Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this movie. I actually missed a review week because I was making an effort to pull apart the surreal, twisted cinematic canvas that is Where The Dead Go To Die. I mean, I've watched plenty of films that have made me think and stayed with me long after the fact. But here I've just been trying to figure out what I can say within a review that would honestly give you an impression of Where the Dead Go To Die.

In hindsight, I should have been ready for something pretty bizarre given that director Jimmy ScreamerClauz was one of the team behind the utter mindf*ck that was Kuso. While that film was made up of a host of different components in a multi-part anthology, WTDGTD  links together three stories in Tainted Milk, Liquid Memories and The Masks The Monsters Wear with interweaving characters and a finale that makes some effort to explain the connection.

I suppose I'll just have to say it – I genuinely don't think anything I can say here will quite prepare you for this one. It feels like one of those nightmares that you wake up from that is so weird and dark that you just can't shake it for days, except that you're sharply awake and it lasts for an hour and a half. The visuals are so intense, horrifying and unique and can cut sharply to leave you completely confused and disoriented in trying to keep up with the plot threads, and the content of the three chapters themselves depict such depravity and corruption. 

Safe to say this is not animation as you know it.

I'm going to talk a bit about each of the three chapters, but I feel that I have to address two things that commonly come up in reviews of this one – the quality of the animation, and the voice acting. I've been considering this one pretty in-depth, and it's fair to say that the animation is often extremely rough and ready, the lip sync can be pretty off or simply non-existent at times and some of the voice acting isn't all that great. I don't think any of those are undue criticisms, but I was left wondering – would it make the film better if it was more polished, or created with a much bigger budget? Do you want this tapestry of night terrors to look like something Pixar spat when you fed it after midnight? And the conclusion I came to was no – in fact I think if you were to make the animation smooth and sharp it would very likely lose something. The raw oddness of the characters' movements and faces adds to the nightmarish quality of WTDGTD and is part of what makes it a movie you're likely never going to forget, for better or worse. And the animation in some of its more unorthodox moments is genuinely great – always original, often haunting and sometimes nothing short of nauseating. Having mulled it over aplenty I think even if you were going to remake this movie you would have to keep that style and feel of animation.

Anyway, the movie begins with Tainted Milk, where we follow poor old Tommy, whose parents are arguing incessantly while his mother is pregnant. He goes to talk to The Lady In The Well for advice, but finds someone else entirely. Enter Labby, a sinister black dog with red eyes voiced by Jimmy ScreamerClauz himself who is probably the star of the show. The way the lines are delivered was genuinely disturbing to me, a weird mix of human cadence and dog-like panting. Anyway, Labby tells Tommy his brother is going to be evil and that his mother's milk – and all mothers' milk – is tainted for the second child. Labby certainly exerts a powerful influence over the characters, and what follows is a hideous scene in which Labby rips out the fetus, kills the father and proceeds to – actually I won't spoil one of the most disturbing moments of the whole film. It's pretty infamous, and I'm sure if you read anything about the movie (or have seen it) you;ll know what I'm talking about. 

That's followed by Liquid Memories, our most psychedelic installment, which follows a mystery man as he drains the memories from people's minds in order to change them in the past, which can also alter the present. The plot is ostensibly him trying to save his dog Scruffles, but good lord do we go off the rails in this one. I doubt you'll see anything more visually crazy than this in all of your life – and any regular readers will know the kind of thing I watch on a weekly basis, so that's no mild statement. The plot is pretty loose here, but it is incredibly hard to take your eyes off it as we pinball from one sickening tableau to another.

We close with The Masks The Monsters Wear, and it's no hyperbole to say this is one of the most distressing half-hours of cinema I've ever had to sit through. This is right up there in the most harrowing endings stakes for my money. The story follows Ralph, who has the face of a dead conjoined twin attached to his head that his parents won't have removed because they still think it's alive. There's an upsetting scene at the dinner table where Ralph has to feed it, but that's just for starters as Ralph falls in love with Sophia, a young girl caught up in an abusive household and a child pornography ring. Some of the stuff in here really, really rattled me, I won't lie. Yes, it is animated, but still this was mighty hard to watch. Labby once again is there to guide Ralph to a grisly conclusion, and a cryptic finale that set me off thinking afresh about the whole film over again.

How to summarise? It's fair to say that WTDGTD won't be for everybody, and in terms of pure uniqueness and true shock factor it's probably right in there with the likes of Lucifer Valentine's Vomit Gore Trilogy. In many senses that's my nearest comparison – it's equally hard to compute, equally tough to watch and equally will likely sicken and turn off as many viewers as it will engage and fascinate. Similarly, despite all that, you simply cannot take your eyes off it – I was transfixed the whole way through, whether I really wanted to be or not. When I say it's entered the most disturbing film list I carry around in my head, that might give you some idea – I suspect a lot of viewers would struggle to handle this one.

Lucifer Valentine is one of those directors whose work you always approach with an element of caution. Having suffered through all four parts of the aptly titled Vomit Gore Trilogy (well, apt in terms of vomit and gore – four parts is obviously a bit more than your typical trilogy) as well as the short film A Perfect Child of Satan, I've been sharply aware for a while that my viewing collection of Valentine's films has been missing one, the 2012 documentary-style piece Black Metal Veins.

The story follows a cast of individuals involved in the Black Metal scene – although that's not really as much of a focus as the title might suggest – who are heavily into using heroin and other very strong drugs. As you would expect from this director, the movie is pretty unflinching and shows very frankly plenty of drug use and plenty of the negative effects of it. In fact, the film is presaged by a message to say that the film is not an attempt to glamorise the use of heroin, although I simply can't comprehend how that would be your take away from this bleak piece.

While some of the Lucifer Valentine touches are featured in the movie – the slowing down of images and distortion of sound among them – it's also a pretty different piece to anything of his previous work. I suppose ultimately it actually looks more like a film as you would recognise it – it has a clear plot and journey for the characters rather then being a host of surreal images and disturbing vignettes. When we first meet some of our main characters – including Doom and Raven – they seem to be relatively healthy and happy despite their continuous, excessive use of drugs. It's not initially presented as such an absolute horror show, although some of the tales they tell are pretty hair-raising.

It's when we cut to six months later that things take a darker turn, and it's immediately apparent that our characters – especially Raven – have suffered a pretty serious downturn in health, both physical and mental. It's also here that we encounter one of the standout characters, Autumn Misery, a colourful prostitute with a fine line in anecdotes told while vomiting into the toilet. The story closes with a pretty serious scene and a very dark image, although this is where we veer away from true 'documentary' – some of the footage, by Valentine's own admission, was made particularly for the movie. In fact, to simply film what transpires in the end would be mighty questionable – and some of what precedes it is questionable enough.

In the end, if you're a fan of the director's other work you might get something out of this, but it is a very different experience – it's simpler, it's more straightforward and it's less surreal and twisted. Equally if you're a bit nervous of approaching Lucifer Valentine's material, this one would be the place to start – it's no easy watch, but compared to the Vomit Gore movies it pales in comparison in the pure shock stakes. It's more a psychological than a physical range of torture on display here, and for me this was significantly easier to swallow. The plot is slim, and the pacing isn't the best – as a neo-documentary it loses pace here and there – but it's an interesting insight into a dark area of life nonetheless.


RATING: 7/10. Personally I don't consider this Valentine's best work – as brutally hard as the Vomit Gore films were to watch, they were simultaneously fascinating and have a kind of mystique that is going to be hard to ever replicate. Black Metal Veins is another pace entirely, and maybe from another director you would consider this shocking – maybe it's simply a matter that I've watched these in something of the wrong order! It has some strong and intense moments, but wanders around a bit too much to really reach the heights.

First up, I’ll just say don’t feel a need to go scrambling back through the old reviews for the Film Gutter take on Red Room. I’ve not seen it yet, but I figured it wouldn’t do a great deal of harm to watch this loosely-linked duology in reverse order. Besides, watching things in order is overrated anyway…

Red Room 2 was one of a swathe of splatter films to be emerging from Japan and the surrounds in the late 90s/early 200s, and to be honest these balls-to-the-wall gore films are not always my bag. But the concept of Red Room had always interested me immensely as a sort of Saw-esque concept, so I thought it was about time to get stuck in and check at least one of these films out.

The story centres on four characters thrust into the ‘King Game’ – there are four cards to draw, one of which is a king, and the player with the king in their hand gets to choose a forfeit for any other player – or players – to do. Although we start of relatively mild with the tasks being set, it’s not too long until things take a much more extreme twist, with one man having a toothbrush shoved deep into his nose being just a precursor. I must say what surprised me somewhat is how many of the tasks were more based on psychological than physical torture – one of the female characters has to stay silent while one of the male characters does what he wants in one tense scene, while there are two ‘timed’ sexual tasks that lend another unexpected slant on things. From what I know of the original, it was heavy on the gore and the brutality, but this one comes across less so. Sure, it’s uncomfortable viewing in several places, but I was certainly prepared for worse.

The main interest of the film for me comes from the cast of characters and the guessing and second guessing of who will win, who will form allegiances, who will win each hand, what will they do. Each character has a decent motivation – ostensibly a large amount of money, although each basically wants to be involved in the game for a different reason, which does give it a fascinating dynamic. I changed my bet a few times throughout the movie, which I certainly took as a good sign – I wouldn’t have given you a prediction with any confidence at any stage really.

So far that all sounds mighty positive, but it’s not a movie without its flaws. Some of the acting is pretty hokey, and the characters are pretty broadly drawn and stereotypical. Sure, there’s fun to be had with that in a number of places, but it might have been nice to get to know them a bit better. The flashbacks are OK but feel a little messy at times, and there’s no doubt that the whole thing is a bit cheaply made – limited sets, small cast – although I think generally it does make the best of that scenario. The ending is certainly very… interesting as well.

What this movie does have for all those flaws – and a word I often use – is a bit of verve. Everything is done whole-heartedly, no matter, how weird and wonderful, and while it might not necessarily live long in the memory as a masterpiece of extreme horror I was certainly entertained all the way through – and it’s hard to ask much more than that from any movie you put on.

RATING: 7.5/10. Most certainly more fun than I would have anticipated, with plenty of macabre humour and some pretty WTF moment features. While the acting may not be perfect, and the sets and camerawork is a bit limited, it does well within those limitations to create a story that is if not engrossing then at least engaging, and kept me wondering all the way through just how it was all going to play out. It’s certainly superior to several films in the subgenre that I could name – but of course won’t, because that would be rather mealy-mouthed – and has a little splash of panache that makes it a really enjoyable experience. Not likely one I’ll be revisiting but a perfectly fine way to while away about 90 minutes.