here. But personally, I think there is much more going on besides. As well as criticizing Vi, I think Solondz was also criticizing every single character in the class. The black professor, Mr. Scott, is suggested as being just as guilty of self-martyrdom as Marcus, the kid with cerebral palsy whose story is dismissed. (Interestingly, none of the other class members attack Marcus’ story in the way they attacked Vi’s, because of Marcus’ cerebral palsy and their own PC awareness. Mr. Scott, on the other hand, is the only one allowed to criticize it because he is black.) Mr. Scott has written a Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Sunday Lynching, and that title alone suggests an angle of ‘oh, me and my people are victims’ kind of thing, and the un-PC suspicion that black people are obsessed with their own skin colour. Vi may secretly fetishize and demonize African-Americans, but in reality she is treated almost abusively. The sexual encounter between Vi and Mr. Scott borders on degradation. She is accused of subsuming herself in ‘Mandingo clichés’, etc, but the critical Catherine and Mr. Scott are just as complicit as her in this; for example, Scott demands to be called “nigger” during sex, and Catherine poses in handcuffs like a white subservient. Mr. Scott claims “Once you start writing, it all becomes fiction”, but he and Catherine also have a great deal of trouble in separating the fiction from Vi as an author. Thus, in reality they are all accusing Vi herself of being racist and fake when those accusations should have been leveled at the character in the story, Jayne. Many critics completely overlooked the complexity of this first segment in the film, and as a result they seem to have fallen into Solondz’ trap by reacting in a similar way as the ill-informed students in class, projecting their own PC awareness and personal prejudices onto the scene. To my mind, the ‘Fiction’ segment was an attack on those who espouse political correctness, not a condoning of it.

The second segment, ‘Non-Fiction’, centers on Toby, a budding documentarian who is making a film about Scooby, a high school student, and his dysfunctional family, the Livingstons. Toby is quite nerdy in appearance but he seems decent enough, if a little weird. He follows Scooby around school, and he always insists on filming sequences in the boy’s locker room for some reason. A constant source of amusement - is Toby a perv or just a naïve, ambitious filmmaker with a heart of gold? Is he exploiting Scooby and his family, or just recklessly inexperienced at recording the reality he sees all around him? Director Solondz plays on this ambiguity until the very end of the film, making his actions and comments open to interpretation, good or bad. Toby’s assistant is played by Mike Schank, the same guy who appeared in the hilarious documentary, American Movie: The Making of North Western, as Mark Borchardt’s chemically-damaged friend. Solondz seems to have cast him here as a tribute to that incredible film (if you haven’t seen American Movie you’re in for a treat). Anyone else sporting such a dismal dress sense would have been thrown off the set, tarred, feathered, and kicked in the nuts. But because it’s Mike Schank, he gets away with it. And he probably spent his actor’s fee on scratch cards.

The Livingstons are a middle class Jewish family, and Scooby is a troubled kid. At the dinner table, Scooby tells his mother “In a sense, since you would never have met dad if your family had stayed in Europe, if it weren’t for Hitler none of us would have been born.” His father reacts badly to this comment and sends him to his room. Scooby wasn’t trying to purposely annoy his parents, it’s just that he thinks aloud much of the time, blurting things out before he has realized what he’s saying. His parents think he is out of control, but actually he’s just trying to do things in his own way. And if that means not sitting his exams, then so be it.

The Livingstons are a heartbreakingly dysfunctional family; the father, Marty (John Goodman), is strict in an old-fashioned, ‘proper’ sense, but his attempts to keep the unit sane and sound just makes things worse. The mother is a silent, meek type who lets dad be the boss. Middle brother, Brady, is a school jock American football player who is afraid that Scooby’s closet homosexuality will eventually come out to wreck his popularity at school. And the youngest brother, Mikey, is an insensitive and belligerent little turd who not only assumes the world revolves around him, but that the way it revolves just isn’t good enough. All in all, it’s quite depressing to watch this family falling apart. The docu-style footage reminded me of Capturing The Friedmans, which was released in the following year.

The most interesting thread in this second segment is the relationship between the youngest Livingston brother, Mikey, and the El Salvadorian housemaid, Consuelo. The young boy Mikey is a refreshing change from the norm in terms of his character. Often in films, children are depicted as if they’re the perfect moralists with a firm grasp of the nuances and discretions of adult conversation. But in actual fact, children in real-life are very rarely like that. Kids often lack that social discretion which governs adult talk. Some things adults don’t mention for the sake of manners simply bypass the child’s mind. Kids, in turn, will just come right out with it. And that is one of the reasons why Mikey is such an intriguing character. Kids often say stupid and offensive things, not necessarily wanting to upset you, but because their minds haven’t sufficiently developed enough to keep schtum when an adult would. Or, as Matt Stone [co-creator of South Park] so eloquently put it, "[kids] don't have any kind of social tact or etiquette, they're just complete little raging bastards." Mikey’s scenes with Consuelo illustrate this point perfectly. She’s about 60-something years old and has four brothers and five sisters, yet she scrubs away on her hands and knees for the Livingston family. Mikey questions her out of curiosity, and asks why her parents had so many children when they were so financially poor.

She tries to deflect the question (she’s trying to concentrate on her work), and answers “It was God’s way.” This would have satisfied many kids, but Mikey’s curiosity deepens, and he begins to question Consuelo on her belief in God. She patiently tries to deal with the conversation in a simple and uncomplicated way, but young Mikey amusingly manages to pose an even more complicated question for each of her answers. His delivery sounds insulting and mocking, especially when he tells her she should “smile more” while she slaves away.

At this point in the film I quite liked Mikey, despite him being borderline rude to Consuelo. However, as the film progresses it becomes clear that Mikey is a very deviant child. In the middle of the night he heads downstairs to wake her up so that she can clean up some grape juice he has spilled on the kitchen floor. When he enters her basement room he discovers that she is already awake and crying. And so he begins firing off his questions again, like before. Not once does he comfort her or try to empathize. Consuelo, bless her heart, explains to him that her nephew in El Salvador has just been executed on death row. “Maybe it’s for the best”, Mikey replies. “Bad people should be killed”. Moments later he asks her “Why was he on death row?”

“For rape and murder”.

“… What is rape?”

“It is when you love someone, and the other person doesn’t love you… And you do something about it”.

“Sometimes I feel like my parents don’t love me…”

“Well”, she replies, “when you are older you can do something about it…”

Consuelo breaks down crying again. Mikey hesitates, as if thinking of something reassuring to say. Does this kid have a heart after all? “Consuelo?” he asks, “I spilt some juice downstairs. Do you think you could clean it up now?”

By the end of the film, Mikey is clearly a conniving, controlling, future fascist in the making. Always manipulating situations for his own selfish ends. In one scene, he hypnotizes his father, and that sequence spells out just how ruthless and heartless he is when he suggests his father should fire Consuelo, and that he should love him at the expense of his comatose brother who was badly injured in an American football accident.

Marty, the overbearing patriarch of the family, is cynical and homophobic and proud of his Jewish heritage. He demands that his children secure stereotypical financial success; they should submit themselves to the assembly line of the Ivy League school system and make tons of money upon graduation to be socially accepted. Only then will he see his sons as being successful in his eyes. He has a closed mind and seems like he’s too old to change his views. He also has an openness about him, a willingness to speak his mind, no matter how crass it may sound to others. For instance, when Toby the filmmaker asks for permission to make his documentary about

Scooby, he makes no secret about his desire for financial gain, “What will we get out of this?” he asks.

Toby’s documentary is just as much about Toby as it is about Scooby and his family. During the little clips we see of it, the documentary is every bit the narcissistic piece of naval gazing as it is an attempt at social commentary. In one scene he walks down the school corridors with his camera in hand, talking away and giving the viewer’s His opinions because His opinions are the most important thing in the movie, according to Him. “I walk down hallways like the ones I used to walk down in high school…I used to wake up depressed, suicidal, filled with despair. Beneath these masks of courtesy and friendliness, I knew there was darkness.” He also overuses video effects like split-frame and morphing effects, typical of an inexperienced filmmaker.

Many have compared Toby’s character with that of director Solondz himself, suggesting that Toby is Solondz’s alter-ego. And while there are some elements of truth to this (apparently they look similar in appearance and they are both filmmakers), it would be a mistake to view Toby as Solondz himself. Some viewers also interpret Toby’s documentary as his attempt to ridicule the Livingston family, and again I disagree with that idea. He is pretentious and self-centered, but I believe he had the family’s best interests at heart, and it was never his intention to make Scooby look foolish on camera.

The MPAA demanded that the sex scene between Vi and Mr. Scott be edited or removed entirely (it’s not that graphic) for the R rating. When Solondz refused to cut it, the censors simply gave the film the dreaded NC-17 rating, and added a ridiculous red box over the scene to conceal the footage. Rather than bowing to the demands of the MPAA, Solondz admirably allowed the scene to stand in its altered form, and called it for what it is – a needless form of censorship. Solondz described the addition of the box as a political statement: “I was prepared to make that political statement. This is something I've always been prepared to do, as long as the audience is aware of what it's not allowed to see. That's how I feel politically about that.”

Intriguingly, there was an entire third part of the film which was dropped for unknown reasons. It allegedly centred on a gay football player, and included an explicit sex scene with a male partner.

STRAW DOGS (1971)

Dir: Sam Peckinpah /USA

Tagline – “The knock at the door meant the birth of one man and the death of seven others!”

Straw Dogs is one of Sam Peckinpah’s finest films, a relentless study in violence and machismo that is shocking, not only for its violence, but the degree to which it manipulates ‘civilised’ audiences. Even the most passive viewer may find himself silently cheering on the carnage at the film’s finale – an act that, in retrospect, gives much cause for discomfort.

David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a quiet mathematician, and his wife Amy (Susan George) seek to escape urban violence by moving to her birthplace, a small Cornish village. They hire four locals to construct the garage roof, and it isn’t long before they start making life unpleasant for David. Led by Charlie (Del Henney), an ex-boyfriend of Amy’s, the four workers ridicule David while chipping away at his masculinity and ogling Amy, who seems to encourage their attentions. David, in an attempt to win their acceptance, joins them on a hunting trip; but they desert him in the wilderness, and two of the men return to the cottage and rape Amy, who is ambivalent about the experience and doesn’t tell her husband.

Some time later, the couple attends a local church function where Amy, haunted by memories of the rape, breaks down. Driving home in the dense fog, they knock down Henry (David Warner), the town’s simpleton. Unbeknownst to the couple, Henry has just strangled a young girl. They take the injured man back to their home and, when an angry mob (which includes David’s tormentors) learns of Henry’s whereabouts and lay siege to the house, David resolves to stay put and fight them off. What follows is a brilliantly edited, spectacularly violent climax.

Straw Dogs generated tremendous controversy upon its release in 1971. Many found the violence too graphic and gratuitous, as well as taking offence at the film’s neolithic sexual politics: by resorting to brutal, deadly violence, the man proves himself true master of his ‘property’ – his house and his wife. The film is played as a power struggle between David and Amy (they play several symbolic games of chess during the story), with Amy pushing her partner’s tolerance to breaking point. Her strategies include teasing the workers and disrupting David’s work, while he counters by abusing her cat and accepting the hunting invitation. But David’s checkmate comes when – after he has killed a few men and become quite abusive – he compels Amy to shoot one of the assailants. David has thus ‘won’ the game, losing everything he stood for in the process. This cynical premise, combined with the fact that David has actually relished in the violence, is difficult to swallow for many viewers.

Straw Dogs contains one of Hoffman’s most layered performances, with the final explosion of violence all the more believable thanks to his initial, mild-mannered quietude. George combines suggestive sexuality with spitefulness to create an equally unforgettable character. Peckinpah handles everything with consummate skill, exerting complete control over his audience’s responses. Straw Dogs is full of arresting images (the mesmerizing opening dissolve was borrowed by David Cronenberg for the beginning of The Fly), perfectly complemented by Jerry Fielding’s eerie, Oscar-nominated score. Whatever your reservations about its content and philosophy, Straw Dogs remains one of the strongest and most memorable statements about violence ever put on screen.

Based on Gordon Williams’ novel, ‘The Siege Of Trencher’s Farm’, it was Peckinpah himself who chose the title Straw Dogs, inspired by the Chinese proverb, “Heaven and Earth are not humane and regard people as straw dogs.” And this does much to clarify the attitude towards violence in the film, and indeed, the nature of the violence. Even from the opening scenes it’s clear that all is not well between David and Amy. He is immediately disliked for his nerdy status, while she flaunts her body and teases the villagers, and this culminates in the oft-discussed double rape scene, in which she is seen – at first – as a willing participant. Crucially, it isn’t the rape which leads to the bloody showdown – David never actually learns about the incident – but their sheltering of the town simpleton, who has accidentally killed a young girl, like Lennie Small in ‘Of Mice And Men’, by not knowing his own strength. Throughout the film, David’s masculinity has been goaded to the point where he decides he will defend his home from the lynch mob, even if it means resorting to murder. This is all the more shocking because of his quiet, pacifist, non-confrontational manner which the yokels misread as a weakness. Many critics over the years have felt uncomfortable with the way Peckinpah manipulates his audience into endorsing David’s actions and cheering him on in the cinema. Pauline Kael famously described the film as “fascist.” Even producer Daniel Melnick felt unnerved by audience reactions, “It was certainly an anti-violent statement we all wanted to make,” he said. “But when I saw the adolescents in the audience screaming ‘Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em!’ I thought, Jesus, what have we unleashed?”

Despite its powerful merits as a work of cinematic art, Straw Dogs – along with A Clockwork Orange and The Devils – remains one of the most notorious mainstream movies ever shot on British soil. Co-scripted by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman, the story unfolds in a primordial moral fog where men abuse women and women are turned on by it. Before long, it feels like a tour around the darkest parts of the director’s psyche, since he was no stranger to violent outbursts and raging jealousy – he even went as far as auditioning one of his ex-girlfriends for the role of Amy. The fact that he added an extra rape to Williams’ novel only added to the suspicion that he was an unrepentant misogynist. However, Katy Haber, Peckinpah’s ex-girlfriend and assistant on Straw Dogs, defended him, saying, “Sam loved women but he resented his need for them. He feared the control they had over him. But frankly, in the relationships I’ve had in my life, I don’t think that’s an uncommon feeling in men.”

Wild Bunch actor, Strother Martin, once described Peckinpah as a “dirty psychiatrist” who got what he wanted from actors by getting inside their heads and searching for strengths and weaknesses (during the filming of the church party scene, Peckinpah told Susan George that her father was dying in order to elicit the troubled and conflicting emotions from her as she recollects her traumatic rape). At the height of his powers in the late 60s, he was vilified as an alcoholic, drug-abuser, bully, womanizer and sadist. He was infamous for being very difficult to work with: volatile, terse, confrontational, uncooperative, even violent (Hoffman tried to get him fired from Straw Dogs after a rowdy party turned violent. Charlton Heston even threatened him with a sword during the making of Major Dundee, due to the director continuing to goad him when he was warned to stop). If he wasn’t such a damn fine filmmaker, Hollywood studios would have kicked him into touch quicker than shit off a stick. But he had a knack for screenwriting and a visceral flair behind the camera which meant he was much in demand. In 1969, he made The Wild Bunch, a critically-acclaimed, extremely violent western which set a new standard for action films while re-writing the rulebook in the process. His now trademark style involved quick-fire edits and bloody violent set-pieces presented at varying speeds. His films were often provocative, violent and preoccupied almost exclusively with masculinity.

Straw Dogs isn’t Peckinpah’s best film, but the finale presents us with a self-assured ferocity that suggests he knew exactly what he was aiming for. He was also disheartened with audiences when they cheered along with what he always saw as catharsis. “Sam worked from instinct,” says his biographer Garner Simmons. “He saw the world in shades of grey and he used the film to examine things that he didn’t understand – to see if they came out any clearer. He says that Straw Dogs is about the violence in all of us, but one of the first things he changed in the script was the lead character’s name, from George to David – his own real name.”

For its US release, the film was trimmed of the second rape which actually undermined the film for decades, as editor Roger Spottiswoode explains, “The first rape is more of a seduction, the second real, terrible rape. But shortening the terrible rape, of course, made it seem like Sam was saying rape was OK.” During a hostile preview screening at the North Port Theatre in San Francisco in September 1971, in which there were jeers and walkouts, an enraged man who claimed to be a “pacifist” physically attacked the director. Peckinpah had to run for his life, and luckily for him, his driver was waiting in the car out front, and they fled.

Before its UK release, the British censors demanded cuts to the film even to secure the X rating. Producer Daniel Melnick recalls, “The big issue was in the rape scene, whether it was pure rape or sodomy. So here were a group of grown-up men running a sequence of a few seconds back and forth on a Moviola, all looking at the angle of penetration, arguing that it couldn’t be sodomy because of the position.”

Upon release in the UK, the British press was merciless. Derek Malcolm of The Guardian called it “a brilliantly made, thoroughly bad film [which] leaves a bad taste in the mouth but only numbs the brain.” The Daily Telegraph dismissed it as “ridiculous, pretentious and very nasty indeed, both artistically and morally.” Thirteen UK film critics wrote an open letter to the Times condemning the film.

Straw Dogs appeared on VHS in 1980 just as the moral panic about ‘video nasties’ was brewing. Under the 1984 Video Recordings Act, all tapes had to be re-submitted to the BBFC for classification before 1988. But the successive distributers of Straw Dogs over the years refused to comply with any further cuts, and this left the film in limbo for the next 15 years. It was revived theatrically in the UK in 1995, but any hopes of a home video release were quickly dashed when in 1999 the BBFC made their position clear: “The issue of sexual violence has become of greater concern to the Board than 20 or 30 years ago […] The clear indication that Amy comes to enjoy being raped is grounds for continued censorship.” This ambivalent position on the no-means-yes ‘rape myth’ remains the most controversial aspect of the film to this day. “That’s the acceptance of rape people find unacceptable,” says Haber. “When Amy reaches up and kisses him, I can see why it angered people, but I can also see what Sam was doing. If ever there was a rejection of her relationship with David, it was at that moment.” Daniel Melnick has always claimed that the rape was “totally organic” to the story, although he later admitted regretting Amy’s enjoyment in the scene.

Straw Dogs was eventually passed by the BBFC in July 2002 with an uncut 18 certificate on its seventh time through the censor’s office. Ironically, it was the reinstated footage of the double rape scene which made all the difference, as a BBFC spokesman explained: “The ambiguity of the first rape is given context by the second.” Previously, the British censors had always been presented with the American R-rated version which loses the second rape, thus making the first one seem even worse. In 2002, however, the Board was shown the original uncut version which vigorously downplays any eroticism. Or, as the BBFC’s Sue Clark explained: “The second rape now makes it clear that sexual assault is not something she welcomes.” Fundamentally, this was the culmination of a cultural shift at the BBFC. Former chief censor, James Ferman, held a nannying, dictatorial stance on censorship in the UK, and was rumoured to have had personal issues with films like The Exorcist and Straw Dogs. And it’s certainly no coincidence that the moment he retired in the late 90s, his successor, Robin Duval, gave The Exorcist a long-overdue amnesty on home video. Many of the ‘video nasties’ soon followed. Around the turn of the century, public consultations informed the BBFC that the way they ran the organization was “old hat” and “po-faced.” They thus decided it was time to instill a new order of transparency and consultative censorship, a far cry from Ferman’s isolated in-house decisions process. The changes were indeed radical, and helped towards putting film censorship more in line with European law. This was encouraging news for anyone interested in films like Straw Dogs, as Ken Law of Freemantle Media says, “To move from a situation where Dogs was rejected with three minutes of recommended cuts to passed uncut in three years was a tall order but it was worth pursuing.” He also praised what he saw as a new accountability at the BBFC, and welcomed the dialogue between distributer and censor.

Submitted in July 2001, it took the BBFC a whole year to decide the fate of the film. They consulted with psychologists specializing in sex offenders, and a focus group of 26 video-renters to inform their decision (20 accepted the uncut version). “If something is contentious, we’ll seek advice,” said Clark at the time. “The decision-making process is for the public, not some in-house arbitrary decision.” And with that, the Dogs were finally unmuzzled.

POSTSCRIPT: SENSE OR CENSORABILITY

When James Ferman retired from the BBFC in January 1999, it ushered in a new era of openness in British censorship. The run-up to the release of Straw Dogs had already seen the benefits of this more informed process, and had paved the way with the release of more than a dozen previously banned movies:

•              26 March, 1999 – The Driller Killer passed with 54 seconds of cuts.

•              10 June, 1999 – The Exorcist was released. Ferman sulked.

•              19 August, 1999 – The ban on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was finally lifted.

•              8 September, 2000 – 70s porn odyssey Deep Throat secured an uncut R18 certificate. Whether watching the film is “an act of rape” or “a blow for liberty” is now up to you to decide.

•              23 November, 2000 – Cannibal Ferox was passed minus cuts of an “animal banging against a jeep.”

•              19 December, 2000 – Salo was released uncut.

•              26 February, 2001 – Baise-Moi was released minus 10 seconds of hardcore footage despite being banned in numerous territories across the world, including its native France.

•              17 July, 2001 – Cannibal Holocaust was released without the animal violence.

•              31 July, 2001 – Enter The Dragon released uncut.

•              15 November, 2001 – I Spit On Your Grave passed minus 7 minutes of rape footage.

•              21 January, 2002 – The New York Ripper was let loose with 22 seconds of razorblade torture snipped.

•              26 March, 2002 – Nightmares In A Damaged Brain passed uncut.

•              29 May, 2002 – Maniac was released after losing 59 seconds of violent footage.

•              18 June, 2002 – BBFC won the appeal against The Last House On The Left after the hearing concluded that viewers were asked to “relish in the relentless violence.” And, presumably, the equally-damaging banjo soundtrack.

•              1 July, 2002 – Straw Dogs passed uncut.

Spin on that, Ferman.

SWEET MOVIE (1974)

Dir: Dusan Makavejev /Yugoslavia

No synopsis can do this movie justice, but it basically boils down to a bunch of 'radical' students misbehaving on camera, with the end result being passed off as an experimental art piece. It's a psycho-sexual 'comedy' that wallows in shattered taboos, and absurdist, free-form vignettes.

The film opens on a live TV show in which several women compete for the title of Miss World. The lucky winner also gets to marry a Texas oil billionaire (played by cinematic shit heap, John Vernon). The women are inspected by a world famous gynecologist who is presented by the host as "Dr. Metinger, brilliant master of deep insights... and even deeper insights. Innovative explorer of the abysses of the human body and soul". Miss Congo, an exhibitionistic black woman, hops onto the doc's chair and rubs his beard with her foot while he gives her a thorough examination. Miss Southern Rhodesia gets violent and attacks the doctor and the TV host, beating the crap out of them both. Then it's the turn of Miss Canada (Carole Laure), whose pussy radiates a golden glow. And she's the clear winner of the competition. This whole sequence can be read as an interesting foretaste to the vulgarities which would eventually become part and parcel of modern-day reality TV in which everything is transformed into a crude competition with its 'drama' and dramatic pauses for the public to judge.

Next up, a boat floats along the river, and we get a silly folk tune that crops up time and again throughout the film. The boat has been renovated in a strange kind of 70s Eastern European 'Pimp My Ride' style, with colourful slogans and a huge plaster cast of Karl Marx's head attached to the bow. It looks like a floating art exhibit created by hippies, and reminded me of Fredric Hobbs' creations for his films, like the 'Trojan Horse' car in Troika, for example.

Miss Canada - now Miss World - is taken up for a helicopter ride with her cowboy billionaire husband. They hover above Niagara Falls and a blank graveyard. "My empire!" he shouts. He lights up his tobacco pipe and claims that the face on the front of it is Karl Marx, but the joke is that it's actually Lenin's face (hilarious, no?). They arrive at his estate, and the cowboy introduces his bride to the clingers-on as "a lady of the house, a personal jewel, but above all a purified sanitation system for unchecked waste". Years of marital bliss ahead of them, no doubt. That night, cowboy takes wifey to bed, but when he gets out his gold-plated cock, she screams. So he takes a leak on her instead.

The boat sails on down the river where a young sailor runs along beside it and tries to win the affections of the female captain by pissing in the water and wiggling his cock at her like some socially backward oddball. He climbs on board and tells her he's starving for sex. She replies "Those who starve know how to make love". Tell that to Keith Chegwin. The sailor and the captain have sex on the boat, and she seems delighted at being fucked by "an authentic sexual proletarian!" And the boat sails on...

Meanwhile, Miss World regrets marrying the billionaire. She is carried up into a bizarre room in a milk tower above the city by a big black guy called Jeremiah. They have some sexy fun time together ("See this chocolate complexion? Try it"). What follows is a hilarious scene where she wanks him off; when the camera closes in on his face, it's impossible to tell whether he's having an orgasm or a hyperventilating panic attack. Jeremiah bundles her into his suitcase and smuggles her into Paris.

Real archive footage is inserted into the film of mass graves being dug up for hundreds of dead bodies. A gravedigger props up one of the corpses, and the front of its skull has been smashed in. Others check the pockets in search of anything to identify the dead. By the looks of the scratchy black and white footage and the uniforms of the personnel, this could be Soviet film stock recorded as evidence of Nazi atrocities in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. A quick Google search says the footage is of remains of the Polish Katyn Massacre victims.

The film soon collapses into a revolting and pretentious shambles. Miss World arrives at a Paris commune led by Otto Muehl, and has sex with El Macho, a Latino singer. She later regrets losing her virginity to him, and demonstrates this by breaking eggs onto her head in a symbolic gesture of her broken hymen. She attends a dinner which soon descends into a chimp's tea party of the damned, and includes such past times as belching, vomiting, cock hugging, and someone getting his willy out to piss all over the table, and someone else thinking it a good idea to catch the stream of piss in his mouth. I'm not sure Karl Marx would approve. They dance around naked and shit in bowls whilst humming along to Beethoven's glorious 9th. A typical student's night in, by the looks of it.

Back on the boat, meanwhile, the sailor and the blonde captain take a relaxing bath of sugar together with a pet mouse. "Permanent sugar" he purrs. She stabs him in the gut and plays with his blood, mixing it in with the sugar as if she's creating some kind of macabre cake mixture. He laughs. Then dies.

Conceived as an experiment in psycho-liberation, Sweet Movie attempts to demonstrate the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, the post-Freudian psychoanalyst who encouraged his readers to confront their subconscious states by engaging in lewd, primitive acts. Director Dusan Makavejev attempts to film this idea in a radical and literal way - to relate back to our primordial state as a form of therapy. Therefore, Makavejev rubs his viewers' faces in sex, death, shit, and vomit in an attempt to make us feel better... Did it work for you? Nah, me neither. By watching this stuff, we're supposed to confront our own repressed desires for a visceral awakening, but the end result is far too playful and insincere for it to work, thus undermining the whole premise of the film as it flits between comedy, farce, and shock tactics, barely gaining any ground in any of the themes it attempts to address. Makavejev's earlier film, WR: Mysteries of The Organism (1971) was much more true to the source of Reich than this mess.

WR: Mysteries was the first film to legally show an erect penis in the UK, and Makavejev seems really proud of this and takes it up a few notches by having penises pop up all over the place in this film. But as a whole, the film is not as interesting or satirical as Bunuel, not as inventive or visually striking as Jodorowsky's work, not as subversive as Pasolini or Marco Ferreri. It also lacks the dangerous edge of Juraj Jacubisko and the clever symbolism of Antonioni or Godard. Instead of holding true to a serious statement on society's collective strait-jacket, the director seems to lose his nerve and resorts to childish shit-flicking antics. Today, the film is more regarded for its taboo-breaking spirit rather than its jumble of half-baked ideas.

Sweet Movie is cast with exhibitionistic bell-ends, the kind of crusty art types who drink herbal tea and who can't wait to gang-up and shed their clothes and shit all over the place, because, like, they're so radical and open-minded, man. Urgh, these people are full of shit, and this movie literally proves it! The kind of people whose efforts to raise awareness of what's going on in the world leaves normal people running for the hills to escape their smell. And likewise, this film works in exactly the same way; it preaches to the converted, anti-capitalist, pro-commie lot, and sends normal moviegoers running for the nearest exit as the inherently silly acts and in-jokes clog up the system until it bursts, overflowing with cinematic sewage. Puking and pissing and shitting is not interesting. In fact, artistically, it's right next door to monumental bellwastes like GG Allin who would punch his audience members in the face and spray them with diarrhea. The only difference is the guys in this film probably learned how to soil themselves in college.

Makavejev was part of a group of Eastern European filmmakers who revolutionised the boring old world of black and white state sponsored film. In the late 60s, many of these directors rose to prominence, where Miklós Jancsó’s The Round-Up and Roman Polanski’s Knife In The Water prompted many in the West to pay close attention to what was going on in that part of the world. A few of those filmmakers from beyond the iron curtain – Jansco, Polanski and Milos Forman, for example – would go on to make movies in Hollywood and Western Europe. But Makavejev wasn’t interested in Hollywood or in any form of commercial filmmaking for that matter.

Sweet Movie was a commercial failure. And following that, he disappeared from the film world for many years. He returned in the 80s with mediocre efforts like Montenegro and The Coca Cola Kid, both of which offered a more gently subversive manner and a more mainstream context, a far cry from his earlier, cutting-edge works like WR: Mysteries Of The Organism (1971). Back in the 60s, his work stood out thanks to the use of sexual images to get his point across. And it was the sex element in his second film, The Switchboard Operator (1967), which first brought him to international infamy. Head of British censorship at the time, John Trevelyan, was very concerned about the film. Though he understood its significance and the creativity behind it, he felt there was no way to pass it uncut because of all the sex. He was particularly concerned with the opening scene, which presents a serious lecture on sexology, and is illustrated with cock drawings. The other contentious point was the autopsy scene with the body of a naked female. According to Trevelyan, the fact that the naked woman was dead made things worse. The British censors felt they had no choice but to cut the offending footage. But even in its censored form, The Switchboard Operator drew large crowds to its screenings in London.

As for Sweet Movie, the film has had a history of censorship hassles in the UK; it was banned in 1975 with the BBFC claiming it "goes beyond the standards of taste which the Board is currently prepared to accept". In 1978, Connoisseur Films were interested in submitting the film to the UK censors after securing the rights for distribution. However, James Ferman made it quite clear to the company that they shouldn't waste their time or money as the film would only be rejected a second time, so the company backed off. A couple of years later, Lazer Films tried their luck. And much to their surprise the BBFC were willing to lift the ban. But the film wouldn't make it through unscathed; the censors insisted on removing several sequences, including the entire scene in which a trio of men have a poop competition, the removal of some spread-eagle shots of Carole Laure in a tub of melted chocolate (the actress had also taken the film's producers to court to have that scene removed - but these are no ordinary split beaver shots; she's covered in chocolate so you can't really see anything). Also, the scene in which the cowboy billionaire urinates on Miss Canada was considered too explicit and degrading and had to go. The BBFC agreed that the cuts had essentially ruined the film, but they wouldn't revise their decision. Lazer Films decided not to release it in its butchered form. Sweet Movie would probably be passed uncut nowadays, but no one has submitted it to the board since.

The film was banned in many countries, or severely cut; it is still banned in many places to this day. Polish authorities banned Prucnal (the actress who plays the boat captain) from using her passport because of the film, which effectively banned her from entering her native country for years. The film was almost impossible to find since its initial release in 1974, but Criterion released it on DVD on region 1 in June 2007.

TAETER CITY (2012)

Dir: Giulio De Santi /Italy

Set in a future dystopia ruled over by the brutal dictatorship known as The Authority, the citizens of Taeter City live among sinister radio waves called Zeed that allows The Authority to recognize and distinguish the minds of criminals from ordinary law-abiding citizens. The airwaves induce criminals into madness, prompting them to commit suicide in bizarre and graphic ways. A police unit called The Bikers are responsible for rounding up the bodies of dead criminals and dropping them off at huge slaughterhouses. These human abattoirs supply the mega fast-food chain, Taeter Burger, with fresh human meat which is fed to the hungry population around the clock (I suppose it makes a change from horse meat burgers in the UK). Life in Taeter City is under full control, that is until the Zeed system malfunctions, and the airwaves not only fail to induce suicide in the crims, but it also causes them to become stronger. These super-crims then emit their own mutated airwaves which cause the ordinary citizens to commit mass suicide. Something needs to be done before the situation can spiral completely out of control, and a trio of biker officers are sent out into the city to deal with the chaos…

Directed by Giulio De Santi (who was also the special effects director on Adam Chaplin, and he also plays the role of one of the criminals in this film), Taeter City is a grim futuristic fantasy set in the nightmarish world of a cannibalistic Orwellian dictatorship, complete with Paul Verhoeven-esque mock TV commercials displayed on big screens across the city, informing the populace, propaganda-style, of the latest treats to be had at their nearest fast-food joint. Overall, the film is broken up into a series of vignettes, as each deadly scenario is played out as a series of mini-stories in their own right. This disjunctive narrative style is often punctuated with TV ads broadcast by The Authority informing the public on how they should live and obey the powers that be. The central premise of the film seems to be a familiar one, about how the state ‘feeds’ on its citizens, how the regime can only function as long as it has enemies to vilify and destroy as a way of keeping the populace sedated in the belief that their best interests are at the heart of the Authority which rules over them. Crime is quite literally the lifeblood of this totalitarian police state. And as such, it becomes difficult for the viewers to identify with any of the characters; the criminals are monstrous, the normal citizens are apathetic drones, and the Biker squad’s heroics are all rather hollow, thanks to their dedication to keeping the awful regime on top.

But with that said, and with that in mind, Taeter City as a film deliberately keeps its sense of morality confused as a way of illustrating the point that both the fearful masses and the regime that rules over them are in a fight to the death, and all sense of morality has become a casualty on both sides: Such is life in a concrete jungle. Taeter City is also a real treat for fans of off-beat cult cinema. Just like Necrostorm’s previous film, Adam Chaplin, the visuals are nothing less than astonishing throughout, and the gore is gruesome and graphic and is kept fully in stock, just like the mangled meat being served at Taeter Burger. One of the Biker officers is called Wank, and this ensures lots of childish giggles in the audience, especially when he comes out with lines like “Hey, it’s your friend, Wank. Remember me?” And just like Adam Chaplin, there are numerous tips of the hat in reference to other films it pays homage to, like Tokyo Gore Police, Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, 1984, Delicatessen and Manga anime, and viewers will have a field day spotting all the movie reference points. Giulio De Santi told me “Our main and only purpose is to create niche products for genre fans, from fans, but with better quality aspects. We just try to focus on aspects that big companies lack, and splatter movies lack: most part of big productions have great actors, great stories, but no blood. So when splatter fans go to see something, at least give them blood."

When asked if the cannibal Authority in the film is his response to the state of the modern world, Giulio replied, “With Taeter City, I wanted to explain my thoughts on the modern ‘civilized’ country, mostly over the MASSES, with a very simple plot. People, mostly in huge metropolis, forget that violence is something ‘natural’, and we are made of it, but believe in it like a cure, only when it's in his advantage and perpetrated by someone else in their defense.

“Violence is something we can't cancel, because it’s one of the biggest pillars of the universe: to survive, someone or something must be defeated. The nature, the direct expression of God (for those who believe in God) proves this, a pacifist in the jungle would die if he didn't kill to defend himself, or at least if he didn't commit some form of violence. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just examining what I see without giving an opinion, I wanted to give an opinion over the masses. What I find CRAZY, is the fact that people nowadays accept violence only when perpetrated by the so-called ‘authority’. In that case it becomes right, because it’s for a good cause.

“I created a cannibalistic dictatorship, to take that concept to the extreme: in Taeter City in fact, everything is seen in broad daylight, and the people accept the extreme violence of the authority, just because ‘they are justified in what they are doing.’”

The off-shoot of this idea is the age-old concept of the ‘witch-hunt’ mentality that people seem to cling to in fear of their own persecution. In situations of perpetual fear brought on by the authorities, the masses feel much more comfortable when they have scapegoats to point their fingers at, to accuse those who resemble the criminality in a more obvious way, in order to mask their own secret contempt for the regime, as Giulio points out, “In real life, I notice a HUGE schizophrenia in the masses, and I consider it pretty dangerous for the single person: one day you could be considered bad by your own neighbourhood, and find yourself alone against the ‘world’ that will mark you as ‘the criminal’ only because they believe it to save their own interests. But this doesn't justify the criminality.”

And with this, many viewers will assume that the character of Trevor represents a part of Giulio himself (after all, he did cast himself in the role as the super-crim), but Giulio remains ambiguous on the matter: “With Trevor Covalsky, I didn't create a good character, in Taeter City NO ONE is good, he's a killer as much as the authority. I did this to underline the concept: ‘who is the good one, the criminal or the authority?’ No one, they are both bad in my opinion. Good or bad is subjective, it can't be considered universal. So no one is good in Taeter City and there is no solution for that problem. Some people found this confusing: ‘We don't have a good character to follow, and the storyline is told in vignette.’ Everything was created on purpose, I wanted to give the same confusing feeling I had when I listen the people discuss ‘what is good and what is bad’. I interrupted the action with the advertisements, to underline the ‘bad behaviour’ of the authority, like we at Necrostorm were the authority, and the spectators the masses. The absurd violence I proposed is justified by the authority, in every damned sequence, with Caronte you’re reminded that it’s ‘for your own benefit.’ I can conclude in this way: this is not a criticism over the masses, only the expression of my thoughts over the feeling I had, an innate feeling of discomfort. Like the feeling, I HOPE everyone felt watching the movie.”

A sequel is in the works, Taeter City 2: Revenge, and the next installment will bring to a close any unanswered questions. “It will bring us to the final chapter/movie,” Giulio promises, “the inevitable finale: the destruction of the city itself, as concept and materially.”

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS (1981)

Dir: Marco Ferreri /Italy/France

Charles Bukowski is among the most translated and respected American writers in Europe, but for many years he was almost completely ignored in his homeland. Barbet Schroeder's Barfly soon helped to change all that, but Tales of Ordinary Madness, an Italian-French co-production, was the first to bring his wino wisdom to the big screen. This is a hit and miss effort though, and almost completely disowned by Bukowski.

Adapted from the collection of stories ‘Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness’, Marco Ferreri seemed like the perfect director to tackle Bukowski's prose (he had previously made Bye Bye Monkey and The Last Woman). Ferreri had a deft touch for perversity and excess that a screen adaptation of Bukowski would require, but the finished film just doesn't quite work. Ferreri insists on adding a mushy, sentimentality to the film and goes for a mildly uplifting ending, and it was this that caused Bukowski to abhor the end result (though it didn't stop him from reaping every penny he could in royalties). The author does have a point though; the film barely gets to grips with the dark and twisted humour of his writings, and portrays Bukowski himself as overly-sensitive and overly-pretentious. But despite these missteps Tales of Ordinary Madness is definitely worth a look.

After delivering a brilliant drunken speech, Charles Serking (Ben Gazzara) takes us on a lurid trip through LA with his trusty six pack of beers by his side. He touches up a thirteen year old girl, spots a blonde woman on a swing ("she had an ass like a wild animal"), follows her home and then 'rapes' her. He later catches the eye of the beautiful, masochistic Cas (Ornella Muti, who also appeared in Ferreri's The Last Woman). Cas is a prostitute and she performs an impromptu cheek-piercing stunt at the bar with the aid of a giant safety pin by way of introduction. Charles is immediately smitten but when he takes her back to his place he refuses to sleep with her until dawn. A drunken writer and a beautiful, self- mutilating woman doesn't exactly sound like a match made in heaven, and no sooner have they got together and Charles begins slapping her and treating her mean. Cas responds by using the extra-large safety pin to pierce her flaps as a way of closing her vagina in a symbolic gesture of love.

Tales of Ordinary Madness is not for all tastes, but for anyone curious about the work of Marco Ferreri this is perhaps the best place to start as it's his most accessible film. Overall, the film lacks the outrageousness of La Grande Bouffe, and it fails as an adaptation of Bukowski (also Muti's performance is pretty bad - Her acting range basically amounts to two different ways of pouting), but still there is much to keep viewers engaged here.

TED BUNDY (2002)

Dir: Matthew Bright /USA

Of all the serial killers operating in America in the 1970s, Ted Bundy was perhaps the most terrifying of them all. With monsters like Henry Lee Lucas, Dean Corll, and John Wayne Gacy, you only had to look at those guys to know it would be best to stay well clear, but Bundy was different; he was intelligent, handsome, and charismatic, and his smile worked a charm on the ladies. The dark side to his nature was that he took great pleasure in bludgeoning young women to death. He was a textbook definition of a psychopath; a shrewd and manipulative individual who felt absolutely no empathy for his fellow humans, and was capable of the most heinous crimes on a simple whim if it was in his own interests to do so. And he didn't feel a shred of remorse about it either. Often referred to as a 'chameleon', Bundy embodied that nightmare archetype of the boogeyman, a monster whom college kids could confide in and, in his job as a volunteer councellor, the more vulnerable members of society could open up to. He also had that animal cunning to cover his tracks, and it was this alertness that helped him to escape from police custody twice.

This truncated biopic of Bundy follows in the tradition of films like Ed Gein (2000) as a fairly honest re-telling of the story, combined with the comic interludes and high-camp of Mary Harron’s American Psycho. Director Matthew Bright (who had previously made the cult classic Freeway and Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trickbaby) uses fast cuts, crash zooms, slo-mo and even time-lapse photography to produce a thoroughly disturbing film that flits from the horrific violence to unsettling humour and torture from one scene to the next, as a way of deliberately bludgeoning his audience. But despite this, it’s certainly not the moral outrage that the press would have you believe, nor is it the masterpiece others claim it to be either. Indeed, the film ultimately fails due to its inability to decide whether it is going to be a serious biopic or a sleazy piece of cinematic sensationalism. Trying to do both in the same film just doesn’t work. In Bright’s favour, he certainly empties his directorial bag of tricks here, but his flippant way of depicting the crimes (usually with women being bopped on the head with a heavy iron carjack for comic effect) comes across as silly and insensitive; it’s like he’s saying, ‘Oh, that Ted Bundy, wasn’t he such a ca-rraaayyyzzzzeeee guy?!!’. On the positive side, the scenes which show the final moments of Bundy before his execution are especially powerful; he has his head shaved and his arsehole is forcibly stuffed with cotton wool to ensure he doesn’t soil himself while in the electric chair. It’s little details like this that Bright relishes in showing us. Also, Bundy’s last interview shows him in a reflective mood, claiming “there’s so much more to me than just killing,” a sentiment no doubt shared by most cold-blooded killers, even fictional ones like Patrick Bateman.

Interesting fact for trivia fans: The electric chair used to kill Bundy at the end of the film is the very same chair that was used for Bundy’s real-life execution.

The film was nominated for Best Film at the Sitges Festival in Spain, which was nice, although in an undoubted snub, not one of the cast or crew thanked Ted Bundy during interviews. I mean, come on people; if it wasn’t for Ted’s pioneering character development, you wouldn’t have been there. Actor Michael Reilly (whose ‘chill ‘n’ charm’ portrayal of Bundy is pretty damn good) expressed a wish that hopefully the film might somehow lead to a reduction in the numbers of real-life serial killers like Bundy in the future. Bravo to that! Don’t know about you, but until I saw this film I was pretty ambivalent about murder. But now I know it’s wrong. When will the authorities raise the alarm and do something about it? Have they never seen this movie? Quick, someone send the DVD to the police! Open their frickin’ eyes!!

10 RILLINGTON PLACE (1970)

Dir: Richard Fleischer /UK

Based on Ludovic Kennedy’s book, which itself was based on the true crimes of British serial killer Reginald Christie, 10 Rillington Place opens in 1944 in the middle of an air raid. A young woman knocks on his door. Once inside, we learn that Christie has promised this woman a cure for her bronchitis, which involves breathing deeply through a mask. Turns out that she is breathing gas fumes and begins to struggle. When she falls unconscious, he strangles her with a length of rope, molests her body and later buries her in the back yard.

Cut to 1946. Christie has advertised a flat for rent upstairs in the house. A young couple, Tim and Beryl (John Hurt and Judy Geeson) and their baby eventually move in. These scenes set in the aftermath of the war look very grubby and bombed-out; the walls of the house are filthy, and the kitchen is particularly grim – the walls are charcoal black as if there has been a fire in the house – probably caused by chimney soot from the local factories (the interior scenes were shot next door to the actual house where the murders took place). Beryl falls pregnant, but they know that their financial hardship could never stretch enough to feed another mouth. Christie talks the couple into aborting their baby, a procedure he assures them he can perform (he falsely tells them he was in medical training before the war). And while Tim is out at work one day, he sets to work. He terminates her baby all right, but he also terminates her with his trusty dose of gas. Tim gets home to find his wife dead, and Christie subtly informs him that if the police get involved they will both surely hang. So Tim agrees to pack some belongings and disappear from London for a while (he was not too bright, IQ of only 70), but not before helping Christie to remove the body. Later that night, once Tim has gone, Christie strangles the baby with a necktie.

Richard Attenborough’s performance as the egghead psychopath is chillingly realistic. With his calm effete and very softly spoken voice, he embodies that old adage, ‘look out for the quiet ones’. A typical predator, he would prey on those weaker and less intelligent than himself. He was no criminal mastermind, but was very cunning and always several steps ahead of his victims while leading them to believe he was ultimately harmless and inconspicuous.

Timothy John Evans was found guilty of killing Beryl and his baby Geraldine. He had changed his story of what happened so many times that the police and the jurors no longer believed a word he said (not to mention his history of violence and tantrums). He was eventually hanged at Pentonville Prison in March 1950.

Giving evidence in court, Christie wriggles his way out of any implications in the case and manages to convince everybody of his failing health and his calm and kindly nature. And despite having previous convictions for theft and fraud, he leaves the courtroom as a model citizen. Interestingly, during the court scenes we see a very British class division as court officials are seen to treat people very differently according to their social standing; Christie copped for some mustard gas during his duty in the First World War which left him blind for several months (just like Hitler). He also served as a member of the War Reserve Police during the Second World War. Curiously, those facts seem to absolve him of any wrong-doing in the eyes of the law.

The scene where Timothy feebly tries to convince medical examiners of his innocence during his appeal is especially powerful – his lack of intelligence and mounting confusion about the whole thing makes you wish you were there to state his case for him and get him off the hook – but all he can muster is “Christie done it. I say Christie done it.” Two years later and Christie’s wife is finding it very difficult to cope with living in the house; tenants stay away knowing the flat has a sinister past, and none of the neighbours will talk to her anymore. She also suspects her husband of being involved with the murders. Late one night, Christie is shown disposing of her corpse. An after adding another to his list of victims, the police finally catch up with him. He was hanged at Pentonville in July 1953. Rillington Place was bulldozed in the 70s, much like Fred and Rosemary West’s house of horrors, and was renamed Ruston Place.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)

Dir: Tobe Hooper /USA

Tagline - 'Who will survive, and what will be left of them?'

A group of fresh-faced youths journey to rural Texas in a camper van to find the ransacked graveyard where a relative is buried, and to make sure the grave has remained unmolested. On their way back home, they run across an isolated farm and discover to their horror that it houses a family of homicidal cannibals. Meanwhile, running riot in a mask made of human skin, a butcher's apron, and a revving chainsaw, Leatherface attempts to fill his deep freezer with the unlucky travelers.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the most notorious horror films ever made, a landmark of terror which was outlawed by the British censors for nearly twenty five years, and which still cuts straight to the bone all these years later. According to former chief censor, James Ferman, it's "an exercise in the pornography of terror"; for genre filmmaker John Carpenter, it's "A classic that rides along the very edge of taste"; and for film critic Kim Newman, it's quite simply "A masterpiece which is totally committed to scaring you witless."

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was based on the activities of grave-robber turned murderer, Ed Gein, whose crimes (which included skinning, eating, and even wearing bits of his victims) had previously inspired such classics as Psycho and Deranged. Directed by Tobe Hooper, who later went on to make Death Trap, Lifeforce, and Poltergeist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was sold to its audience with the poster blurb "…it happened", a claim that was bolstered by the gruelling docu-drama style which gave viewers the impression that what they were watching was real. Shot largely in and around a claustrophobic house which designer Robert A. Burns had decorated with entrail artworks, the movie literally put viewers right inside the mouth of madness, where Marilyn Burns and her unfortunate compatriots discover the dark side of the myth of the American family. And everyone screams... a lot.

Unemployed since the closing down of the local slaughterhouse, this family stick to their old ways by bumping off strangers and tourists in the same way they would deal with beef cattle. These nameless maniacs (they were later named the Sawyers in the first sequel) resemble a bizarre parody of the sitcom family, with the long-suffering patriarch who tries to keep some kind of 'order' (Jim Siedow), the bewigged, apron wearing Leatherface as 'mom' (Gunnar Hansen), and the unruly, long-haired hitch-hiker (Edwin Neal) as the son. And their degraded household serves as a cracked mirror of the ideal home. There are skeletal and entrail remains, and feathers everywhere, and an armchair that looks to have human arms.

An interesting point made by Kim Newman in ‘Nightmare Movies’: In Texas you're allowed to shoot dead anyone who steps foot on your lawn. These youngsters are trespassing, so this massacre probably isn't even illegal!

The black humour is often overlooked, building a powerful parody of the nuclear family, represented by the grim and efficient Leatherface, who picks off the touring party to feed his retarded, cannibal clan. The film's low-budget production values and cast of unknowns gives it a verite frisson, particularly during the closing scenes when it becomes clear that the cuts and bruises on Marilyn's face are actually real, and it's a mark of the film's plausibility that ever since his move to Hollywood, Tobe Hooper has never matched it, not even with the most state-of-the-art special effects money can buy.

I vividly remember the first time I ever saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It was just after the lifting of the UK ban when I was about 18 years old. I rented the tape, and when I got home I immediately switched it on. As a teenager I had read everything about the film, heard stories from adults about how violent and gruesome and disturbing it was, and that kind of thing only encouraged my desire to watch it. There I was settling down to finally see it for myself at long last…

The film started, with those high-pitch screeching sounds and the imagery which was dark and grubby. The voiceover began telling me about “one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history…” By this point my entire body crackled with anxious energy; I was so wired I thought I was about to spontaneously combust.

That first viewing passed in a horrific and exciting whirl of fear (I think I pooed a new substance consisting or raw, solid terror), and remains one of the most genuinely memorable experiences of my life so far. Rarely have I been more aware of being alive and ‘in the moment’ than in the 90 minutes it took for the tape to pass through the VCR machine. People talk endlessly about the damaging effects of horror movies, but too little is heard about the life-affirming power of being scared out of your skin.

If the events of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were shocking enough, the way that the British censors dealt with them was even worse. When the film was shown before the Board in March 1975, trailing glowing US reviews, the BBFC were so appalled that they simply banned it outright. Two years later, the film found its way back to the BBFC where James Ferman, embarrassed by its growing popularity, spent some time with a chainsaw of his own, attempting to cut out the very few shots of explicit violence. When he'd finished, he learned what we all knew in the first place; that the film was indestructible, or more accurately, censor-proof. "The cuts made no difference at all," Ferman huffed before giving up and banning it again. It wasn't until Ferman resigned from the Board in the late 90s (by which time the TCM had been banned again for the third time) that the film finally earned itself a long overdue amnesty from the new chief censor, Andreas Whittam Smith.

The version now available is exactly the same as that which was first outlawed in 1975, with no cuts, just pure, undiluted terror.

TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013)

Dir: John Luessenhop /USA

January 2013. I arrived at my local multiplex. And after purchashing tickets at the rip-off desk, I entered the cinema just in time to catch an anti-piracy commercial which showed an abandoned cinema covered in cobwebs, with a voiceover by John Hurt saying how sad it would be if all the cinemas closed. Yeah, imagine that. I’d have to replicate the experience at home by twisting my spine in half and chewing a £50 note every time I watched a DVD.

Anyway, the film itself opens with a recap of events from the original TCM in which a group of youngsters are picked off by Leatherface until the sole survivor, Marilyn Burns, manages to escape in the back of a pick-up truck. This sequel picks up where the original left off, with the local Sheriff arriving at the dreaded household with a shotgun and demanding that he take Leatherface into custody. A local lynch mob shows up soon after wanting to kill Leatherface and the family. When the family refuse to give him up, the whole thing descends into a bloody shoot-out, a la The Devil’s Rejects, and the house is shot-up and set on fire with the family trapped inside. Around the back of the house, one of the lynchers takes off with a newborn baby belonging to Leatherface’s sister. The mother is then kicked in the face and left to die. The lynch mob then pose with their guns and severed body parts for a photo shoot, very happy with their brutal handy work, and the pics are reminiscent of historical photos of rednecks posing with recently lynched blacks hanging from tree branches.

Cut to about twenty years later, and the baby, Heather, has grown into a beautiful young woman. At home one day, Heather learns that she was ‘adopted’ as a baby. She reacts badly and decides to head for Texas to learn more about her natural grandmother. A group of friends join her in her journey. The original Chain Saw was made in 1975, and Heather can’t be any older than twenty years old, so this sequel must be set in the early to mid-90s, and yet these youngsters listen to crap like Akon (or whatever the fuck he’s called) on the drive to Texas. Soulless music for soulless cretins that wasn’t recorded until at least a decade later… They pick up a hitch-hiker at a gas station, a familiar element for anyone who has watched the other sequels in the series (and this is only one of many such reminders of the past films, and also includes the obligatory dead armadillo by the side of the road, and seemingly good characters who turn out to be completely untrustworthy, etc). When Heather explains why she’s heading for Texas, the hitch-hiker says “Family is a messy business… Ain’t nothing thicker than blood…” a seemingly oblivious comment that serves as a foretaste of things to come.

When they arrive in Texas, Heather learns of the death of her grandmother and she inherits the Sawyer home. The youngsters head inside, and they’re amazed at how big the place is (“it’s a mansion!”). The rebuilt house looks way bigger than the one in the original film, and the feathers and entrails are gone, too. It now looks like a palace, a spotless mansion. The hitch-hiker turns out to be an untrustworthy thief – He stuffs his bag with the heirlooms dotted around the place. He then heads for the basement in search of more treasures, but what he finds instead is a very nasty surprise…

The rest of the youngsters eventually discover that Leatherface survived his family’s massacre, and he has lived in the basement of the house ever since. The hitch-hiker is killed, and one of Heather’s friends is skewered on a meat hook and cut in half with a chainsaw while he is still conscious.

Heather makes a run for it, and so Jed ‘Leatherface’ Sawyer pursues her through a graveyard… A couple of Heather’s other ‘friends’ get his attention, so he turns on them… Soon after, Heather pulls up in the van and the three remaining youngsters manage to escape. Well, they almost manage to escape, but the van breaks down, and Leatherface captures the couple while Heather runs to a nearby funfair and heads for the Sheriff’s department. At the station, Heather browses through her family’s case file, which is kept in a whopping great box, such was their long list of deranged criminal activities. And it’s here that she learns about the Sawyers, their crimes, and how her adopted parents were among those responsible for the death of her maternal mother. Crime scene photos are included, and Heather first lays eyes on her real mum as a dead body in one of the pics; the victim of mob mentality.

What follows is a very bloody finale in which Heather and the Sheriff’s department head to the house to find out what the hell is going on. Cue the usual TCM clichés, like a double-cross you can see coming from a mile away as a handsome young police officer is actually a wretched piece of shit who betrays Heather’s trust, the bizarre behavior of Leatherface (who has aged a good twenty years) cutting off one of his victim’s faces and graphically sewing it onto his head, an officer inspecting the house of horrors while filming his discoveries on a state-of-the-art smartphone, a device that didn’t exist in the 90s where this story is supposed to be set, and Heather gradually embracing her inbred, homicidal genes; another aspect of the film you can safely predict from quite early on (i.e. history repeating itself, and ‘biology as destiny’, and so on).

Texas Chainsaw 3D is one of the better sequels in the franchise. In fact, with the exception of the original film and also Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), this is perhaps one of the best to date. Of course, it isn’t perfect; in addition to the clichés in the style and plot that I mentioned earlier, the ‘3D’ technique is very haphazard and lazy. We had to view the film while wearing those ridiculous 3D glasses, and many scenes are overly contrived for the 3D effect – The sequence where Heather is trapped in a coffin and Leatherface cuts through it was really sloppy, and I don’t mean ‘sloppy’ in terms of bloody limbs, but in terms of the chainsaw coming at you from the screen – it was so lazily put together, it looks like there are two chainsaws thrusting at your head. During the film’s finale, Leatherface recognizes the birth mark on Heather’s chest, and this is when he realises that she is actually his long-lost cousin (and the way he dotes on her, it is hinted that Leatherface could also be her father… /cousin/uncle, etc). They team up together and dispatch a couple of no-good cowboys, and even the Sheriff sees what’s going on and allows them to kill the rednecks by feeding them into an industrial-sized meat grinder. Presumably, all three later joined up for a celebratory get-together by putting a couple of innocents on a spit roast for a good old-fashioned cannibal barbeque… All of a sudden, Jed ‘Leatherface’ Sawyer is depicted as a nice sympathetic character, even though we have just witnessed him slaughtering Heather’s friends in brutal and merciless style. What next? Another sequel will probably show Heather and Leatherface still living in the house, playing happy families, and making inbred, mongoloid babies together to keep the hideous bloodline going for future generations…

Alexandra Daddario in the lead role is adequate enough, but she isn’t a brilliant actress. I read somewhere that the producers cast her in the film primarily because she had been appearing a lot in newspapers. If the producers wanted to cast someone who had been in the public eye recently, they should’ve opted for the bloody corpse of Colonel Gaddafi. He would have certainly looked the part. Forget acting abilities, his mangled body appeared in every newspaper in the world! Now that’s what I call fame!

The multiplex experience is worse than ever. If you ask me, every cinema in the land should have its own projectionist, as well as an usherette, an organist, a conductor, and a maniac trained to slash the throats of anyone who dare open their mouths after the titles start. Also, the toilets in the multiplex were the most advanced I’ve ever seen in my life. The seat lifted itself automatically the moment it could sense my presence, as though it just couldn’t wait for me to shit down its throat. It felt unnerving to defecate into a robot’s mouth. In a few years’ time, that toilet won’t just flip its lid when you enter the cubicle, it will also be pre-programmed to log you into Facebook while it swallows your droppings. If the machines ever rise up to kill us, we’ll only have ourselves to blame.

THESIS (1996)

(Orig title: Tesis)

Dir: Alejandro Amenabar /Spain

Angela (Ana Torrent) is a grad student writing her thesis on violent video. She gets in contact with Chema (Fele Martinez), a long haired horror geek who takes her home and introduces her to his collection of gore tapes. He plays her a mondo movie called 'Fresh Blood', which shows a dead body having its brain removed. Angela's professor has access to the university's private video library, and he promises to have a look through the archives to locate the most gruesome and pornographic films to help her in her studies. After browsing the shelves in the enormous deserted library, he plays one of the videos in a closed-off screening room... Angela later finds him dead in his seat, presumably of a chronic asthma attack. But what on earth was he watching that could cause him to keel over like that? Angela removes the tape from the machine and watches it at home. She's hesitant at first, making sure she plays it with the contrast level turned down to a minimum so that she doesn't have to see what's happening on screen; but the sounds of a woman's tortured cries are enough to convince her that the contents of the tape are far from pretty, and could in fact be a genuine snuff film. She shows the tape to her horror geek buddy, Chema, and he confirms it is real. The tape depicts a young woman tied to a chair being beaten and butchered with a circular saw by a man wearing a balaclava. Chema recognises the victim as a girl who disappeared from the campus two years previously. This odd couple then take it upon themselves to investigate...

After this superb initial set-up, the film descends into a silly thriller in which the sleuths are followed by the murderers who made the tape. And with only two possible culprits at hand, the film flits between the suspects, back and forth, and ruins any chances of having a surprise ending. As a whole, Thesis is not really gritty or graphic enough for my liking. It's way too clean-cut and streamlined to truly disturb its audience. It serves as really nothing more than a calling card for director Amenabar, who predictably went on to such mainstream tosh as the Turn of The Screw rip-off, The Others, and the Penelope Cruz vehicle, Open Your Eyes. And like those later films, Thesis has a distinctive 'play-it-safe' vibe about it, as though the filmmakers were trying to secure an international hit at any cost, and were absolutely dead-set against including anything in the film that may have ruined its chances of sending the director on to a career in Hollywood. The snuff thriller was done much better - and more plausibly - in Anthony Waller's superb Mute Witness (1994), and just like Amenabar, Waller also went on to a career in Hollywood, and delivered the lacklustre sequel, An American Werewolf In Paris, of which the less spoken about the better.

Angela's character is a bit wishy-washy; she's supposed to be writing a thesis on video violence, but acts as though she's never seen a horror movie in her life. She has a sort of doe-eyed innocence about her, more suited to watching Disney movies than fictional mondo vids like 'Fresh Blood'. If she ever saw Men Behind The Sun or Snuff 102 she'd shit her own guts out. Chema is better as a character, the horror geek whose jaded sensibilities allows him to identify the poor butchered girl, meaning he can watch the tape over and over like a detached criminologist, as a way of piecing together the clues needed to track down the culprits. But even he is annoyingly obnoxious at times. His abnormal facial hair is annoying too; like a piece of shredded wheat pathetically trying to mimic Fidel Castro. And with his grungy plaid shirt and long hair and glasses, he looks like fellow horror geek, Mark Borchardt, from the excellent documentary American Movie: The Making of North Western, which incidentally, was made around the same time as Thesis.

The film's plus points are quite subtle; the first half hour or so has a gripping build-up, but soon fizzles out. There is also an underlying theme present concerning the scoptophiliac nature of moviegoers and of human nature in general: The opening scene sees Angela arriving at the station on a train. The conductor announces that a man has committed suicide by throwing himself in front of the train, and urges passengers not to look at the track as they leave. While she walks on the platform, Angela seems troubled; she doesn't want to look at the dead body on the track, but at the same time she can't help herself - the desire to look and feast her eyes on the tragedy is too great for her... Later on, there's the scene where Chema watches the tape at his apartment - While Chema stares unflinchingly at the screen in an almost clinically detached manner, Angela stands at the back of the room with her hands covering her eyes. But while she's doing this, she can't help but take a horrified peek through the gaps of her fingers. By standing as far away from the screen as possible, she hopes to distance herself, both physically and emotionally, from the shocking imagery, but of course this doesn't work, and those images are burned into her memory forever. An idea many horror fans will be able to relate to.

EL TOPO (1970)

(The Mole)

Dir: Alejandro Jodorowsky /USA/ Mexico

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a Chilean native who caused artistic controversy in the 60s with his ‘Panik Movement’ in Mexico and Paris. Although he is nowadays remembered for his work in film, El Topo didn’t actually premiere until he was in his forties. His work in music and theatre is still unknown to most, but his films, which include El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre, will forever cement his place as a legend among fans of incredibly strange cinema.

Jodorowsky teamed up with Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor in Paris where they were involved with André Breton’s surrealism group. The trio quickly became bored and decided to break away and form their own movement which they called ‘Panik’. The Panik movement had its first ‘Happening’ in 1965 at the 2e Festival de la Libre Expression. The gathering crowd was much bigger than anticipated, and at the last moment both Topor and Arrabal lost their nerve, and Alejandro was left to improvise the whole show by himself. Later, Topor and Arrabal began joining Alejandro in the Happenings; it was wild, chaotic street theatre/performance art inspired by Antonin Artaud. Artaud rejected traditional Western ideas of theatre in favour of a theatre that would “make itself the equal of life,” and in which themes “will be cosmic, universal, and interpreted according to the most ancient texts.” As far as Artaud was concerned, a Theatre of Cruelty was to be “bloody and inhuman” for it to exorcise the viewer’s repressed impulses. A notion Jodorowsky fell in love with.

During the Happenings, they would do things like release a thousand birds in the theatre, break bottles, cut the throats of wild geese, and Jodorowsky did all this while wearing a complete costume made up of beef steaks – Beat that, Lady Gaga. Throwing live snakes at the audience was not an uncommon practice, and they would also decorate the area of performance with huge sculptors made of plaster. The events would often be attended by Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. André Breton himself would even show up to see what all the fuss was about. Some of the Happenings were captured on film, but Jean Jacques Lebel, a jealous rival who organized the cameras, is alleged to have destroyed the reels (some of this legendary footage does appear in Jodorowsky’s earlier film, Fando And Lis, and the documentary, Constellation Jodorowsky). As if the Happenings weren’t challenging enough for the everyday public, Jodorowsky planned to crucify two horses in public, “a black horse and a white horse.” He also expressed an interest in walking through the streets with a real human corpse strapped to his back as part of a performance.

In the late 60s, Jodorowsky tried his hand at filmmaking, and when he showed up in New York with a copy of El Topo in 1970, he had no reason to doubt he was on the verge of international superstardom. His debut feature, Fando and Lis (1968), received global recognition when the Mexican government banned it. Just weeks before its premiere, Mexican police fought running battles with student protestors, resulting in hundreds dead or wounded. El Topo begins with the leather-clad title character (played by Jodorowsky himself) riding into the desert with his naked son, Brontis, who then commands him to bury his possessions so that he can become a man. Soon after, they chance upon the aftermath of a village massacre where the dead, mutilated bodies litter the streets and blood literally flows in the gutters. El Topo vows to track down the Colonelwho is responsible for the deaths, and abandons his son in his quest for vengeance. The Colonel’s missus, Mara Lorenzio, informs him of the ‘Four Masters’ who control the territory, and encourages him to kill them all. El Topo encounters the Masters one by one, and each of them shows off their philosophies and abilities before they are taken out. And it’s at this point when things become increasingly convoluted and bizarre, with the inclusion of plot twists, jumps in time, a sequence involving underground freaks, and the fully-grown Brontis. And all of this leads to the appropriate zen-like finale.

Jodorowsky takes top honours for El Topo which is very much an auteur piece all the way; not only did he star in the film, he also wrote and directed it, did his own production design, and composed the catchy soundtrack which can be described as ‘Morricone on acid.’ The end result isn’t too dissimilar from Fando and Lis, but the addition of full-colour photography certainly helps to bring out the trippiness of the more acid-infused sequences (despite Jodorowsky claiming he has never touched psychedelic drugs in his life). Those new to Jodorowsky often start here, and it’s easy to see why; it’s a dazzling treat for the eyes and ears. But if you’re looking for something that is more narrative friendly, try Santa Sangre, and those looking for something visually striking to show off on their massive TV’s, try The Holy Mountain. El Topo was a massive success in New York where it played non-stop at the Elgin theatre for more than a year and became the first ever ‘Midnight Movie,’ kicking off a cult movie phenomenon that would last for decades.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

Dir: David Lynch /USA

If your only familiarity with Twin Peaks is sitting in puzzled silence for a couple of episodes as some backwards-talking dwarf appears on screen, then there's very little point in seeing this feature-length offering as this does little to shed any light on the saga either. However, if you're one of those who feel that David Lynch's small-screen series was a work of demented genius, then you absolutely must see this, despite the numerous boos and jeers and scathing reviews which greeted its initial release.

Serving as a prequel to the TV series, Fire Walk With Me is unconventional from the get-go and is split into two distinctive parts. The first half hour or so plays like a self-contained episode in its own right, as FBI Agent Desmond (Chris Isaak) and dorky forensics guy Stanley (Keifer Sutherland) investigate the murder of Teresa Banks, stopping off at a strange diner and the Fat Trout trailer park run by the shifty owner (Harry Dean Stanton). And it's only now, more than thirty minutes into the film, when we finally get to hear the famous Twin Peaks theme tune; those deep, resonating guitar notes which signify sweetness and wonder, in stark contrast to the dark, psycho-sexual menace soon to be explored on screen. The plot then heads off in a different direction and follows high school girl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) on the last few days of her life. It's a disturbing, nightmarish descent into hell as she falls apart psychologically while getting into prostitution and blow. These dark details were only briefly hinted at in the TV show, but here they're presented in much more sordid detail as she heads closer to the Black Lodge, the place of her demise, and the point at which the series began.

But for all the film's freedoms away from the small screen where it was permitted more flexibility in form and content, Fire Walk With Me is simply not interested in letting the fans know what happened next after the series finished. There is also the absence of many key characters and locations of the TV show, such as Sherilyn Fenn's Audrey Horne and Lara Flynn Boyle's Donna Hayward, the Great Northern Hotel and the police station. However, we are introduced to several new characters, most notably the oddball apparition Philip Jeffries (an awful - and thankfully brief - performance by David Bowie whose awkward, transatlantic accent shifts between London and Texas from one word to the next), but the real interest here is the sinister mood that Lynch manages to sustain throughout much of the film. Lynch also inserts a little in-joke in the scene where he introduces Agent Desmond and Stanley to the mime girl (Kimberly Anne Cole), whose strange dance reveals a complex set of messages which will help them get started on the case. Desmond later explains to Stanley the significance of the symbolism in her dance, and it's an obvious skit on the way fans and critics tend to pick apart his films in search of symbols and hidden meanings.

I sometimes watch movies late at night with headphones on so that I can crank up the volume. Maybe it's a bit weird, but I find it surprisingly effective as a way of getting drawn in to whatever it is I'm watching. Try it. Of course, it helps when there's a kick-arse soundtrack and score by Angelo Badalamenti. And using headphones is also very effective at accentuating the horror, as in the scene where Laura slowly creeps into her bedroom looking for clues as to why pages from her secret diary had been torn out. As she peers around the door into her room, she sees something which - I guarantee - will make your skin crawl off and hide under the table. But, as I said, the scares work much better when you have loud headphones on for the full effect.

However, the real dark heart of Fire Walk With Me rests with Laura and her gradual realisation that the person who has been raping her since she was twelve years old is actually someone very close to home. The film is also notable for the difference in Leland Palmer's character; in the TV show he was depicted as the tragic man of the town, but in this prequel he is shown to be exactly what he is: an outright monster.

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1935)

Dir: Leni Riefenstahl /Germany

(Orig title: Triumph des Willens)

An epic propaganda film which documents the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany. Opening with aerial shots on a plane above Nuremberg, we are then shown footage of the Führer passing through the streets in an open-top car saluting his adoring public who are out in droves. Hitler Youth camps are filled with thousands of kids having a great time, solders - who admit to never firing a shot in their lives – are excited about the future, and we are also presented with lengthy enthusiastic speeches from the chief members of the Nazi party themselves. The Nazi Party Congress was attended by more than 700,000 supporters, and they watch in awe as their political saviours – Hess, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and Hitler himself – take to the stand and promise a glorious new age. Conveniently, the dark side of the Nazi Triumph – such as the violence and brutal persecution of anyone who opposed them – is never addressed.

At the time of production, Triumph of The Will was one of the most ambitious films ever attempted, and is still considered by some to be one of the greatest and most important ever made, technically. With its roving camera shots capturing the adoring crowds, aerial photography, grand use of Wagner’s music, and 500mm lenses, the finished film could not help but look astonishing at the time, and it did much to cement the belief that Germany was one of the most technologically advanced nations on earth. Director Leni Riefenstahl was afforded the kind of film crew and equipment that would make Hollywood blush today in order to bring the Nazi dream onto the big screen; her crew consisted of around 172 people, with 10 technicians, 36 cinematographers and assistants (16 teams with 30 cameras), 9 aerial photographers, 17 newsreel staff (and a further 12 crew), 17 lighting technicians, two photographers, 26 drivers, 37 security officers, 4 laborers, and 2 office assistants. Occasionally, her staff would even dress in SA uniforms so that they could blend into the crowds. And, as editor, Riefenstahl also had the daunting task of condensing the estimated 61 hours of film into a final cut of just under two hours. She labored through a seemingly endless string of days and nights to complete the film before the deadline, even sleeping on the editing room floor that was littered with hundreds of thousands of feet of celluloid.

Hitler – who served as executive producer – praised the finished film, calling it an "incomparable glorification of the power and beauty of our movement." But elsewhere in the world the response was less enthusiastic. During the war, Frank Capra contributed to a series of newsreel films called Why We Fight, commissioned by the United States government, and those films contained snippets of footage from Triumph of The Will, but altered the context to make it a piece of Allied propaganda instead. Capra later commented on Triumph, observing that the film "fired no gun, dropped no bombs. But as a psychological weapon aimed at destroying the will to resist, it was just as lethal."

Riefenstahl is often considered to be one of the greatest female directors of the twentieth century; she only made eight films during her lifetime, and only two of those were screened outside of her native country. Her work was admired by critics for the rest of her life, and much of her reputation rests on Triumph. But, perhaps inevitably, the film was equally damaging to her reputation as it was helpful in establishing it. She was imprisoned by the Allies for four years for being a Nazi sympathizer, and was forever blacklisted from the film industry after the war. In 2003, almost seven decades after the premiere of Triumph, Riefenstahl died. Some of the most eminent publications in the world gave coverage of her passing – the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, The Guardian – most of them acknowledging the importance of Triumph as a technically innovative historical document.

Just like American filmmaker D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, made 20 years earlier, Triumph of The Will has been condemned for using spectacular filmmaking to seduce the populace into a deeply unethical worldview. In Germany, this movie is rightly classified as Nazi propaganda, and screenings are restricted in a partial ban under post-war denazification laws, but it may be shown in an educational context. In 1985, trash film fanatic and former gravedigger, Johannes Schonherr, rescued a print of Triumph of The Will from oblivion, and while every other cinema in the land was afraid to screen it, he held a screening at the ‘Kino im KOMM’ cinema in Nuremberg. By law, he had to introduce the film as a way of putting it into context as an educational and historical ‘exhibit’, and he did this by informing the assembled audience that Triumph of The Will was the only noteworthy film ever made in their city! (see his book, Trashfilm Roadshows, for the full story).

URBAN FLESH (1999/2007)

Dir: Alexandre Michaud /Canada

Heltimate Studio presents… an absolute thundering backside of a movie. This tells the tale of a group of Satanic cannibals who engage in bizarre sex magick before chomping down on their prey in a free-for-all feeding frenzy. Such gruesome activity keeps the police investigation stuck in the mud – or should that be ‘stuck in the blood?’ – and the killings and devourings continue when they viciously murder and cannibalize a pregnant woman. Of course, the foetus and placenta is ripped from her stomach and feasted upon in gleeful fashion. The blood cult eventually turns their attentions on the wife of the investigating officer, and he returns home one night to find them mutilating his beloved. And then all the tedium of hell breaks loose…

Oh Canada, the home of greats like David Cronenberg, Georges St. Pierre, The Trailer Park Boys (funniest show in the history of all time, ever, and one that should really get some airtime in the UK forthwith), and Neil Young. What the hell happened here? The acting, the script, the direction and everything else about this godforsaken turd is beyond inept. We’re not supposed to write hateful reviews here at Horrornews.net, so I’ve kept things deliberately kind and lenient for our dear readers… We get all the usual clichés found in no-budget amateur horror, such as the incessant metal soundtrack that effectively kills any mood it attempts to set up, and also the tiresome trend of having scenes take place in rooms where the walls are covered in horror movie posters, from Hellraiser and Nightbreed and Natural Born Killers, to remind us that the filmmakers are REALLY BIG FANS of the genre, see? Yeah, they’re such big horror fans that they’re going to wallop you around the head for the entire 80 minute running time with their ‘ooh, look at my horror poster collection’ bullshit, or ‘hey, look at us horror-clique dickheads! Look how cool we are! You can’t join our gang!’ And just to cap things off on the cliché front, we also get the obligatory scene shot in a video rental store… Urrgghh!

The cannibals themselves are a sorry bunch of losers. The biggest one is a wise-cracking oaf, a man so gleefully cruel he eats human foetuses for breakfast. But there’s more to him than casual sadism and corny one-liners. Much more. Like, 300 pounds more. He’s so grossly obese he reminds me of the human garbage truck in that ridiculous TV show, Man vs. Food. What kind of greasy mountain of shit has he shoveled down his neck this week? Maybe it’s method acting. You know how De Niro put on 50lbs in weight to play Jake La Motta in Raging Bull? Well, that seems to have been all the inspiration he needed to prepare for his role here, to stuff himself silly. His cake-hole is a portal to another dimension; an abyss of greed, a vacuum determined to suck in and devour everything even vaguely edible from our universe. Within minutes of him appearing on screen, you’ll be fantasizing about kicking his fat face down his fat throat. But it won’t be a satisfying fantasy because he’d immediately begin pleading for dessert, the revolting warthog.

The other cult members includes a man with a face that looks like a dead goat’s vagina, a third man with long hair who is a befuddled Charlie Manson wannabe, and the only female member of the cult is a poisoned twiglet with all the hearty cheer of a carbonized cricket ball. In sort, they’re all thoroughly dislikable. And yet the director desperately tries to make these idiots seem cool and inspiring, like a retard attempting a remake of The Devil’s Rejects with a camcorder and a group of college buddies, and that’s exactly what this film is. The director may as well have put Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird on the soundtrack and packed his characters onto a bus and drove it at high speed over a cliff and have done with it. An ending like that would have made it half-watchable.

I won’t mention the names of those who were responsible for this mess. I’m not that cruel. I know if I was involved in the making of this film, and my friends and family asked me what I did for a living, I’d lie and tell them that I sat in a piss-soaked doorway giving blowjobs for a dollar. You know, just to retain a bit of dignity in the matter.

VIOLENT COP (1989)

(Orig title: Sono otoko, kyōbō ni tsuki;その男、凶暴につき)

Dir: Takeshi Kitano /Japan

‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano is best known for directing and starring in hard-boiled, minimalist gangster films like Boiling Point and Sonatine. The latter has its pride of place in Quentin Tarantino’s top five favourite movies of all time. His appearance as the ruthless, murderous school teacher in Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale also raised his profile considerably in the West. Back in the late 80s, however, he was known as a comedian, newspaper columnist and poet. In 1986, a Japanese tabloid paper published pictures of the married Kitano canoodling with another woman. His reaction was to gather together his buddies and storm the paper’s headquarters, attacking the staff and causing millions in criminal damage. Somehow, he avoided going to jail, but was later ‘kidnapped’ by the yakuza and forced to have a drink with them. “It can reflect badly on me,” he said, “when the yakuza go around saying, ‘Hey, we like Mr. Kitano.” At the height of his powers, Kitano was hosting and appearing in up to eight Japanese TV shows a week, ranging from the familiar Takeshi’s Castle where he would ride around in an electric buggy shooting contestants with a water cannon, to other more obscure quiz games in which he would drop live scorpions down the underpants of the everyday public, for laughs. He was banned from appearing on the NHK television network in Japan for five years for exposing himself live on TV.

After the motorcycle accident in 1994, which left his face partially paralysed, his film work became increasingly experimental (he also spent his time painting and writing novels), the violence in his work was tempered with warmth and a sentimental sense of humour (see Hana-Bi, Kids Return and Kikujiro). “Films are my hobby,” he once said. “I make films for Takeshi Kitano, not the public. For me, it’s not about making money […] People say I have mellowed since my accident and maybe they are right, but I’ve always had a dual personality. I also like to shock other people’s expectations. Before, people talked about the violence in my films. Always the violence. Now they say, ‘Hah! Takeshi has gone soft!’ That’s why I made Brother [an American-Japanese gangster flick set in L.A. with lots of death and carnage. Ed.] after Kikujiro – to show that I am not part of the establishment. Then I decided to make Dolls. Who knows, maybe my next film will be the toughest one yet.”

His next film was Zatōichi, a blood-drenched Samurai epic. But to this day, Kitano’s toughest film remains his directorial debut, Violent Cop, a film which starts off in a whimsical, light-hearted manner with Kitano’s usual humorous turn. But by the time the end credits roll, viewers will be stunned by how dark and downbeat this film plummets during the 98-minute running time. Violent Cop stars Kitano himself as Kajima, a police Lt. who walks into a family home and roughs up a delinquent kid who has been tormenting a homeless man with his friends. This type of surreal, day-to-day combating of crime takes on a darker shade every ten minutes or so, especially once Kajima’s sister is lured into the criminal underworld and is kept there against her will, gang-raped and hooked on heroin. Things become increasingly grim and desperate until we reach the pessimistic, bleak ending.

With its casual brutality interspersed with scenes of mundane serenity, Violent Cop is unlike any other cop movie you’ll ever see. Usually, in action-style police movies, chase scenes are accompanied by adrenaline-fuelled pounding rock or percussive-heavy music on the soundtrack. Not so here. With Violent Cop we get smooth jazz piano and saxophone during a scene in which a criminal beats up three cops and then flees out the window before attacking more cops with a baseball bat. The overall effect is downright surreal, and a true masterpiece of world cinema.

WEDDING TROUGH (1975)

(aka Pig Fucking Movie; Orig title: Vase de noses)

Dir: Thierry Zeno /Belgium

A lonely farmer courts his pig. He then has sex with it, producing mutant offspring who insist on eating from his plate. The stresses of fatherhood are all too much for the farmer; he has a mental breakdown and kills his children by hanging them in the yard. Poor piggy mother dies of a broken heart, so the farmer buries her and buries himself at the same time... However, while waiting for death he has some kind of religious epiphany and decides to stay alive for a while longer so that he can drink urine and spread handfulls of feathers around before he eventually hangs himself, too. That's why I stay away from the church.

When the staff at Horrornews.net sent me a copy of Thierry Zeno's Pig Fucking Movie to review on their site, I was slightly taken aback. 'Pig Fucking Movie?' I thought. 'A movie about a guy who fucks a pig? What kind of deviant do these people think I am?' But having watched it I've realised that yes, this is exactly the kind of morally-bankrupt, demented celluloid swill I was born to write about. As happy as a pig in shit. The staff seem to know me better than I do!

Wedding Trough opens with a man seen placing a severed doll's head onto a flapping bird for some reason, perhaps as a way of illustrating how strange this guy is. And then we're immediately thrown into the next scene in which he sits on the floor gently caressing a pig's udder. And, considering the film's giveaway title, I don't think he has anything noble in mind while he strokes away. This weird fellow looks to be a lonely farmer; he looks harmless enough, but so did Norman Bates. He ploughs his field and plays a game of blind-man's-bluff with the farmyard animals - and he's the one wearing the blindfold! He captures the pig, escorts it into the barn, strips off naked, and then attempts to have sex with it, but she's like 'nah' and wanders off. So the farmer sits there feeling sorry for himself (aww, chin-up lad, maybe she's just a bit frigid). The animals, including the farmer, spend the rest of their day farting and defecating and staring at each other. The next day he tries his luck again, chasing the pig around the yard with his pants around his ankles (not the best way to woo your sweetheart), but still, the heartless swine has better things to do with her time, like shoving her snout into a huge mound of manure, for instance. Talk about rejection! She looks at him dismissively, as if to say 'I don't do human dick, I only do pink ones that look like fleshy corkscrews, so get bent'.

The non-love story continues, interspersed with footage of an ongoing gang-war between rival groups of feathered fiends who attack, mount, and peck at each other over food and sex. On the third day, the farmer finally has his wicked way with the pig, and they make passionate love in the middle of the yard. The ducks catch wind of this incident and they don't seem to approve one bit; they congregate and communicate in duck language, probably making snark comments about the pig being a no-good whore for sleeping with such a creepy and desperate perv like the farmer. Presumably, the man and the pig become 'an item' at long last, and he gently covers his porky mistress in straw to keep her warm while she sleeps. She gives birth to a litter of piglets and daddy holds one; he seems happy but slightly worried as though he's wondering why the little one doesn't look like him; is he really the father or has she been unfaithful? The latter half of the film concentrates on the farmer's stress and strain as he raises three boisterous piggies (he should've worn a jimmy hat if you ask me - the mother's not the cleanest creature around, and she lives in a pigsty for chrissakes). Tragically, the farmer is driven nuts and he hangs his piglets in the yard, much to the mother's dismay. She dies, so he places her body into a grave and buries himself alive beside her. He soon claws his way out though when he gets cold due to a bizarre vision of being stuck in the middle of nowhere. He indulges in a bit more bizarre behaviour before he hangs himself from a ladder.

Filmed on black and white 16mm film, and containing absolutely no dialogue whatsoever, unless you count a bunch of ducks quacking at each other as legitimate conversation. Instead, we get a constant barrage of choral music, religiousy-type-monk-rocker-anthems, and bizarre, space-age synthesizer noodling. A strange mix indeed. It's not a particularly graphic film, you'll be glad to hear; this is not some hardcore bestiality video. That would be a step too far, even for me. But the 'love' scenes between the farmer and his barnyard babe are shown on camera, albeit in a simulated fashion (notice the pun there on 'Babe', that family movie about a talking pig? Oh, forget it). But anyway, this film is disturbing because for much of the time our anti-hero is balls-deep in his beloved sow. You don't see that in Babe.

The film could be seen as an allegory on human relationships (i.e. between men and women), and if this is so then not only is Wedding Trough a rare milestone in cinematic bestiality, but also outrageously misogynistic too. Double whammy! But before you get offended it's important to note that this film doesn't seem to take itself seriously at all, so why should you treat it any differently? Think of it as a visual sick joke. Distribution, not surprisingly, has been kept to a minimum, and the film to this day is still much talked about but little seen. The lead actor wasn't credited and I've no idea who he is and have never seen him in any other films after his appearance here (perhaps he died of shame when he sobered up?). The DVD implies that writer Dominique Garny 'features' in the film, but this is not made clear in the credits. In terms of cinematic reference points, Wedding Trough comes across as a perverted hybrid of Orwell's Animal Farm and Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small. Both Zeno and Garny had worked together previously on Of The Dead (1972), a deeply disturbing and graphic mondo shocker about how different cultures deal with the deaths of loved ones.

As for Wedding Trough, you've probably gathered by now, this film is nuts, but it really does have a deranged charm about it. I can't help thinking if this was made by someone like Luis Bunuel it would be hailed as a deranged, absurdist masterpiece nowadays by champagne-sipping wrinkle-bags. But because it was directed by an unknown Belgian who was quite possibly insane, the film was instead greeted like a senile grandfather showing up to a family dinner with his soapy hardon in hand, with all the shrieking, yelling, and crying you would expect from such a scene, as embarrassed relatives quickly banished him from the festivities promising to never speak about it again. Ever. And this is exactly the kind of greeting the film received when it played at the Perth International Film Festival in the mid-70s, where it caused such a scandal the Australian censors pulled it from the screens and banned it outright, hoping it would just go away. But it didn't. It was later banned for a second time in Australia.

If Wedding Trough piques your interest then I suggest you go the whole hog and team it up with an episode of Black Mirror entitled ‘The National Anthem’ for a double-bill of pig-fucking fun! ‘The National Anthem’ is a 'political thriller' in which the British Prime Minister is blackmailed into having sex with a pig live on TV after the Princess has been kidnapped and held to ransom by a crazed artist/terrorist.

Pop these DVDs on at Christmas time for all the family to enjoy. I dare ya.

WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (1971)

Dir: Dusan Makavejev /Yugoslavia /W.Germany

Yugoslav twentysomething Malena envies her roommate’s lack of sexual inhibition, and ignores the attentions of her ex, Radmilovic. She instead tests out her belief in the ideas of Wilhelm Reich by sleeping with Russian ice skater Vladimir Ilyich, who is compelled by the power of his orgasm to decapitate her with his skates.

Dusan Makavejev had read Wilhelm Reich’s Dialectical Materialism And Psychoanalysis as a student and had been fascinated by his assessment that what Marx had done for economic society, Freud had done for the human organism. But he was also aware of the ironies within Reich’s life, which saw him exiled from both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany for wanting to break down the barriers that limited creativity. He was eventually persecuted in America for being a medical charlatan, and spent much of his later life in a mental hospital. Indeed, Reich, who had dedicated his life to human liberty, died alone in a federal prison in 1957, having had his books burned in an incinerator in New York.

In the late 60s, Makavejev was commissioned by German television to make a film about Reich’s theories. But he soon realised that the documentary approach he had in mind would not be sufficient enough to do the subject justice. In order to side-step the problem, he simply devised a framing story set in Yugoslavia that would serve as part of a collage of fact and fiction designed to subvert the repressed masses with an anarchic sense of humour. In addition, the film would also present to viewers the pleasures to be had through physical and psychological freedom. And by leaving many of the sequences unresolved, he thus encouraged viewers to actively engage with the film and arrive at their own conclusions.

Not surprisingly, the finished film found itself ostracized in Eastern Europe, and its distribution elsewhere was severely limited. The fact that it was almost universally billed as a porn flick didn’t do it any favours, either. And at the time, very few audiences got to see it. Overflowing with interesting ideas, the critics were largely dumfounded and divided as to what it all meant – they described it variously as a treatise on applied sexology, a political satire, a doomed romance, Pop Art posing, even as a new form of autobiography. They did, however, agree on one thing; Makavejev as a filmmaker had a fine command of his craft, and he handled the humour and montage elements with an assured artistic manner. Yet in poking fun at Lenin and Stalin and Mao, many Western critics also missed the point of how balanced this film was, and they championed it as an anti-commie satire. It never occured to them that, although Makavejev may have mocked the communists, he also attacked America in the film for what he saw as its misuse of freedom and the vulgar manner in which it had allowed sex to be commercialized and turned into just another capitalist commodity, like everything else.

WR: Mysteries was passed in its entirety for a cinema release in the UK (it was the first film ever to get through the censor’s office with the sight of an erect penis intact). On home video, however, it was altered to obscure the more explicit moments. After the opening credits sequence, a B&W Soviet sex-education film viewed through a kaleidoscope lens is obscured by animations of goldfish. This supposed act of censorship hasn't completely obscured the action and an erect penis can still be seen. Wall paintings of men and women masturbating were blanked out. A sequence showing Jim Buckley having a plaster cast made of his erect penis has all the tumescent shots obscured by animated stars. On UK video, Buckley's penis is covered up with psychedelic colors added in haste. Artist Nancy Godfrey proved her sexual contact with the famous man by casting his erect penis, and was among a loose group of practitioners called Plaster Casters.

In the 90s, FilmFour broadcast the video version on UK TV. Head of British censorship at the time, James Ferman, claimed that the original version would have probably passed uncut, but the version submitted to them was the same as that which was censored back in the early 70s, and they had no choice but to pass it in its truncated form.

YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS (1998)

Dir: Neil LaBute /USA

The day to day intertwining lives of a group of self-obsessed, sexually dysfunctional pisscranes – Mary and Barry, an unhappily married couple; Jerry and Terri, an unhappily unmarried couple who stay together out of convenience; Cheri, who is Terri’s lesbian lover and Cary, Barry’s best friend, who is a reckless, demented hedonist and an absolute Grade-A fuck faced cunthole.

During the 90s, a cultural trend appeared in which millions of young couples across the planet began fantasizing about the perfect glossy world as seen in the American sitcom, Friends. Oh, how great it would be to share an apartment with our fwiends, and our fwiend’s fwiends girlfwiends and boyfwiends, so we can all pretend to be Joey and Phoebe and that whiny cunt and that sarcy cunt, and the rest. Oh, what joy! What a barrel of laughs that would be! This fantasy soon became a certified industry in itself that seduced the public with pristine images of this sweet domestic bliss. But writer/director Neil LaBute, creator of the controversial In The Company Of Men, presents us with the dark side of the myth with a vicious, low-budget comedy which does much to show how things really are when couples get together for any length of time.

The basic premise is the same as Friends: six good-looking chums share their secrets and desires within their bubble of cute middle-class coziness. The secrets in this film, however, are a tad more disturbing. There’s Jerry and Terri (Ben Stiller and Catherine Keener) whose relationship is under strain from Jerry’s incessant babbling during sex. There’s Barry and Mary (Aaron Eckhart and Amy Brenneman) whose marriage is under threat due to her frigidity and his constant wanking. And there’s Cary (Jason Patrick), who is possibly the most malicious lover in film history. Also Nastassja Kinski (daughter of Klaus) as a clingy lesbian who demands to know exactly when her bed partner has an orgasm.

The drama takes place in all the usual places: bookstores, art galleries, supermarkets, bistros – even their own version of the ‘Central Perks’ coffee shop. The major difference, however, is in LaBute’s brutal script which pulls no punches. It’s one of the harshest and most hilarious movies of the 90s. It can be slow-moving for sure with its minimal camera movements, long talky sequences and only a hint of a soundtrack. Yet there are moments of such gut-wrenching honesty that even the most blissfully happy couples will feel uncomfortable and unnerved during the running time. It’s sexual warfare with deceit and infidelity used as the weapons of choice, and the humour is sharpened to perfection, designed to strike you where it hurts.

ZERO WOMAN: RED HANDCUFFS (1974)

(Orig title: Zeroka no onna: Akai wappa)

Dir: Yukio Noda /Japan

The film opens in a go-go dancing club where the sexy Miki Sugimoto, dressed in red, attracts the attention of a sleazy white man, and they are soon back to his hotel room. Foreplay over with, he decides to make her his latest victim in a series of brutal rape and murders. However, Sugimoto, an undercover cop, confronts him with photographic evidence of his previous victims, and while he finds it all very funny, he completely underestimates her, and winds up taking multiple bullets to the groin. Her superiors at the station are infuriated with Miki’s rough justice, and they summarily strip her of rank, send her to jail, and leave her there to rot.

Sugimoto soon finds herself back on the streets when a situation arises that requires her services. The engaged daughter of a politician has been kidnapped and held to ransom. The politician father wants her back and her affair kept hush hush. At the father’s instigation, Sugimoto is released from prison and becomes an unofficial agent of the government with a license to kill. She now calls herself ‘Zero Woman’, and is sent out to infiltrate the gang of kidnappers, a bunch of bumbling hoodlums led by the lunatic Nakahara, and attempts to rescue the girl, and see to it that none of the hoodlums make it out alive.

It’s a great premise and with such a simple plot that may have been an influence on Luc Besson’s Nikita. The problem is that neither Zero Woman nor the gang are interesting enough to help the film transcend its limitations. Zero Woman starts out as a tough, take-no-shit, kickass heroine, but as soon as she falls in with the gang of scumbags she immediately becomes weak and passive. The audience knows she is capable of wiping out the bad guys while hardly breaking a sweat, and yet frustratingly, she continues to allow herself to be abused at the hands of the fuckheads. The sex and violence can only carry the film so far. Aside from the fact that she is a cop, we learn very little about her. Don’t get me wrong, I like mysterious characters but not so much when they do absolutely nothing. And as a result, she appears more dull than mysterious.

On the plus side, Zero Woman, like many exploitation pics from Japan at the time, looks astonishing, and the violence is often strong and bloody. The gruelling finale set in a wasteland of swirling newspapers is also exceptional, and the film is worth watching for that reason alone.

ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (1979)

(aka Zombie; aka Zombi 2)

Dir: Lucio Fulci /Italy

A seemingly abandoned boat floats along at a New York harbour. A couple of police officers climb on board to investigate. A quick snoop around reveals the place to be empty of occupants. But when one of the officers checks below deck, he is met with the sight of a bald, flesh-munching zombie chewing on the innards of a crew member. The policeman backs off in horror, and the zombie rises to its feet. The officer opens fire, but the ghoul is impervious to bullets and continues lurching towards him…

It later transpires that the boat had drifted from Matoul, a Caribbean island, and a newspaper article written about the incident catches the attention of Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, Mia’s sister, who also appeared in Joe D’Amato’s Anthropophagus The Beast). Her curiosity concerning the mysterious boat stems from her anxieties for her father, who is a scientist conducting experiments on the island. One night, she visits the harbour to gain some clues from onboard the boat, and she is approached by reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch), and together they head for the island to find out what’s going on… En route, they meet a couple on a boat, Brian (Al Clive) and scuba diver Susan (Auretta Gay), and she is attacked underwater by an aquatic zombie. When they arrive on the exotic island of Matoul, they find it to be a paradise wasteland ravaged by an evil contagion, and the walking dead have overwhelmed the place. Turns out that Anne’s scientist father had been attempting to cure leprosy with the practice of voodoo (as you do), and this has resulted in disastrous consequences as he summons up the dead. Soon enough, zombies are breaking out of the earth, and the heroes try to escape from the island by using weapons and Molotov coctails to ward off the hordes of rotting corpses.

Zombie Flesh Eaters is perhaps Lucio Fulci’s most famous – or infamous – film, especially in America where it was given a generous stateside distribution deal by Jerry Gross, in which it played a successful run in grindhouse theatres, complete with a lurid ad campaign with huge billboards in Manhattan displaying the rotting face of a zombie, with the words “We are going to eat you” plastered across it. At the time of its release, this was probably the goriest movie ever unleashed on a mainstream audience. Director Fulci successfully blends the contemporary gore of George Romero’s Dawn of The Dead with the nostalgic themes of tropical voodoo epics of the 1930s (White Zombie and Isle of The Dead, etc) for an interesting take on the zombie mythos (it was marketed as a sequel to Dawn of The Dead in Italy). Fulci side-stepped the satirical, modernist style of Romero, and instead concentrates on excessive gore, allowing FX master, Giannetto De Rossi, to have a field day. The zombie make-up style, which effectively shows the walking cadavers in various states of decomposition, is superbly done, and puts Tom Savini’s pale blue zombies (as seen in Dawn) to shame. Rossi’s vision of the zombie apocalypse is one of ugly rot and decay, with the zombies’ flesh infested with maggots and worms, and their very presence radiating with the ungodly plague. Gory highlights includes an ancient zombie breaking out of the ground and towering over the terrified Susan before leaning in and biting a chunk out of her throat, with the camera closing in on the gaping wound flowing with blood. Also, the controversial scene where the scientist’s wife is dragged towards a broken door by a zombie, and a long sharp splinter slowly punctures her eyeball.

The latter scene is not quite as squirm-inducing as the eyeball trauma seen in Bunuels’ Un Chein Andalou, but the graphicness led to it being banned during the ‘video nasties’ scare in the UK. For years, British horror fans had to make do with imported bootleg copies of the uncut US version from Wizard Video, or the watered-down BBFC-approved version released in the late-90s by Vipco (billed as the “Extreme Version”). The British censors finally passed it uncut in 2005 when Anchor Bay UK submitted it for a planned release as part of the ‘Box of The Banned’ DVD set, which included five other ‘video nasties’, including cut versions of Last House On The Left and I Spit On Your Grave, and also a fascinating documentary about UK censorship.

Zombie Flesh Eaters marked the first of Fulci’s celebrated zombie quartet which continued with City of The Living Dead, House By The Cemetery, and The Beyond. All the usual crew members who helped to make these films so memorable are here too, such as the aforementioned FX wiz, Rossi (who went on to work with Umberto Lenzi in Cannibal Ferox and Alexanda Aja in Haute Tension), DoP Sergio Salvati, whose impressive scope photography was overlooked for years due to the bleary, pan-and-scan VHS versions destroying his compositions, and composer Fabio Frizzi offering up one of his most catchy tunes.

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN BIRO

(This interview was first published at Horrornews.net)

Stephen Biro is the President of Unearthed Films, the world’s foremost purveyors of DVD extremes. Since its launch in 2001, Unearthed Films has given the Western world such classics as Aftermath, Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, and This Hollow Sacrament. Unearthed Films was the first label to officially release the Guinea Pig series from Japan in pristine transfers with a generous amount of extra bonus material. Public idiot number 1, Charlie Sheen, famously believed that Flower of Flesh and Blood was a genuine snuff movie, and contacted the FBI, resulting in a prolonged investigation. This gifted the film an unprecedented amount of notoriety and free publicity, and the Guinea Pig series has long been required viewing for extreme movie fans ever since. Horrornews.net sent along intrepid movie deviant, Phil Russell, to catch up with Stephen and discuss his background in the industry, controversies, and the future of DVD/Blu-Ray. So, ladies and gentlemen, and sleazoids everywhere, we present to you Mr. Stephen Biro…

It has been 12 years since the inception of Unearthed Films. Your early mission statement was to create the "hardest" DVD label on the planet. Do you feel you have succeeded there?

For the most part. I have seen some of the movies on my personal list go to other companies before we bought them, or lost bidding wars for some and was very pissed off that they were released by companies that didn’t have the penchant for the hardest films, but for the most part… I think we did our job.

Is it true you started out distributing comic books?

Ha ha! How did you hear that? Yeah, I threw my hat into the ring with a comic book or two but inside back then was hard to break into if it was a gut-buster type of thing. I had the largest comic book shop in Tampa back in the day but was screwed over by a greedy business partner. So I basically left the comic world and jumped into what I knew best… horror films and VHS piracy (laughs).

Tell us about your bootlegging days and Video Mayhem.

It was wonderful. I got to spread the sickness, offer films that you could never find at the time on VHS, made tons of money all in the privacy of my own home, partying like a madman. Those were the days. Back then, horror fans were not unified as they are now, and some of us felt like creeps and outcasts. But in Tampa… fans of horror would come by and they would say, “Steve! What kind of sick shit you got this week?” I’d bust out the trades I did from Chas Balun, Shawn Lewis and others and we would party while watching utter rarities no one had, and people would speak about only in whispers. When DVD just started, that’s when the great horror titles I was bootlegging began coming out, and knowing I couldn’t do this forever and finding the actual people who owned the rights to some of these tasty tidbits of terror, I opened up a cult video store in Y-Bor City, and phased out the piracy.

What do you like to see in a movie? What is it that clinches the deal and makes you want to distribute the film?

Intensity… acting, camera angles, unseen gore… but mostly intensity. Is it intense? While watching it, do I grip the arm of the couch harder while watching it? Does the film play on two different levels? Does it mess with the mind? Is it fun to watch? Does it have something to say? Would people want to watch this at a party? On drugs? To show people to fuck them up? I try to follow these when picking films.

What is your opinion on the state of DVD/Blu-Ray and its future? Many in the industry are becoming increasingly pessimistic and feel that the whole enterprise is currently taking its last breath...

Yeah… torrents are killing us, but we are taking care of this, this year. For the readers of this… here is your warning. Stop it… We’re working with a tech company that will be protecting our shit from now on. You had a good run, just like I did back in the Video Mayhem days, but it’s over. I got legit, now it’s everybody’s turn to get legit. I know what is coming down the pipeline and P2P sharing and torrents are going to be hit HARD-CORE.

Has Unearthed Films been hit hard by the recession? Has it affected your business at all?

Fuck Yeah! Since the torrents started at the speeds it has had back in 2008… it’s been killing everyone, and the retail stores have been flopping dead every month and every year. Look at it this way… We were going to pick up Ryûhei Kitamura’s No One Lives… My business partner Paul White, half owner of Unearthed, was going to put all of his eggs in one basket to buy this and when it came down to it, it couldn’t make business sense. It’s a 3 million dollar movie and we had first option to it but our distributor said, “We can only sell about 30,000 units out the door and that’s if everyone bought it for the retail market and that was including Target and Wal-mart! The numbers we need was 50,000 units to make it worth our while but there are not enough retailers out there anymore.  Figure, Wal-mart and Target is about 20,000 units, and if everyone else took it, looking at 10,000 units. And that’s if they took it!!!  Target wouldn’t and yes… sales could go above that if people kept buying it and for a big film, that can happen but there are no video stores left - Mom and Pops are gone and FYE is close to shell-shocked. My local mall just about closed and is sitting in a state of ruin. So yeah… all of the DVD companies are hurting. Collectors have given up, for the most part, except the die hards (thank God), but with the comic book industry imploding, toys, cards and every other collectible selling for pennies on the dollar and the new breed of youth, stepping in… they don’t collect shit. It’s all a perfect storm of fucking chaos that we have been able to withstand… for now. I’m not going to even go into the evil distributors that have fucked us over and almost put Unearthed out of business more times than I can count.

What's your proudest release on Unearthed Films?

That’s a hard one… I would say Guinea Pig or Rock & Rule since it was the most detailed of our releases that took a year to complete, and if you asked me that last year… it would have been Aftermath, but now… Where The Dead Go To Die. Let’s say Aftermath and Where The Dead Go To Die.

Are there any titles you regret not securing for distribution? The ones that 'got away'?

Yes… bastard… reminding me of this shit (laughs). Lucker The Necrophagous, The Untold Story, Nekromantic (that shit just happened this MONTH!!! AAAGH!!! (But whoever bought it, paid way too much for it. Bidding war casualty). Fist of The North Star animation, A Serbian Film (they paid way too much for it) and a couple of others. Don’t worry, I have some tricks up my sleeve for 2013.

What's your take on the quality of films made in the last decade or so? Do you feel that the horror genre as a whole is in a healthier place now than it was 12 years ago when you set up your label?

Naw, it’s worse now. Since sales are so low and everyone and their mother can almost make a film now without spending the amount you should, a lot of crap has been bubbling up to the surface. It’s been happening for a while now and I am sorry, some movies should not be made. Some screenplays are just terrible and some people are not directors and some actors, shouldn’t act. But then again… some should. It all depends on who you’re working with and if the people can take criticism and say, “Yeah, that is stupid, or hey… I need help with an idea.”

It’s hard to say because I see a lot of positioning, a lot of jealousy and bullshit, a lot of people being bought out and mags and websites that used to be about horror, refusing to cover all horror, just who grease their pockets, or if someone was slighted over something stupid like a review or such. Back in the good ole days… (fuck, I’m sounding old now) (laughs) all horror websites and magazines would cover and talk about everyone and everything… Now everyone is being snooty or egotistical. I used to love the “We’re the horror community and we’re all in this together!” aspect.

I heard you were interested in securing the rights for Muzan-e for its first official Western release. Is that true? If so, are you still pursuing it?

Yeah, we got it, it’s locked up… had some problems with evil distributors but it will happen. I hate lawsuits but if you’re going to be an evil bitch… I’m going to treat you like one.

There is a nice array of Japanese films at Unearthed. Do you have a special interest in films from that part of the world, and do you ever have problems with the language barrier when dealing with filmmakers and producers from the Far East?

Paul White speaks fluent Japanese so the language barrier is non-existent for us. Plus… one of our partners is in Japan. Love the Japanese stuff but it seems like the flood of the stuff, people sort of got their fill. The urgency of watching horror films has waned quite a bit and people just say, “I will see them when I get to them.” It’s all across the board… the newness has worn off folks. Sucks, doesn’t it.

Many moralists accuse your films of being socially dangerous, sick, perverted and violent. How do you respond to those claims?

Turn on the news and see what they’re reporting on for sensationalism and profit, and then tell me the fake shit I put out is sick, perverted and violent. Just today, I watched a news bulletin where they showed beheaded sheep and chickens, used in a voodoo ritual on nationwide TV at 6:00pm while kids can watch it. Rape, murder, death and crime… did we mention the rape? What about that gangbang rape in India where the woman killed herself due to the humiliation? These hypocrites know that people are making money off her misery and death. Next time you see one of these articles or news bulletins, look at the commercials or banner ads at the side of it. We’re talking money baby… dirty, disgusting money, and I don’t see any of that. I sell disgusting movies and horror movies to people who need a safe and controlled outlet for their rage at society for all of the above shit. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.

[I think Stephen had confused two separate news stories there. The Indian girl who was gang-raped on the bus didn’t commit suicide, she died of internal injuries. The woman who killed herself due to humiliation was possibly Jacintha Saldanha, the British hospital receptionist who was pranked into giving details of the Duchess of Cambridge’s morning sickness to a pair of Australian radio presenters who were impersonating the Queen. Ed.]

How involved are you in producing the DVDs? Do you design the covers and menu navigations, etc?

I used to do the covers and menu back in 2002 but I don’t have the time anymore and you can sort of tell. Much more talented people help us out now like David Hood and Jimmy Screamerclauz…

You have recently begun releasing books through your label. Is that something you'd like to expand upon?

Hell yeah!!! You didn’t mention The Unearthed Music Group? What the Hell, man? Plug everything we are doing (laughs). I love reading, love writing… some say I’m good at it. I say I’m working on it. Horror is wonderful in all its aspects and bringing Unearthed Books into existence is a dream come true. Working with other writers, have more books lined up. The Masters of Taboo series is doing well, first book is called Cannibalism, Digesting The Human Condition… Working on that series, the next installment, Necrophilia, Loving The Human Remains. It isn’t called Masters of Taboo for nothing (laughs). We have Jack Torrance’s novel coming up that I edited and transcribed called, ‘All Work And No Play’. 237 pages of pure madness that I was lucky to finish. It’s more than what you think. Hopefully, Stephen King isn’t too pissed and enjoys it. Finished a new novel I wrote called, ‘Dialogue With The Devil’. It’s basically, me and the Devil talking and Him telling me the secrets of reality and how far his manipulations into mankind reach. It’s finished and in my editor’s hands. I could only write and talk to Him after 12 at night for some odd reason, and He does explain Revelations quite a bit. Much less all of the world’s religions and a lot of everything else, from his point of view.

I know… not what people expect from me but you can say, theology, religion, reality and psychology is my forte. Having been to the other side will do that to a man.

'All Work And No Play' - I remember glimpsing the manuscript of Torrence's book in The Shining, and it looked a bit same-ish to me: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I hope your version can spice things up a bit? It's not 237 pages of that phrase, is it? If so, I can't see it being very popular; the ending is given away in the first sentence for a start...

No… it’s different but yet… you only saw the first 16 pages in the movie, this is the whole book and it does change and let’s just say, transcribing it does make a person insane. I can’t say too much more about it but it will be interesting to see the reviews (laughs).

The book, Dead Baby Jokes, caused a bit of a scandal online, with some complaining to Amazon and requesting that it be banned from being sold on the website. What is your take on the matter?

It was even worse than that. It was all over the Irish, Great Britain’s and Scottish newspapers. I’m talking front page, petitions signed against it, the Irish PM mentioning it, BBC news and radio shows, death threats coming out my ears and everyone wanting to kill the writer of the book. Sort of brought a smile to my face. Look it up on Amazon UK and look at the reviews there (laughs). Over 150, kill the bastard, ban it and such. It’s actually hilarious…  Check it out and read them, horror fans will enjoy the madness…

In fact, it got so bad, the writer fired back and wrote, ‘The Ultimate Dead Baby Cook Book’. I know the writer personally… in fact, if you can keep a secret. It was ME (laughs). I kept my name off of it because my wife was afraid of it being published and since, I’m actually writing real novels and didn’t want this to be part of my resume… and the wife had a point, so I just published it as Unearthed Books. When the death threats started rolling in and it was all over the news in the UK with mothers wanting it banned and me castrated… I think I did the right thing. It’s calmed down a lot now… but it was hilarious.

I admire the way Amazon have ignored them and not buckled to their demands. Yes, losing a baby must be an awful thing to go through, but people should see the controversy for what it is: A bunch of silly girls whipping up some Facebook hysteria to keep themselves occupied for a wee while… I also love the way the plaintive ape wails of protest simply bounce off the book like peanuts flicked at a rock…

There are so many anti Facebook pages about my book and petitions… I figured I would get some flak for the Guinea Pig films… not a peep. But a joke book… Holy Shit!

Hey, what's red and pink and travels at 100 miles per hour?... A baby in a blender...

I would say, “A baby with a caved in skull in a catapult.”

Tell us about your autobiography, Hellucination.

Um… how do I explain it? I’ve done enough LSD and nitrous oxide to be able to peer behind the veil of reality. I’ve met God, the Devil, been to Hell, and in doing so it changed everything about me - my personality, spirituality and emotions, and opened up a new realm of possibilities to me that I opened up my cult video store with no money and Unearthed Films fell in my lap. The book is my memoir and follows me from being an atheist while a kid, a hallucinogenic astronaut and finally a believer in Christ. I know… I know… hard to swallow. The book has been doing great. Everyone who reads it loves it and only a couple of people think I’m a madman, but that is to be expected. Let’s say, it’s a cross between Jacob’s Ladder, Dante’s Inferno and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

It’s been optioned to be made into a major motion picture and meetings are happening with some big Hollywood people, so let’s hope it’s made. It’s my life and it’s unique but isn’t everyone’s? But I do have to say, it’s not everyone that says they have met God, Satan and have been to Hell. The Hell Journey I experienced has been freaking everyone that reads it. Hitting home so to speak and twirling around in people’s heads, months after they finish it. I guess that’s why I did a follow up with my new novel, ‘Dialogue With The Devil’.  Once you have been to the other side, you tend to stay in contact with those on the other side. I just dropped the price for the eBooks to $1.99 for celebration on Hellucination being optioned for the next two months. Check it out…

I guarantee you will never look the same way again at Unearthed Films, or me for that matter.

I've noticed Black Metal Veins has finally been released on DVD, and this is good to see. It looks to be a change of direction for Lucifer Valentine after his 'vomit gore' trilogy. What is he like as a person? In interviews, he seems totally as ease with his perversities and doesn't give a fuck who knows it. I also get the feeling he enjoys freaking people out with his frank descriptions of what turns him on. Is this an accurate description of him?

He’s usually a happy go lucky guy. I owe him some cash due to a screw over from our last distributor, but it’s being fixed now. You’re right about your description but it doesn’t bother me because I know people that make his quirks, nothing to freak out about but then again, I’m a different beast entirely. Hopefully, he moves into new directions. I have had fans of ours that refuse to touch the Vomit Gore Trilogy but watched and enjoyed Black Metal Veins, so that is great for him.

Tell us about The Unearthed Music Group.

We specialize in speed core which is horror based 360 bpm techno music. Our first release was Screamerclaus, “Planetary Evacuation Recruitment Tape” Pretty hard core stuff, if you like Metal, this shit will blow your mind. We have a couple of music videos out for it… Have fun and check one out…

Mutwa From Screamercaluz NSFW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubR6r2ZQCV4

This is a vid made by Screamer for one of our other bands, Butchers Harem NSFW SERIOUSLY!!!!

Clinical Sodomy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDgTztdv33k

Tense and Neverminds new album Mental Rot was just released and we carry Slaughtercore Entertainments whole line of music and just released Mastamind’s “Mastapiece” and Wyzae’s “Momento Mori” that just came out on December 25th

You must have many stories to tell from your time at Unearthed…

Too many actually. We were ripped off by our 2nd major distributor for 1.4 million dollars. Luckily I can squeeze a penny by rubbing two dimes together and we stayed in business. I’ve had to sue three distributors so far for ripping us off. The third one is ongoing and should be settled soon unless they’re total asshats, but they were to begin with. We were in the movie making biz back in 2006 and I wrote the sequel to Brian Yuzna’s Society and a gore-tastic comedy called Drunken Master Vampire Priest. It was a ten movie deal, for ten million dollars… We were in charge of five of the films, had everyone lined up, directors, music, KNB… everyone, then the company went bankrupt. Optioned Drunken and Society 2 to another… they went bankrupt.  Bounced around from distributor to distributor, getting ripped off almost everywhere we went…  We’re now at MVD Distribution, and they’re honest. Shame of it was… they were the first company we were with and now we’re back there. They’re good people so I think we will have a home, finally.

A lot more, petty squabbles with other DVD companies, bidding wars, crazy actresses and directors, over-budget on this, under budget on that. Some films flop, some rise to the top. I think one of them I am really proud of is Gareth Evans. We released his first movie Footsteps but costs back then were high and sales for a normal, good horror film just meant we broke even but he continued and made ‘The Raid, Redemption’ in Indonesia. With that, we made him some money with Footsteps and now he’s going to be kicking ass in the Hollywood system from now on. I hope that he remembers me and lets me be the coffee boy on his sequel and remake in the works (laughs).

Society 2 - I loved the first one! How will the sequel take shape, and what's the storyline?

It got dropped since the companies that were supposed to produce it went bankrupt. It’s a shame because the company was supposed to bring another screenplay of mine called Drunken Master Vampire Priest as well. Both films were slated for a million dollar budget and it would have been killer but Hollywood is a fickle and pricey bitch.

The story line is hard to explain. I explain where the actual creatures come from, body modifications, secret societies and even what happened to Billy since he was part of a bloodline that was hunted down after the first Society. Richard Stanley was supposed to direct it and it got Brian Yuzna’s seal of approval but it didn’t happen.

What's the premise of Where The Dead Go To Die?

Almost impossible to tell you. Sort of like a fever dream, and it has been showing up on a lot of top ten lists as best movie of the year. It follows three kids, a junkie and a murderous, Satanic dog named Labby. Rue Morgue reviewed it and said it was worse than A Serbian Film so we can leave it at that (laughs)

What's the most shocking and disturbing film you have ever seen? And what was it about the film that disturbed you?

That’s a hard one but to be honest… probably, Dr. Caligari on 7 hits of acid with a 20 pound nitrous tank. If you know the film and the mixing of the two drugs, you will know and understand why.

You mentioned having tricks up your sleeve for 2013. What can we look forward to from Unearthed this year?

We have some movies lined up in contract negotiations and as soon as they are signed, then we can announce them, will let you guys know. I also have some films lined up that Unearthed will be producing so we’re moving into the production phase. I will be directing two films this year. One of them is a series that people would expect from Unearthed. Once the last contract is signed, we will be good to go.

I can say this… we signed the rights to ‘Bubba The Redneck Werewolf’. The comic book series written by Mitch Hyman. I will be directing it, Marcus Koch will be doing the FX, director of 100 Tears and Fell with over 40 names to his FX credit and we have a very special FX person for the actual werewolf that I cannot mention and since Bubba is right up and center…  he’s going to have to look kick ass. Bubba The Redneck Werewolf was almost made into a movie three times, so I am thrilled to be able to bring him to the screen. This will be the second movie I’m directing in 2013 and we have some more slated that we’re going to help produce so it’s going to be a big year for Unearthed and me, personally.

Sounds interesting. When Koch hits the Hyman, there will be blood. Thanks for joining us, Stephen.

No problem.

IT'S BLASPHEMY!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSY IN THE CINEMA

As the outraged reviews and articles written about The Last Temptation of Christ, Dogma, and The Magdalene Sisters proves, the antagonistic relations between religion and film will always cause controversy and scandal.

When director Peter Mullan took his film, The Magdalene Sisters, to the Venice Film Festival, the reception was pretty hostile. The film explores issues the Catholic Church is not comfortable with. Set in Ireland in the early 60s, it tells the story of three young women sent to a Magdalene home, basically a convent ruled over with harsh discipline by the Church. One of the girls was raped, and has 'shamed' her family; another has given birth out of wedlock; and the third is an orphan who has been refused entry at an orphanage because of her adolescent sexuality.

Mullan was expecting some criticism regarding his film, but having already screened it in Ireland, where its horrors were still fresh in the minds of many, he assumed the worst of it was over. However, the film's reception in Italy made him panic. The Church still has a huge influence in Italy to this day. Whereas in some territories, such as New York and even Ireland, many viewers saw the film as a black comedy. But in Venice there was an appalled silence throughout its festival screening. The Italian press attacked the film, including the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, who condemned it. Also, the religious figure, Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, had many harsh words to say about it; "This isn't a truthful portrayal of the Church, and its director has made libellous statements against Catholics."

The wrath of the Church was further inflamed when The Magdalene Sisters picked up the festival's top prize, the Golden Lion Award, causing further snipes from Tonini who resorted to attacking the festival itself; "This doesn't do any credit to the Venice Festival."

The controversy surrounding the film was taken up by the Italian press, and La Repubblica sent out journalists to London and Ireland to investigate the claims made by Mullan's film. Mullan recalls, "They met women that had never seen the film, and had never met me. God love 'em, these women told stories that made ours sound like a fucking holiday camp." Tha Vatican has since refused to comment on the testimonies of the women questioned in London and Ireland.

Director Mullan was infuriated by the whole debacle, not only because of the Vatican's reaction to the film, but because if its accusatory attitude. "Who the PR guy is at the Vatican I would love to know," he fumes, "'cos he's a simpleton. We were on the front page of every Italian newspaper for a fortnight. How dumb is that? How fucking dumb is that? They still think it's the Middle Ages. They still think that if they say to people, 'Don't go and see this film,' they won't. Really, what planet are those guys living on? It doesn't work that way anymore."

But for a long, long time it did work that way, and the antagonistic relationship between the world of cinema and the Christian world has existed from the start. Let's turn the clock back to 1913. Back then in the UK, the British Board of Film Censors (as they were then known) came into existence, and only had two rules; 1) no nudity; and 2) no representation of Christ or God. In America, censorship rules were different since that country recognised many different religions. It also had the First Amendment (free speech), and enforced a strict anticlericalism between Church and state. There was no legislation to govern the religious content of films when Hollywood first started making some big bucks during the silent era.

A scandal arose in 1921 when comedy icon Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter after a young actress, Virginia Rappe, was subjected to a vicious sexual assault, after which she died of horrendous internal injuries. The incident happened at a party in San Francisco. Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, and this only intensified the scandal, and Hollywood's pristine image was damaged forever. The next year, Presbyterian Will Hays was ushered in to head a strict new regulatory body called the Motion Picture Producers And Distributers Of America, Inc. (MPPDA), and five years after that another committee was formed that would regulate matters of ethics and decency, the Studio Relations Committee.

It's important to note that although neither one of those organisations were backed by the law, and the movie industry didn't have to abide by the guidelines, the Hollywood system obeyed the regulations for years until 1932 when Paramount went into production with the Mae West vehicle, She Done Him Wrong. The film was based on ‘Diamond Lil’, a stage play about double-crossings and the sordid goings on at a whorehouse. The movie version had found itself on the list of films which the MPPDA advised should not be made. But Depression-era Paramount was going through difficult financial times, and ignored the regulatory boards and went ahead with their production, sensing they had a cash cow on their hands, and figuring they had nothing else to lose to stay afloat. Hays quickly organised a summit meeting in which the film was approved on condition that the title be changed, all references to prostitution (or "the white slave trade," as they put it) be dropped, and the allusions to the Salvation Army be cut.

When She Done Him Wrong was released into theatres, censorship organisations across America attempted to have the film cut, banned or restricted in any way they could. But in the end, all this controversy and negative press led to the film becoming a huge hit, and helped to break box-office records at the time. In New York, mobs had formed outside of cinemas where the movie was playing, and hundreds of police officers were called in to get the situation under control. Unsurprisingly, religious leaders were outraged by the film's nation-wide appeal. In previous years, the Hollywood industry had made movies which kept the moral guardians happy, but in 1932 the tide had changed. In addition to She Done Him Wrong, there were also other studio films released in the same year which caused much controversy in America; Cecil B. de Mille's The Sign of The Cross featured a woman bathing in asses' milk, and was condemned as "dirty." Howard Hawks' Scarface was denounced for its sympathetic portrayal of the criminal underworld. I'm No Angel, another film starring Mae West, was frowned upon for its "notorious characterisation of a scarlet woman," and Red-Headed Woman, a film which depicts a beautiful, archetypal gold-digger, was condemned for showing a woman getting away with lying and scheming without any consequences.

Individually, these films would have probably slipped through the net with little complaint, but because they arrived in a drove at around the same time, these movies went towards shattering Hollywood's golden image. Church representatives across the country had never agreed with the basic principles of the 'Hays Code', and had set about presenting their own approval guidelines in different states, publishing lists of safe films for their flocks to consume as early as 1922. In 1934, however, America's moral guardians did at least agree on one thing: the contentious movies coming out of Hollywood were unacceptable, and tougher guidelines needed to be put into place. Two new organisations were formed. The first was the Catholic Legion of Decency (LOD), a religious pressure group which provided its own strict ratings system for the public. The 'A' rating meant the film was morally okay for general viewing; the 'B' rating meant it was partly "objectionable"; and the 'C' rating meant that the film was "condemned."

The second organisation was the Production Code Administration, which allowed Hays to compile a new set of strict censorship guidelines with the assistance of religious figures, including Catholics and a Jesuit. The PCA was extremely conservative; any form of sex was unacceptable, marriage was to be respected, and crimes in any film should not go unpunished. What emerged from these two organisations was an intriguing amalgamy of Catholic theology, conservative politics, and pop psychology; a combination that would regulate the content of Hollywood movies for decades. And it's also important to note that while Catholics created and ruled these organisations, Catholics also represented only a minority in America as a whole.

The banned list presented its rules: "Pointed profanity (this includes the words God, Lord, Jesus Christ - unless used reverently - hell, S.O.B, damn, Gawd) or any other profane or vulgar expression, however used, is forbidden." It also stressed that "Ministers of religion... should not be used as comic characters or villains." The list of rules gave very little leeway. Any film in breach of the guidelines would be refused distribution by the member groups. Films that were made before the PCA came into being and which broke any of the rules were also condemned and shelved (Jean Harlow's Red-Headed Woman fell victim to this and was locked away for fifty years).

For the next couple of decades or so, the United States put up with the stringent code of ethics, even though smart alecks like Fritz Lang delighted in subverting the norm with his imagery and dialogue. The LOD began to take a tumble in the 50s, by over-estimating the power it still had, and not realising it had become irrelevant as a ruling body for the majority of Americans. It was only when religious epics like The Ten Commandments enjoyed huge box-office appeal did the moralists begin to question themselves.

Often, even films officially granted the seal of approval by the MPPDA were still condemned by the LOD, and as a result the movies would end up being boycotted by the entire Catholic community. And this kind of thing hit the studios very hard, financially. This tactic was particularly favoured by Cardinal Francis Spellman, the leader of New York City's archdiocese when the religious drama, The Miracle, premiered in New York in 1951. The film is about a woman who is seduced by a stranger, and who believes she is pregnant with the child of a saint. The Miracle was banned outright, but after a court battle it was acquitted in 1952 and granted the protection of the First Amendment - the right to free speech.

In the following year, this triumph led the way for United Artists to release Otto Preminger's comedy, The Moon Is Blue. The PCA refused to give it their blessing, so United Artists simply withdrew from the MPPDA and released it anyway. The LOD had initially granted the film a B rating, but having heard about UA's resignation, they turned sour and condemned the film with the C rating, referring to it as "an occasion of sin." The LOD had gotten too big for its boots and had over-estimated its influence, and when it was discovered that the film's contention was based on three words -"mistress," "virgin," and "seduce" - the everyday public scoffed at their drastic decision, and the film was a huge success. With a budget of just $450,000, The Moon Is Blue raked in more than $6 million at the box-office.

Nevertheless, Spellman continued in his mission and shot himself in the foot a second time with the release of Baby Doll in 1956. The film stars Carroll Baker as a young bride trapped in an uneasy love triangle. This time the PCA approved, but the LOD didn't; they condemned the film, commenting that it "dwells upon carnal suggestiveness." When Baby Doll was released in New York, Spellman attacked the film while performing Mass, and warned his congregation that if anyone went to see it they would be committing a sin and would go to hell. In a ridiculous and unnecessary move, theatres that screened Baby Doll were picketed, and even the local priests would be there in the lobby, on the lookout for their congregation members in order to name and shame those Catholics who had dared to ignore the LOD's boycott. And this hysteria was only fueled further when Time magazine described the movie as "Possibly the dirtiest American picture ever legally exhibited." Of course, once again Spellman simultaneously helped to secure a hit for the filmmakers while failing to learn his lesson with Preminger's The Moon Is Blue. For his next trick, Spellman learned how to whistle while taking a shit.

Not long after, the LOD asked too much of its followers when they were requested to boycott cinemas for six months if any film was screened that dared to breech its guidelines. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly objected to that idea, and with the 60s fast approaching, the Church's grip on the citizens was loosening more with each passing year. And when it failed to ensure a ban on Roger Vadim's foreign import, And God Created Woman, the LOD finally recognised that they needed to re-evaluate themselves as an organisation. In 1963, the board was forced to alter its guidelines and be more open to change, or face losing its influence forever.

The LOD lost more and more of its power throughout the 60s. Public attitudes were changing on an almost daily basis, with the death of John F. Kennedy, to the eye-opening turbulence of the war in Vietnam, and the LOD was struggling to be heard. In addition, during this time there was the independent movie scene which exploded in the 60s, and the ease of distribution allowed films to be released without the approval of moral guardians. And this led to a rise in lurid B-movies featuring sex and violence which flourished at the drive-ins and hardtops across the land. Finally, the organisation became known as the MPPA (the Motion Picture Association of America), and altered its rules once again to put it in line with the cautious BBFC in the UK. Previously, the MPAA had classified movies as either suitable viewing for all, or for over-18s only (the X rating), but eventually they introduced the 'R' rating, allowing under-18s to the see the film as long as they were accompanied by an adult. The LOD pretty much fell apart.

In the UK, however, things were turning in the opposite way. In the early 60s, art teacher Mary Whitehouse became deeply concerned when she saw some of her students apparently pretending to have sex. When she asked what they was doing, they told her they were copying Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler, the women involved in the Profumo scandal which had been all over the news at the time. In 1964, she hired a ballroom in Birmingham and held a public meeting there. More than 2000 people showed up from across the country, and together they set up their campaign, Clean Up TV, which eventually morphed into the National Viewers' And Listeners' Association (NVLA).

Whitehouse had eyes like a hawk, and she scrutinized every aspect of television programming, on the lookout for anything which may have gone beyond her ideas of morality and decency. The NVLA went about the task of policing television and radio with an equal gravitas, and once they pounced on something which upset them, they would roll around on the floor having prurient orgasms and organising letter-writing campaigns to those they deemed responsible.

In her lengthy campaign as a watchdog on what she thought was a drop in standards, she criticised playwright Dennis Potter for his profanity and sexually 'offensive' work, then attacked the TV show Alf Garnett because the lead character said the word "bloody" too much. She even demanded that Doctor Who be shown after the watershed on the premise that it showed "tea-time brutality for tots." By the turn of the century, she was viewed as a stuffy old scrote who should learn how to mind her own business, a wizened old twonk with very out-moded views on morality. In the 60s, however, she was a force to reckoned with, using religion and social beliefs in the same way the LOD had done before her. Her meteoric rise in the UK was clear to see when in 1971 she organised the ‘Rally Against Permissiveness’ in Trafalgar Square, an event which was attended by more than 30,000 people, and which saw the creation of a new pressure group, The National Festival of Light (NFL).

In an interview with The Guardian before her death, Whitehouse told readers "The heart of my message has always been: whenever you see a programme, if it's a good one you like or a bad one you feel is irresponsible, then write, make your voice heard." But that comment was completely disingenuous; Mary Whitehouse wasn't some cozy old armchair politician - she wasn't so much interested in making her 'voice heard' as having her firm views implemented. Her attitude was: if she didn't like it then no one should see it. Expressing her views simply wasn't good enough for her; she would stamp her foot, shouting "I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!" until she got her own way. If she existed today, no doubt she would have had an army of online bum-lickers following her around cyberspace, clicking her 'Like' button every time she stopped by somewhere to spew all the garbage out of her head (When she did eventually snuff it in 2001, horror fans up and down the country held parties to celebrate her passing, with all-night marathons of uncut 'video nasties' such as Cannibal Ferox, Zombie Flesh Eaters, and of course, I Spit On Your Grave).

The NFL was actively engaged in bringing about political change, and one of its major concerns was the future of cinema. Its most highly publicised case was the release of Ken Russell's The Devils. The head of British censorship at the time, John Trevelyan, had some reservations about the film, and it was obvious it was going to cause much controversy. The Devils was based on Aldous Huxley's 'true story' of the 17th Century French city of Loudon, which was causing problems because it was contained in a walled fortress. The king wanted the walls to be taken down, as this would strengthen his position, but aware of how unpopular this move would be among the townsfolk, he instead decided to distract the denizens by fabricating a story in which the much-loved priest was accused of being the ringleader of a Satanic cult. Cue lots of horrendous torture as the king's henchmen are sent to Loudon to purge Father Grandier of his demons, and to bring down that defensive wall. Oh, and the film also contained a sequence in which a group of nuns tear down a life-sized effigy of the crucified Christ and pleasure themselves with it.

The new head of British censorship, Stephen Murphy, insisted on substantial cuts, including that of the infamous 'Rape of Christ' sequence. It was then released by Warner Brothers with an X certificate. The NFL vehemently disagreed with the decision, and they descended on the film like shit through a blanket, and campaigned to have it banned. The British censors refused to budge on their ruling, and so the NFL decided to take a back route instead; members of the NFL had discovered a loophole that would help them; by putting pressure on local councils they succeeded in having Russell's film banned in many regional provinces. This was particularly upsetting for Russell, who considered himself a devout Catholic. "For myself," he later said, "although I am not a political creature, I always viewed The Devils as my one political film. To me, it was about brain-washing, about the state taking over." They may as well have thrown Russell in the river to prove he was a witch.

More controversy was on the horizon in the late 70s when the Monty Python team came up with a script for another feature length film (after their Monty Python And The Holy Grail in 1975). Originally entitled Jesus Christ: Lust For Glory, the finished screenplay was a farcical comedy set in AD33 about a young usher who is mistaken for the Messiah. Those interested in the upcoming film could sense trouble ahead when the producers at EMI lost their nerve and pulled out of the project. They sold the rights to George Harrison's company, HandMade Films (the former-Beatle was a big Python fan), and the NFL was keeping a close eye on developments. When Mary Whitehouse managed to get her claws on the script she began forwarding extracts, which she described as "sick," a full six months before the film had been released. In a letter to The Times, she admitted she hadn't seen the film but was firmly against everything it stood for. "We were attacked by everyone," Michael Palin has since said, "Lutherans, Catholics, even a rabbinical group." Whitehouse - who, in 1977 had successfully prosecuted Gay Times (known as Gay News back then) for blasphemy due to its publication of a love poem to Jesus - was gearing up for another 'Ban this filth' campaign, but somehow her lawyers managed to talk her out of it.

When Life Of Brian premiered in the UK, Palin and John Cleese appeared on a debate show on TV. The presenter, Malcolm Muggeridge, was joined by another humourless oaf, the Bishop of Southwalk, and together they laid into the film, calling it "tenth rate" and "miserable." "The Bishop spent the whole time castigating us," Palin remembers, "like we were the most loathsome dogs in London. He practically demanded that we were deported. After the show he came over to us, gave us a broad smile and said 'Jolly good'. That's exactly what we were getting at in the movie - the hypocrisy of some people. I don't object to people believing in religion, but I do have trouble with the clergy and people believing in organised religion. I'm wary of anyone imposing their morals on me and I have little time for the hypocrisy of a lot of churchmen."

The NFL went for the film with its claws out, trying to secure an all-out ban. And when this failed, they concentrated on local councils once again, and this persuaded a number of them to withdraw the Life of Brian from theatres (including Swansea, where it remained banned until 1997). I've just looked at a picture of Mary Whitehouse on Google Images; the one where she's talking on the phone. And aside from her looking like the result of an unholy union between Dennis Pennis and a blow-dried hamster, I also noticed she's wearing a wedding ring. To think that this woman was married sends a chill down my spine. Holy shit! Her husband must've lived a horrid existence; I can only imagine what he went through. Instead of having sex, she would inspect every inch of his flesh, and at any sign of arousal she would write him a stern letter demanding that he go and take a cold shower immediately. And every time he farted on the couch, she would invite 30,000 nit-picking busy-bodies round to their house for a 'public meeting' in which they would take turns at inspecting his arsehole with a magnifying glass, and berate him for assaulting their eyes and lungs. Poor bastard.

In the 80s, Whitehouse stepped up her campaigns, and her methods became increasingly devious and sophisticated. It was she who coined the term 'video nasties', and thanks to her connections in the political world, she had plenty of willing participants to help curb the influx of unregulated video tapes in the UK. On the top of her shit list was Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, and this eventually led to the Video Recordings Act becoming legislation in 1985. William Friedkin's The Exorcist was another of her pet hates; back in the early 70s when the film was released, she orchestrated NFL vigils to be held outside of cinemas while the movie was playing. The Exorcist seemed to represent her worst fears - blasphemy, teenage sexuality, violence, and profanity - and she spoke condescendingly, accusing those who went to see the film as being "disturbed," claiming that she wanted to "ease their hurting."

Meanwhile in America, though there were many films that were frowned upon by religious leaders, they couldn't embark on a banning campaign because movies were protected by law, in accordance with the First Amendment (us Brits need to get a constitution in place, forthwith). However, just like the NFL's growing influence in the UK which saw results for their efforts, so there was a return to conservatism in America in the 80s, a movement which grew with religious cable channels on TV, known as 'televangelism'. It's interesting how this new wave of religious fervour came after two decades of fun and hedonism in the 60s and 70s. Like all highs, the 'come-down' was inevitable. This new climate was an attempt to turn back time to a more innocent age, hence the concept 'born-again' Christians. Couples such as Jim and Tammy Bakker were made into stars by televangelism, and they were in charge of the Praise The Lord ministry. There was also Jerry Falwell, the host of The Old-Time Gospel Hour, who became a hate figure for free-thinkers everywhere when in 1979 he formed the pressure group known as the ‘Moral Majority’.

This new conservatism in America consisted of a majority of ordinary working class (or 'blue collar') Christians, and became so powerful in the 80s that Hollywood studios began to worry. Martin Scorsese had bought the rights to Nico Kazantakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, as early as 1979. But because of its controversial nature, Scorsese struggled for years to get the film made. Studios were afraid to be linked to it, nevermind putting up the budget costs. And this uneasy stance was only exacerbated when an early draft script, written by Paul Schrader, contained risque dialogue between Christ and Mary Magdalene, including the infamous line "God sleeps between your legs." A later version of the script also described an imaginary sex scene between them. Unsurprisingly, most of the major studios shit bricks when they read it, and balked at the idea of giving it the green light. This kind of reaction left the project in limbo for years until Paramount decided to take a chance on it. However, the executives at the studio soon decided against the idea when they received a deluge of hate mail from outraged members of the public. And while this was going on, even Gulf & Western, the company that owned Paramount, had their headquarters besieged daily by hundreds of protestors. All this before even an inch of film had been shot. One day, company chief Barry Diller had a quiet word with Scorsese and admitted that he didn't feel "enthusiastic enough" to go ahead with the film and the inevitable chaos which would accompany the production.

A short while later, Universal stepped up, grew some balls and decided to give The Last Temptation of Christ the go-ahead. They also had a cunning plan up their sleeve: By hiring the fundamentalist marketing man, Tim Penland, in 1988, the executives had hoped to give their production a much smoother ride with the Christian right. However, due to the frustrating amount of bureaucracy surrounding the making of the film, Penland resigned after a few months, and turned against Universal. The backlash was complete when people like Donald Wildmon (who headed the American Family Association) got in contact with around 170,000 pastors across the country, encouraging them to help out in condemning the film. Let he who is without brain cells cast the first stone. And cast he did, while encouraging his buddies to help him.

Scorsese later admitted that the budget for The Last Temptation was deliberately kept low (at around $7 million) lest the controversy escalate to such an extent that it wouldn’t be released. The film prevailed, however, and in August 1988 The Last Temptation of Christ was released into American cinemas, almost a decade after Scorsese had decided he wanted to film it. What followed was one of the most chaotic scenes in the history of film controversy; in New York, hundreds of police officers were called in to quell “disturbances” outside of theatres where more than a thousand angry protestors gathered to make their voices heard. All across America there was vandalism and death threats wherever it played. In Salt Lake City, protestors stormed the projection booth and destroyed the print. The nation’s press had a field day. But this Christian backlash soon swung back and lashed at them, too.

The widespread controversy ensured that the film became a hit with curious punters (even if many of them just turned up so that they could toss Pepsi at the screen and shout “blasphemy!”), and the well-oiled PR machine of the Christian right soon spluttered to a halt when televangelist Jim Bakker was exposed as a crook and an adulterer, and was convicted of mail fraud. Jerry Falwell shut down the Moral Majority at around the same time.

As a side note, it’s worth mentioning Michael Campus’ 1976 film, The Passover Plot. This incendiary take on the Jesus story completely bypassed the scandal sheet, which is a mystery because, thematically, it makes Scorsese’s film seem rather quaint in comparison. In this low-budget biblical oddity, Jesus himself is accused of being a phony, and that his crucifixion was simply a trick to dupe the populace into revolt against the Roman rulers. Yeshua of Nazareth is a pissed-off Jewish hero who poses as the Son of God. He recruits his disciples, fakes his miracles, and keeps his scheming political ends a secret. And when he has the gullible public convinced of his holiness, he fakes his own arrest and crucifixion with the aid of Judah. Judged alongside The Passover Plot, Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ is an astonishing film aglow with genuine faith.

The Christian movement limped on into the 90s, and although it had lost much of its power, it remained as doggedly energetic as ever. In retrospect, it’s interesting to note here that many of the films which incurred their wrath at this time were made by people within the faith. In addition to Scorsese’s The Last Temptation, the other big controversy centered on a film by another American Catholic: Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Fundamentalist organisations went for the film with both barrels blazing.

Dogma is a black comedy about a fallen angel (Ben Affleck) who discovers a loophole in divine law, and this puts the future of humankind at risk. The film was produced by Miramax (a company owned by Disney), and their offices were bombarded with more than 50,000 postcards which read (“Stop Blasphemy Now!”), a mail campaign organised by 17,000 volunteers. Miramax, along with the house of Disney, sought to conceal their financial involvement in the film by releasing it through Lions Gate instead.

When Dogma premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1999, a strangely subdued protest awaited. Rather than death threats and vandalism and violence, the protestors sat on the pavement praying with the rosary and sang songs like Kumbaya.  “I felt bad,” Smith said. “I wanted to invite them to the festival and show them the flick because they didn’t know what they were protesting against. I mean, none of them could have seen it. There were news reports I saw where some guy was going, ‘This movie maintains that all the apostles had active sex lives – and I’m guessing not just with their wives!’ Things that were not even in the movie. I didn’t know what the dude was talking about. Some people thought the movie said that Christ had sex, which it doesn’t. They’d heard a lot of things and extrapolated a lot of things and came up with these plots that didn’t actually exist.

“I was depressed,” he continued. “I thought, ‘Why? Why?’ I don’t understand. There’s nothing more confounding than a bunch of people with a bunch of placards coming down on something that’s actually working on their behalf, professing the same beliefs that they do. Dogma is not anti-Church, it’s not anti-God, it’s not anti-Christ, it’s not anti-Catholic – it’s the opposite. That was particularly frustrating.”

Dogma premiered with no problems in Britain, no picket lines outside theatres, and no condemnation from the Vatican. Peter Mullan’s film, The Magdalene Sisters, was also screened with little complaint on these shores, and some have suggested this is because Church leaders had become less concerned with censorship than sensitivity to the scandals linking the Catholic Church to accusations of cover-ups on paedophile cases and systematic abuse. Since those times, the Vatican has carefully considered its standpoint on film, and even publicised a list of films that it recommended rather than ‘condemned’. Published in 1996, the list was divided into three sections – Religion, Values and Art – and offers up some surprises; of the 45 films included, this seemingly closed-off institution encouraged the faithful to see Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even Luis Bunuel’s L’Age D’Or (1930), a film which flaunts an unashamed church-baiting stance, and wasn’t officially screened in America until 1979.

2004 saw the release of Mel Gibson’s highly controversial The Passion of Christ, but this time it wasn’t the Catholics who were up in arms, it was the Jews. Dispensing with years of ingrained Sunday School pleasantries, this film concentrates less on Christ’s message of love, and more on a blizzard of rage. Gibson’s take on The Passion is a journey to the depths of darkness and despair on a scale never seen before in the cinema. And amongst the film’s realism of setting, bloodshed and even the use of Aramaic and Latin as the spoken languages (the authenticity of which have since been disputed by some church scholars), Gibson also dispenses with the finery of the gospel’s prose and the poetic way Jesus dealt with the cruelty he was subjected to. By concentrating on the flagellation, Jesus as a character is depicted more like a symbol than a human being. It’s a raw, visceral experience rather than an intellectual or emotional one.

The controversy was apparent even before the film itself was made. Gibson was accused of anti-Semitism and of producing Catholic propaganda – and, in the finished film, those accusations are not entirely unfounded. For much of the film there is an emphasis on the events as Jewish crime rather than any sense of there being a preordained sacrifice, as indicated in the bible. Gibson’s vision of evil is also bizarre and disturbing; dwarves, deformities, mutilated children – even dark storm clouds make an appearance, like something from a kid’s cartoon. Satan himself resembles a cross between Darth Sidious and a skull-flaunting slap-head. But nonetheless, The Passion of Christ is one of the most brutal and drawn-out visions of torture ever made. It shocks and stuns with its vividness.

The film received unprecedented support from evangelical leaders and representatives of America’s conservative church organisations, including Billy Graham (the same man who claimed The Exorcist was cursed with dark forces haunting the celluloid), Mission America Coalition, the Salvation Army, Campus Crusade For Christ, and the Trinity Broadcasting Network. And with the accusations of anti-Semitism, the film proved contentious among the Jewish community; it wasn’t officially banned in Israel, but no Israeli distributer would touch it (they probably sent out an Adam Sandler ’comedy’ instead). Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News called it “the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II.” Time magazine declared it to be “one of the most violent movies ever made.”

20th Century Fox refused to distribute the film even before it was made, and they informed New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind (an Orthodox Jew). He in turn advised other distribution companies (many owned by fellow Jews) not to handle the film, commenting “This [The Passion of Christ] is unhealthy for Jews all over the world.”

A group of inter-religious folks from across the United States formed a committee including Catholic Bishops and members of the Anti-Defamation League, and they obtained a copy of the script before the film was released in theatres. They released a statement: “[This is] one of the most troublesome texts, relative to Anti-Semitic potential, that any of us had seen in twenty-five years. It must be emphasized that the main storyline presented Jesus as having been relentlessly pursued by an evil cabal of Jews, headed by the high priest Caiaphas, who finally blackmailed a weak-kneed Pilate into putting Jesus to death. This is precisely the storyline that fueled centuries of Anti-Semitism within Christian societies. This is also a storyline rejected by the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II in its document Nostra Aetate, and by nearly all mainline Protestant churches in parallel documents […] Unless this basic storyline has been altered by Mr. Gibson, a fringe Catholic who is building his own church in the Los Angeles area and who apparently accepts neither the teachings of Vatican II nor modern biblical scholarship, The Passion of The Christ retains a real potential for undermining the repudiation of classical Christian Anti-Semitism by the churches in the last forty years.”

Gibson didn’t do himself any favours when he was pulled over by the police for drink driving and let rip with a vicious anti-Semitic rant, shouting “Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

In the same year, on the small screen, the BBC were under attack for their planned screening of Jerry Springer: The Opera, which it was rumoured, contained scenes such as tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members, adults dressed as babies, and Adam & Eve and Jesus and Satan have a slanging match in a scorched, hellbound television studio. Despite receiving 55,000 complaints, the BBC went ahead with the broadcast in January 2005.

Some extremists resorted to publishing the contact details of BBC staff members involved in the programme, and many of them were subjected to abuse and threatening phone calls, all in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who, unless I’m mistaken, favoured tolerance and forgiveness and turning the other cheek.

One of the most vocal protestors was Stephen Green of the Christian Voice. “If they [the BBC] know we may be offended by the programme,” he said, “they have the chance to stop it, but they just keep going.” Well, boo-hoo for freedom of speech, something he should be thankful for. The Christian Voice once published a scandalous pamphlet against gay police officers which at one point claims “Homosexual police are involved in the most disgusting perversions imaginable – how can they bring clean hands to any investigation?”Astoundingly offensive in this day and age, and yet the Christian Voice continues as a publication and a website.

After the broadcast, the BBC received just 900 follow-up complaints (and around 500 messages of support). And this suggests that once the public had watched it, they realised that perhaps it wasn’t worth getting so worked up about a crappy musical comedy. Nonetheless, Stephen Green, who probably speaks for less than 1% of Christians, pursued the matter further and planned to prosecute the BBC for blasphemy. The Magistrates Court refused to issue a summons, a decision which was later ruled by the High Court. Protests continued and followed the Opera around at tour venues in 2006 and on the web. I’d have thought that the human race would have evolved beyond this stupidity by now, but since Green and the Christian Voice probably abhor the theory of evolution, I suppose they’re exempt.

And of the many thousands of people who complained about the show, I bet none of them stopped to consider all of us who have ever accidentally tuned in to ‘Songs of Praise’ and thought ‘Oh fuck, turn it over’ – If we complained, ours would outnumber their complaints by over a thousand to one. Talk about a ‘misuse of the licence fee’. And what would Jesus make of all this? He’d probably laugh his halo off.

But regardless of all the controversy surrounding the Jerry Springer: The Opera, and films like The Last Temptation of Christ and The Magdalene Sisters, it seems the Vatican at least has started to realise it is more productive to promote than suppress. As Mae West once said, “I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it.” Even today, Peter Mullan, director of The Magdalene Sisters, insists that his film does not attack religion, rather those who use it to for their own ends. “If you see the film,” he says, “it’s in no way an attack on the Catholic Church per se, and it’s certainly not an attack on faith. It implicitly admires faith […] Hopefully, within the film there is an attempt to look at the gulf between the truly faithful, and those who happen to be in control of the faithful.” Amen to that.

Also available from author Phil Russell:

BEYOND THE DARKNESS: Cult, Horror and Extreme Cinema

"FANS OF HARDCORE HORROR WOULD FAIR WELL WITH THIS COMPENDIUM" - HORRORNEWS.NET

BEYOND THE DARKNESS IS THE FIRST AND ONLY REFERENCE GUIDE ON THE MARKET TO EXPLORE THE MOST SHOCKING, DISTURBING, AND CONTROVERSIAL FILMS EVER MADE. ALONG WITH PLOT SYNOPSIS, ANALYSIS, AND BACKGROUND ON THE DIRECTORS AND ACTORS, THERE ARE ALSO DETAILS ON CENSORSHIP AND THE CONTROVERSY SPARKED. THE BOOK ALSO INCLUDES CHAPTERS ON SPANISH HORROR UNDER THE FRANCO REGIME, THE CAT III PHENOMENON, MONDO MOVIES AND SHOCKUMENTARIES, AND AN INTERVIEW WITH LEGENDARY UNDERGROUND FILMMAKER, NICK ZEDD. EVERYTHING FROM BIG BUDGET MAINSTREAM FILMS TO ARTHOUSE ODDITIES AND OBSCURITIES AND UNDERGROUND FLICKS ARE COVERED. IN THIS BOOK YOU'RE JUST AS LIKELY TO READ ABOUT DESPISED FILMMAKERS SUCH AS ANDREY ISKANOV, FRED VOGEL, AND UWE BOLL AS YOU ARE SUCH VITAL ARTISTS AS ABEL FERRARA, DAVID CRONENBERG, AND LARS VON TRIER. WITH MORE THAN 200 FILMS COVERED IT'S A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE DARKSIDE OF CINEMA.

"FOR FANS OF THE HORROR GENRE THIS IS A ***** FIVE STAR BOOK" - GOODREADS

Publication Date: Dec 31 2012

ISBN/EAN13: 1481865129/9781481865128

Page Count: 546

Binding Type: US Trade Paper

Trim Size: 6" x 9"

Language: English

Color: Black and White

Related Categories: Reference / Encyclopedias

Also available on Kindle