When it comes to undefeated streaks, there are all sorts of decorated sports people that come to mind. Floyd Mayweather's unbeaten 50-0 boxing career, or the 14 consecutive wins of the 'wonder horse' Frankel, or Arsenal's acclaimed 'Invincible' Premier League season.

And, since its inception, Film Gutter has been carrying its own undefeated record – in almost four years and nearly 200 movies, no film has beaten me yet. In that time I've seen things I never thought I would see, and many things I frankly wish I could unsee, but I've gone from start to finish on every single review. That's included cringing, retching, almost crying and actual crying, but never pressing the stop button. I started the series with a sort of curiosity as to whether that movie was even out there, if it even existed – like seeking Atlantis or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now I know it is out there, and it wasn't just a myth after all...

Yes, today that undefeated streak has sadly come to an end. It had to happen eventually – there have been near-misses in the past, with Thanatomorphose, Vase De Noces and the offerings of Lucifer Valentine leaping to mind as some of the most gruelling movies I've had to suffer through for the sake of Film Gutter. There were moments I could have given up in all those films, and probably more besides, but I managed to dig deep and find a way through the distressing content there.

So what was the movie that finally beat me? Green Elephant. And to be honest, I can't really call this a review – it's probably half a review at best, because I got about halfway through before I reached scene I simply couldn't go past. Svetlana Baskova's 1999 offering is an experimental exploitation horror film that follows two Russian soldiers incarcerated in a tiny, grimy cell. It's never made entirely clear why they are there, but what is apparent is that the two are struggling to live in this confined space with one another, and the tension between the two really crackles away. There are even some funny moments within the first half hour or so, and I was enjoying myself enough – even if enjoying wasn't quite the word, I was certainly interested to see more.
 
However there was a scene at about 42 minutes in that I just couldn't stomach, which had echoes of one of the roughest scenes I had to ensure from the aforementioned Vase De Noces. As the moments wore on I found myself retching really notably, and I thought to myself 'if I carry on I'm actually going to throw up'. I even tried to come back to watch it again later but had such a similar reaction that I just figured it wasn't wise to carry on. In fact even the thought of it in typing this review makes me feel pretty queasy.

I suppose I could have skipped that scene and watched the rest of the movie, but that simply would have felt like cheating. I'm not too big to admit when I'm beaten, and it didn't feel right to try and disguise the fact. So hats off to Green Elephant and all involved – you've succeeded where stacks of directors and hundreds of movies have failed. Maybe there'll be another film in the next four years to take over that mantle, or join this one in the Film Gutter Hall of Fame, but for now it has the honour of being the only movie to make me press stop and say 'that's a bit too much for me'.

For those of you who want to take this mini-review/feature as a dare, then good luck to you. Otherwise Film Gutter will be back for its regular programming next week, where we will actually have a complete movie to comment on...

Today we are honoured to bring you an exclusive in depth interview with the world famous film director Uwe Boll.   

Uwe Boll is a German restaurateur and retired filmmaker. He financed his own films through his production companies Boll KG and Event Film Productions. Many of his films were produced on low budgets and Boll himself had backed his projects financially or made use of crowdfunding platforms.

Boll's filmmaking career is generally divided into two distinct phases: the first consists of big budget films with a usually renowned cast, most of which gained him a reputation as a "schlock maestro".

His second phase is marked by films with a smaller budget or were independently made, relatively unknown actors and different approaches to filmmaking; Boll's Rampage film series, Tunnel Rats, Stoic, Amoklauf, Heart of America, Assault on Wall Street and Darfur. 

After losing financing and facing constant criticism, Boll partially retired from filmmaking in 2016  to work in the restaurant industry. He opened his Bauhaus Restaurant in Vancouver, which has earned positive reviews among food critics.

be sure to check out Uwe's website 

WWW.UWEBOLLRAW.COM


and be sure to check out his highly entertaining  Youtube Channel is always a  bust watch, 

In the meantime make sure to check out all the articles in our Octo-Boll series 

Well, it's time to draw Octo-Boll to a close, and we'll be continuing on in the same cheerful vein of last week's Seed with our concluding entry. It takes a brave director to tackle a subject like Auschwitz, but there's no doubting that Uwe Boll is a director who doesn't lack for bravery. It certainly taps into the common political thread in many of Boll's movies – the Rampage trilogy is loaded with social commentary brought to us through the mouth of Bill Williamson, and Attack on Darfur and Assault on Wall Street carry an equal weight on that front. But what sort of power does Auschwitz hold as a movie in its own right?


We begin – and indeed close – with a small statement from Boll, in both German and English, talking about why he wanted to make this particular movie. Again the interest and passion for politics and the state of the world is very much apparent here, and the intent there is doubtless to ensure that people don't forget the impact of the awful events that took place in Auschwitz or indeed ignore some of the atrocities being committed around the world right now.

The film itself is comprised of two separate segments – there are a handful of interviews with schoolchildren about the events of Auschwitz, which are interesting in their own right. As someone in their mid-thirties it's sometimes easy to lose touch of what the newer generation thinks of things and what understanding they have of events that we often take for granted. However it feels to me like there are a few too many of these, and I think I could have lived with more of the main thread of the movie set within Auschwitz.
 
It's immediately apparent from Boll's intro that there's not going to be any heroics or Hollywood makeovers to events here – the presentation of in Auschwitz is very frank and very unadorned, and doesn't really follow much of a narrative structure. In fact it's almost documentary style and is basically a sort of 'day in the life' of the concentration camp. It's likely not as visually grotesque as it could have been, but it certainly packs a punch in the emotional stakes, with slews of Jewish prisoners arriving only to be stripped naked and pushed into the gas chambers – all shown pretty unflinchingly – including elderly people and children among the victims. There's also some unpleasant scenes later on as we start to see the bodies being burned in ovens. On top of that, there's also a smattering of footage from the time, which certainly hasn't lost any of its emotional impact all these years on.
 
Auschwitz certainly is a movie that gets its point across in a host of different ways, and it's likely a benefit that it has a slightly shorter runtime because it's simply not about narrative drive. If it were too long, that lack of arcs and character journeys would be a serious problem, but the actual filmed 'mockumentary' element runs less than an hour and doesn't suffer much from offering almost a vignette approach. It's bald and unfurnished, and doesn't aim to do anything more than drive home the absolute horrors of what happened at Auschwitz. In that sense it's perfectly effective, and draws a strong comparison with Attack on Darfur, although that one has rather more of a recognisable three-act structure than this one. It's almost better not to approach this one as a film and more like a dramatised documentary, and taken in that context it does a good job.

RATING: 6.5/10. Another very solid Boll offering, with a heartfelt introduction and conclusion from the director himself, some interesting insight in terms of the knowledge and beliefs of the younger generation and a decently delivered documentary-style segment that doesn't shy from some of the terrible incidents of the time. With all that said, I do feel as though it is slightly limited by not really taking on a proper story set within that place and time period, and as such it doesn't maybe have the impact it could have if we knew the characters really well. So it's a very respectable 6.5/10 for this one to close off Octo-Boll.

Well, Film Gutter seems to have fallen upon technical difficulties, and that promised House of the Dead review might just have to wait, as it's completely vanished from my desktop somehow. So, in a slight change to your scheduled programming, today's offering will be Seed.

Looking at it now, in many senses, this is the perfect review to follow on from Attack on Darfur, which was deeply upsetting and extremely hard to watch. That motif is continued here with an unrelentingly bleak serial killer piece that enjoyed a sequel in 2014 and is probably most known for its opening five minutes. More of that in a moment.

One of the things I have always loved about Boll as a director is his unapologetic nature – he’s always made the films he wanted to make how he wanted them. Postal is a prime example of that attitude, and Seed is probably an even stronger one. This is grungy, grimy, gory and generally has nothing nice about it at all, including a heartily depressing ending and some genuinely shocking moments throughout.

Even with the above said, it’s not a bad film at all. In fact I think Seed is pretty good, but there does remain a slight sense that there could have been something even better in there just waiting to get out.

The story centres around serial killer Max Seed, who cuts a pretty terrifying figure throughout. He's been sentenced to death by electric chair, but having survived three blasts of electricity by state law he has to be released. However our lead, Detective Matt Bishop, is pressured into burying Seed rather than releasing him to commit more crimes. But Seed is anything but ready to leave it there, and it's not long before he's clawed his way from the grave and is ready to continue his killing spree and wreak his revenge.

In many ways, Seed is nothing original as one of a host of demented serial killer flicks. What sets it apart is the absolute brutality – dare I say nihilism – that is on show here. The opening scene is infamous for using footage of real animal suffering from PETA's archives (with PETA receiving a cut of the film's profits) that is indisputably hard to watch. There's also some deeply unpleasant scenes throughout, including one shot of a woman being beaten with an axe handle for five minutes solid which is really vicious. As such, I think there's enough to make this one stand out from the crowd as a strong example of its subgenre.

There are a handful of things that hold this one back for me – I think the performance from Michael Pare in the lead is a bit overblown in places, and the revenge plot is pretty obvious and contrived, treading little new ground. Some of the deaths are a little predictable to boot, and it would have been nice to see some more development of Seed beyond the masked killer stereotype.

I may have seen gorier, but this movie might just be one of the most depressing serial killer pictures you're ever likely to see. If you're a fan of the milieu, then Seed is certainly well worth a look.

RATING: 7/10. Since watching Seed, I've been trying to think of a movie as consistently upsetting as this one and pretty much drawn a blank. There's no comic relief and absolutely no let-up in the darkness on display, which might well be off-putting to a lot of viewers. But this pure howl of cinematic rage has plenty of tension to keep you watching, and barring a few smaller flaws is a strong example of its subgenre.


 
 

We're on to the second week of Octo-Boll, and having started with the wonderful ridiculousness that was Postal, it's time to move on to something very different. Boll's filmography certainly does take some unexpected turns, covering a whole host of genres, and what we have in Attack on Darfur is a surprising combination of political drama and exploitation flick.


Before we get into it further, I feel like we should just address the elephant in the room – yes, Darfur is a hideous human atrocity, and this movie is apparently inspired by that. For today I'm simply looking at the film on its own merits – I can't speak for its accuracy in depicting the real situation in Darfur, nor have I extensively researched the facts behind it before writing this review. There's plenty of people much better informed and qualified to look into that than me, and you'll no doubt find a plethora of information out there if you're interested in it or if this review makes you want to find out more. Film Gutter is a review column and that's what I'm going to stick to.

Right, sorry, let's move on...


The overriding impression of Attack on Darfur is that it's a little confused as to what it is. We begin following a crew of journalists in the region looking to find out more about the terrible attacks that have been taking place in the area – they discover a mass grave before they come to a small village and interview some of the residents about what they have been through. Likely that sounds fine to you, and a reasonable enough way to set some context. However this runs for about 45 minutes, and while there are undoubtedly interesting moments – and I believe this features some real people recounting their experiences rather than actors – it does feel a little long to establish the scene and the background.

That is until our attackers arrive at the village, and a tense situation develops, with the journalists' lives coming under threat before a diplomat encourages them to leave, simply giving the 'Janjaweed' aggressors free rein with a group of unarmed Sudanese villagers.


The next ten minutes I would genuinely have to rank among the most upsetting I've seen, as the village is all but wiped up with guns and machetes, huts are set on fire with people inside them, women are raped and racial slurs are uttered, the whole thing shot in a very chaotic manner on a handicam.


Our concluding section of the movie sees some of our journalists return to the village with guns in an effort to save the village – distinctly too late, you would have to say – and we have an action-based finale which retains one or two emotional moments. It also keeps much of its absolutely brutal flavour until the very end. Make no mistakes, this movie takes a little while to get over. There's next to nothing by way of redemption, hope or optimism in the finale.


Uwe Boll is a filmmaker that has always fascinated me, because he's always done things on his own terms, and the aim for this movie was obviously to shock you into reacting to this awful incident in recent history. In that respect, it is successful to a large extent. But I feel as though the surface brutality doesn't quite have the heart or meaning that it could have, and as such it doesn't have the emotional impact that it could. All day after watch this film I felt rattled, and my nerves were jangling, but I don't think I was as upset or angry as I could have been had this been grounded a bit more with its protagonists. It's hard to really know who the main characters are, or what the drive of the story is – it's not a tale of resistance or survival, being presented as a fly on the wall 'mockumentary' watching something horrible happen. In fact it's practically shot that way, with shaky cam neatly accompanied by shaky subtitles when they appear.

There is a sense for me this could have really been something fantastic, but I feel as though the message – and let's not knock it for trying to raise some awareness of this sort of tragedy – rather overtakes the intent to make a film and the narrative suffers as a result. It's good, but is a bit too disjointed to be great.


RATING: 6/10. There are a host of good things here – the cast is decent and the whole thing feels very real and very chaotic, and it's hard not to have some emotional response to some of the most in-your-face elements here. However the plot feels a little unfocused, and I don't think any of the characters are well-developed enough for it to really have the 'backend' to deliver the truly shocking effect it could have. This is a movie put together to make a point, and it unequivocally does that, but without being Boll's best movie. If you are going to check this one out, make sure to brace yourself though – it's one of the most unremittingly bleak movies I've watched so far, and it sure has some competition among these reviews...​

This October Film Gutter will be going simply Boll-istic with a month of movies from one of the world’s most infamous and divisive directors, Uwe Boll.

While Boll may have retired from film-making having completed the Rampage trilogy, his body of work retains a unique fascination for many film viewers, myself included. With a remarkable four movies in IMDB’s bottom 100, many of them video game tie-ins, Boll has released a range of comedies, horror movies, dramas, actions films and more, alongside work producing, writing and as a restaurateur.

While many of his movies have been critical flops, personally I’ve never understood the hate – I really enjoyed having the chance to interview Boll for the series, and all of his movies I’ve watched to date have ranged from passable to pretty damn good. The Rampage trilogy were all interesting movies, and Stoic was a distinctly brutal offering with some very good actors on board. But maybe it’s time we dug a bit deeper…

With a new documentary on the way, suitably called ‘F**k You All – The Uwe Boll Story’ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8476314/) we thought this’d be a good chance to look at some more of the output of this singular director. So, over the next four weeks, we’ll be reviewing Postal, Attack on Darfur, House of The Dead and Seed to see just how earned the man himself’s reputation is. We’re going to have a Boll (ball? Get it?) and we hope you have fun reading them too!


Why don't you read our interview with Uwe Boll why wait for the start of OCTO-BOLL 
​

Here's a treat – a chance to review a movie starring one of our friends at Film Gutter, and one of the regular contributors to Ginger Nuts of Horror! As well as being a fab reviewer and article writer, our very own Jonathan Butcher has starred in a short horror film by the name of Stuck. With all that said, how could I possibly pass up the chance to review it?


I've always been partial to a short film, and have watched some absolute doozies here at Film Gutter, from the dark and nightmarish to the weird and surreal. Stuck certainly leans on the bizarre comedy, and by keeping it simple retains a good sense of fun. No doubt it's made on a limited budget, but the idea and the script are imaginative and this was a pretty enjoyable experience all around.

Our story follows two friends and begins pretty innocuously, with one attempting to fix the sink – with a bit of builder's bum – and the other explaining his fun night on the town and taking a girl home. Unfortunately this girl made him put his member into some strange white powder, and his erection hasn't gone down for 24 hours since. When he goes to the bathroom to check out the situation, he realises just how painful and bloody his penis is, and comes out to beg his friend for help – but after an unfortunate slip the two find themselves pretty intimately intertwined...
 
I'm sure I can leave the rest to your imagination, but with the two unable to separate themselves – and with that pesky erection still refusing to go away – there's no sign they'll be able to extricate themselves and attain their freedom. What follows is pretty absurd but also somewhat disturbing, with various attempts to get away leading to a shocking reveal and a pretty dark finale.
 
At fifteen minutes this one doesn't stretch the premise, and the humourous elements are generally well delivered. The performances are solid, with some great deliveries – I have one absolute favourite line that I won't spoil here, but you might be able to guess it/spot it. It's decently shot, and many of the 'highlights' are presented with a slow-mo black and white look that enhances the effect each time. It's obvious the budget is tight but I don't really get a sense that it ever needed it – it's a two-hander, mostly located in one place, so there's not a huge amount you could spend it on in many ways.

Stuck is perfectly entertaining without necessarily being anything special, but there were enough chuckles to make it worth the time and if you like your humour sick and twisted you might just get a kick out of this one. Even better, it's free to watch on Youtube, so what the hell are you waiting for? Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNkg9oB_Zzw

RATING: 7/10. This is a movie I'd call 'light', although maybe years on Film Gutter have slightly altered my consideration of what makes a 'light' movie these days. But it's certainly one of the more entertaining entries of recent times, and it shoots by plenty quick without feeling like there's a whole lot left undone or uncovered. I'd say it's solid and tight, but both those terms might just carry an unfortunate connotation in this sense...

Dir. Jimmy ScreamerClauz, USA, 105 mins

It has to be said – watching horror on a regular basis does make you trawl through some pretty terrible movies. But you keep coming back, waiting and hoping for those glorious moments where a director absolutely smashes it out of the park and delivers horror at its very best – startling, original and impactful. We’re talking the likes of Martyrs, Flowers, Singapore Sling, The Woman and a handful more that you just know will stay with you forever, those rarefied movies that restore your faith in a genre that can be much more miss than hit.

Welcome to the club, Jimmy ScreamerClauz, because When Black Birds Fly has just earned its place among those movies.

We recently looked at ScreamerClauz’s second movie, Where The Dead Go To Die, which was bizarre and fascinating and featured what was – for me - one of the most disturbing passages in cinema with its final instalment, The Masks That The Monsters Wear. It was a singular and unique piece of work but certainly felt a little rough and ready in terms of its look and sometimes in the delivery of its ideas. When Black Birds Fly rectifies both of those things, delivering a smoother animation style and voice-over – while keeping all of the bizarre flavour – as well as focusing on a single, fascinating idea and exploring it to its fullest. Put simply, all of the promise of WTDGTD is gloriously delivered here.

Our story follows Marius, a young boy ‘born’ – in a mighty strange opening sequence – into a community called Heaven, which is watched over Big-Brother style by a religious icon called Caine. The only rule of Heaven is not to go beyond the wall, because evil waits on the other side. All of this is watched over by the masked, gun-toting figures of OSWA, a force put together to fight evil. The world-building is great – all the way down to the family watching tele-plays praising Caine and the shadowiness of the black and white world of Heaven is fantastic, only broken by the lurid colours of Caine’s posters and propaganda. Oh, and the blood, when that starts to arrive.

Of course, given that set-up, it’s not long before Marius and his friend Dotty discover a hole in the wall and are tempted through it by The Evil One, who lures them out disguised as an injured cat they want to help. The world outside of Heaven is an absolutely technicolour nightmare, and the contrast between that and our main setting is absolutely superb. The attention to detail on the background animation is genuinely great, in fact. From there we explore the strange backstory of God’s creation of man and woman, which looks absolutely fantastic and studies some incredible ideas.

There was simply no point at which I could take my eyes of this movie – I was absolutely transfixed all the way through, whether that was by the core concept and the dystopian landscape parading as ‘Heaven’, the strangeness of the imagery and visuals, the darkness of the plot, the inventiveness of the religious backstory… it all combines for a heady concoction.

When Black Birds Fly is everything that I look for in a movie – sharply original, visually unique, dark, brooding and so deep with ideas that it is bound to reward repeat viewing. I’d never genuinely have thought that an animation could have delivered something like this, but I’m certainly delighted to have found this one and the work of this director. As per WTDGTD, this isn’t likely to be for everybody, but it hit all the buttons perfectly for me. If you cross Adult Swim with your worst nightmare, then sprinkle a healthy dose of religious concepts on top,  you might end up with something like this.
RATING: 10/10. It’s been a while since I dished out top marks, but When Black Birds Fly is well deserving of it. Rarely can you say that ‘you won’t see anything else like this’, but in this case I can say it and mean it. Daringly different, deliciously dark and deceptively deep, WBBF demonstrates a unique director at the peak of his powers delivering what feels like his magnum opus. Not to be missed for any extreme horror fans out there.