Honestly, I’m a pretty big fan of anthology horror – probably even more so as I get older. In fact it’s something I’ve noticed across all the facets of my life – I’m leaning towards shorter books and TV shows with less series – perhaps I just don’t have the same attention span anymore. Anthology horror can provide a lot of entertainment in dividing a film up into pieces, with all the fun of the framing device around it too. I’ve got a lot of favourites too – The ABCs of Death, Little Deaths and Phobia among them. Even though the subgenre itself can be hit and miss, if you have a few crackers then you can certainly go home happy after watching it.

Which brings us to Sick-o-Pathics, a 1995 Italian offering with an almost alarmingly short runtime of just under an hour. Maybe that should have set alarm bells ringing, but I must admit I was drawn in more than anything by the list of cameos here. Lewis Coates – sorry, I mean Luigi Cozzi – Joe D’Amato, Lucio Fulci, Linnea Quigley, Dario Sachetti, Sergio Stivaletti and more besides. There you have a veritable smorgasbord or horror and cult film royalty. Sadly to call most of these ‘cameos’ is a bit strong, as several of these appearances are in commercials between segments and last only a matter of seconds. That left me feeling ultimately a bit short-changed – the movie would lose literally nothing for them not being there, and those commercials probably add about ninety seconds total to the runtime. And as much as I hate to harp on the length of the film, the 55 minutes is also padded by a behind the scenes section after the final credits – so you’re probably getting about 45 minutes of actual movie when you come down to it.

I could maybe have forgiven all that if it’d been a great 45 minutes – but sadly it’s anything but. Our framing device is a rude street thug who stumbles upon the lair or movie director ‘Dare Dane’ (Dardano Sachetti) who insists on showing his films to this philistine who’s seen none of them. There are three segments – we kick of with Hello Dolly, which barely runs ten minutes and sees a man buying himself a sex doll that turns out to be murderous. I’ll give it credit for a truly gross scene where the doll spits out all the – how can I put this delicately? – ‘deposits’ from past users over her new owner. But other than that it’s pretty throwaway, and closes with a silly twist that doesn’t really add anything.

On a side note, it did occur to me this is the fourth killer sex doll I’ve seen, after Love Object, The Bitch is Back and The Sex Doll She Bitch. Is this some sort of trope I’ve just not been aware of? And if you must watch one, go for Love Object – it’s genuinely a great film.

We then move on to The Poor, The Flesh and The Bag (what does that title mean? Can anyone illuminate me?) in which a man finds a bag that he tries to return to its owner, but with money trouble impending instead takes it home and tries to pry it open – only for it to promptly grow an eye, then legs, then razor-sharp teeth with which it kills our protagonist and his wife. It’s plenty bloody, but I can’t say anything further than that really.

We close with Aerophagus, which is a spoof of Anthrophagus – honestly I haven’t seen the source material for many, many years, so I expect a certain number of the jokes probably passed me by. To call this gross-out humour probably doesn’t do it justice, and it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I laughed once or twice, but not really enough to justify this one taking up about half the run time – including a montage of people walking the streets that eats up about three minutes.

Ultimately Sick-o-Pathics looks cheap – going for that shot on video aesthetic that seemed to be a feature of the 80s and 90s – and also feels cheap. It draws you in with a bunch of barely-existent cameos, then delivers three poor segments that deliver in the gore and grossness but precious little else. I have seen worse, but that wouldn’t be an especially long list. There might be some cult value for the absolute completists out there, but everything here has been done better elsewhere. There are better SOV movies, there are better anthology movies, there are better horror-comedies and there are certainly better ways to spend an hour of your life.

RATING: 2/10. I’ve given it a couple of points for the times it either grossed me out or made me chuckle a little, but Sick-o-Pathics is probably one only for the most hardcore of cult movie afficionados. It looks cheaply-made, there’s nothing particularly original here and the cameos were obviously a ploy to suck in viewers such as myself and sadly just don’t deliver in time or impact. This really could have been a fun project, but it just doesn’t land as it might have.

Well that most certainly didn’t bring a smile to my face…

I’ve discussed in these pages before that it’s rare I get to review much British cinema, but I recently stumbled across this one on Amazon Prime which I had a dim recollection of watching some years back and an equally dim recall of rather liking. It’s equally not that common I get to watch much by way of found footage movies, so this one ticks two bills that make it a little different from our usual fare. Dom Rotheroe’s 2007 feature seemed to go by fairly unheralded, but having just polished this one of for the second time it feels like it didn’t get the credit it deserved.

So, Exhibit A is presented as just that – a police evidence tape. The whole thing is shot on a camcorder freshly bought by the King family, mostly carried around by teenage daughter Judith. In no small part she uses it to obsessively spy on neighbour Claire, who she’s infatuated with. But we also capture plenty of the family life, and there’s big news as dad Andy has gotten a promotion that enables them to move to a bigger house. From that point on, though, Andy begins to act increasingly erratically and secretively. As things get more and more bizarre, it turns out that he’s not got the promotion at all and trouble is brewing inside and outside of the King household. This leads to the underlying tension in the family exploding to a boiling point and all the secrets of its four members coming out…

Exhibit A is certainly not the most extreme movie I’ve watched in terms of gore and violence – in fact it’s probably one of the least in-your-face brutal offerings to date. But it’s an absolute car crash of a movie – not that it’s bad, but in the sense that you’re watching it knowing that something incredibly awful is ultimately going to happen. It’s a slow burner for sure, and takes a bit of time to get going, but I’d argue that changing the pacing would make the whole thing feel rather artificial. To keep that natural edge it can’t all be on point and smooth plot development in the way a traditional film might be. Some of the shots are only really to help develop character, but I don’t mind that personally. The family dynamic feels very believable, and Bradley Cole does a great job in the role of father Andy, going from a harmless, bumbling ball of dad jokes to an uptight, desperate and ultimately dangerous individual. There are lots of nice reveals throughout, and it’s a deeply uneasy and uncomfortable watch – it reminds me of something like a Megan is Missing or even A Requiem For a Dream in its structure, and sits not exactly on a par with those two but sure as hell not far off.

With all that said, it’s not without its flaws. While I think the two lead characters in Andy and Judith are really well performed, some of the other acting displays are not quite on that same level. The found footage means that some of the elements look very chaotic – that may well have been by design, but at times it does feel a little much, particularly the amount of night vision that gets used throughout. Plot-wise it is a little messy, not always moving along neatly, but I didn’t mind that so much as a way to capture more reality. But overall this is a film that leaves a very strong impression, and is not likely to leave your memory any time soon…

RATING: 8/10. British found footage is not something I’ve really encountered before – though I’m sure it’s out there – but this was a very fine offering. Dreadfully claustrophobic and unpleasant to watch almost from the get-go, you’re simply waiting as a viewer for this one to degenerate into something horrible – and when it does, it does a great job of depicting that descent. It pulls the story together slowly, bit by bit, and if you’re partial to the subgenre of found footage I think you’ll be bound to get plenty out of this one. Just don’t expect it to do anything to brighten your day…

If I haven’t mentioned it for a while, Unearthed Films – the leaders in the field where it comes to extreme horror, run by the inestimable Stephen Biro – have a very fine channel on Vimeo with many of their films to rent, as well as host of trailers and behind-the-scenes clips. If you’re a regular reader round these parts, and consider yourself a lover of the field, you should be making an effort to watch at least some of their releases. I mention it because Dis is a film I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while, and you can watch this – and many more besides – on that Vimeo channel.  Adrian Corona’s movie has been on my radar for a while, and with a Bank Holiday to laze a little and watch some movies, I decided it was high time to check this one out.

Dis is a relatively short offering, but I’d say it’s an absolutely fascinating one nonetheless – in the couple of days since I polished it off I’ve been playing it around in my mind and thinking more deeply about certain elements of it. The story itself follows Ariel, a man wandering the forest (for reasons that will eventually become clear) searching for something largely undefined. We also see a strange figure in a mask, who has tied up a female prisoner with motivations that will also become clear in time. We then see flashbacks to Ariel’s previous life, with his lover Sofia in happier times – happier times that distinctly go south. However it’s not long until Ariel finds himself lured into the trap set by the very same kidnapper, and it’s there that his nightmare truly begins…

Personally I liked this film – there was something unique about it, and it had a feel and a storyline the likes of which I’d never seen before. It’s not an easy watch – not so much for brutality but for its overall off-kilter style – and it takes a bit of time to truly come together, but when it does the finale is dark and intriguing. It’s not a movie with any easy answers, but for me this is one of those occasions where that’s an advantage. I can’t honestly tell you any more about the storyline without utterly spoiling it, so that’s almost all I can say in terms of what spoke to me.

However I will add this – I can understand why someone wouldn’t like this movie, and the reviews on IMDB seem to be positively scathing. It’s not an opinion I can row in with though. Yes, the plot is relatively slim – but then so is the run time at barely over an hour. It’s told in a non-linear fashion, which equally is not for everybody, and switches from colour to black and white when it switches between past and present. Some of the references are obscure, and there are elements of the world which aren’t defined all that clearly – but then again I didn’t mind the mystery and the elements of the supernatural that were lightly implied. There’s plenty that also goes unanswered, but I feel like that’s a deliberate decision on behalf of the director. It’s hard to know whether making the film longer would have helped or hindered it – sometimes answering all the questions isn’t to a film’s advantage, and I wonder if this might be one of those cases. I think part of me would have liked more explanation, but then would the movie have stayed with me the same way?

You may well get a sense within 10 or 15 minutes whether this piece is for you, but overall I’d say if you like hints and intimations and subtlety this could be up your street. If you prefer things that run a little more smoothly and traditionally, and offer something near and complete, this might not be the one for you.

RATING: 8/10. This one is a strange, slight, intriguing and mysterious little offering, a short piece that offers up as many questions as it does answers. Its almost dreamlike – or nightmarelike – qualities really appealed to me personally, though I can certainly accept it’s not going to be for everyone. One thing that regular readers will know is that I love originality, and this was a movie that provided that for me, so I’m happy to give this one an 8/10.
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I do a lot of scouting around for films, and there’s more than a few on a very loose list I carry around in my head that I want to watch. I can’t claim that I’m all that organised, and tend to pick each week’s film on a bit of a whim, so this one was one of those cases of ‘about time’. Sex Galaxy is a 2008 offering with a claim that I believe is unique in film history in that it’s entirely recycled. Yes, that’s right – Sex Galaxy is entirely cobbled together from old, out of copyright footage from the 60s and earlier. That’s not only environmentally friendly – the director himself describes it as a ‘green film’ – but makes for a watch quite unlike any other.

Mike Davis’s offering is constructed from a mix of dated public safety videos, the odd striptease clip and a heavy dose of campy, out of copyright 60s sci-fi. The main elements are taken from 1968’s Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women, which in turn was in no small part ripped from an even more obscure SF offering from 1962 called Planeta Bur. It’s a mighty fun concept, but how does Sex Galaxy stack up as a comedy?

The plot of the movie – stitched together as it is – follows veteran spacefarer Giles, innocent young Billy and wealthy tourist Ben Dorset as they travel to deal with a plumbing problem on a distant planet, which apparently doesn’t have a plunger anywhere on the globe for some reason. The background behind the story is that because of various environmental issues on Earth (mostly a lack of water), sex before marriage is strictly outlawed, leading to a trio of very frustrated males heading off into space. Having repaired the plumbing issue, they head off in search of a mysterious ‘Sex Galaxy’ filled with virile women every bit as desperate as our main cast. However, when they get there, they find dinosaurs and other natural threats, as well as a crazed robot attempting to pimp out the native Amazon women and two lost spacemen to rescue. And they might just find a solution to Earth’s water problem while they’re at it…

It sounds bonkers, and that’s probably because it is bonkers. The very concept of making a dubbed comedy from old footage is something pretty out there, but the whole thing is genuinely really enjoyable. The dubbing is of course miles off, but if you can ignore that the new soundtrack is significantly funnier than anything that might have been there before – it’s plenty lewd in the comedy stakes, as both the male and female characters seem to be every bit as obsessed with sex as one another. I wonder how much was scripted and how much was simply off the cuff – some feels distinctly improvised.

There are a few different threads of story, but nothing to make it particularly hard to follow. It’s the sort of movie just to sit down and switch your brain off to – I’ve watched plenty for Film Gutter that has been brutal and harrowing, but this is absolutely at the opposite end of the spectrum. Rarely does it say anything cutting and insightful – other than an ending that rather caught me by surprise – but who cares when there’s a good solid laugh every few minutes? It’s apparent everyone involved is enjoying themselves, and it’s hard not to get swept up in that.

RATING: 8/10. I liked this a lot, but honestly you can probably tell within five minutes if this mixture of old-school campy SF and new-school comedy dubbing is going to be for you. If you find yourself chuckling early on, then you’ll be set for a good time. If not, then maybe you’re best to look elsewhere, because that formula doesn’t change much. As you can probably tell, I fell into the former camp – I think this is a really creditable and fresh idea, and obviously a real passion project for director Mike Davis. It didn’t make me think deeply, or reflect on the world in a new way, but boy did I have a giggle – and it’s not often I can say that around these parts…

Now, regular readers will be aware than an awful lot of our Film Gutter movies are pretty out there. Often we delve into independent films, foreign offerings or cult classics, so to find something like The Experiment feels like a mighty departure. Without wanting to sound like I’m going ‘all Hollywood’, this 2010 movie has a stellar cast, headed by Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker, and is about as mainstream an offering as we’ve ever tackled. Then again, I still need to revisit Requiem for a Dream at some point too… *shudder*

Anyway, I’ve always been a fan of Adrien Brody’s work, and thematically this one certainly hits our brief, being a fictionalised retelling of the events of the Stanford Prison Experiment. This one always stayed with me from my days studying psychology at A-level and into degree level. The original experiment, run by Professor Philip Zimbardo, took place in 1971 and divided test subjects into the roles of either prisoner or warder to study the impact of authority and how people would react to this power dynamic and the roles they were given. The whole experiment was called off after six days after the prisoners endured psychological torture at the hands of the guards, including stripping them naked, removing their mattress, refusing to let them empty their toilet buckets, spraying them with fire extinguishers and placing them in dark cupboards for extended periods as solitary confinement. For all its flawed methodology, it’s a fascinating insight into the human condition – even Zimbardo himself said the whole thing is perhaps better viewed as a demonstration rather than a pure experiment.

So – an excellent cast, and some fascinating (and dark) real-life material to call upon. Surely The Experiment must be a banker? Well, yes and no…

Brody plays Travis, a confirmed pacifist who becomes known as prisoner number 77. Each person is taking part in the experiment to get paid ($1000 dollars a day, no less) but isn’t quite clear what the experiment actually is, apart from the fact it will last two weeks. On arrival at an out of the way location, the group is broken up into prisoners and guards and from there the mayhem simply escalates. Throughout the runtime the guards become ever more brutal and sadistic, focussing particularly on prisoner 77 and the ministrations of his nemesis Barris, played by Whitaker. What’s depicted here in the film is worse than anything from the real-life experiment, although it does largely shy away from anything too brutal – Film Gutter regular might find this one doesn’t quite have the gore or violence of some offerings, but it certainly remains an unsettling watch as the psychological warfare is played out.

So The Experiment is good, but there are still niggles that are going to hold this back from a truly exemplary grade. As an actual representation of its source material, it is very much sensationalised, although some may not find that to be a problem. Some of the characters (beside Travis and Barris) are very broadly drawn and stereotypical, which leaves a sense that there could have been more to this – nerdy comic book writer Benji feels like a prime example, and his health storyline feels like a real tack-on just to advance conflict elsewhere. Some of the guards have little to no character development, and even strong performances by Brody and Whitaker as the veneer of civilisation slips away from both of them can’t remove that feeling. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the finale, although I won’t say too much on that one for risk of spoilers. There’s a lot of elements here to suggest this could be genuinely great, but it just falls short and winds up being good.

RATING: 7/10. The Experiment is one of those films that would probably have horrified mainstream audiences, but not quite have been hard enough for an audience with more extreme tastes. There’s a lot of tension, some powerful moments and just the sort of fine performances you might have expected from the leads. However there’s enough not quite working as well as it might in the background to hold this one back from the absolute heights. Well worth a watch, but not liable to hit your top ten.

Before you even get into what a film is about, or who stars in it, or who the director is, you of course have the title. And in some cases a great title simply trumps everything else – as was the case with Debbie Does Damnation. Knowing sum total of zero about this movie before starting, I launched into it only to find that it is yet another black and white movie – what are the odds? Why do all the black and white offerings seem to have gathered together lately? Of course it’s not bad thing in its own right, but would the device – and everything else besides – work for Debbie Does Damnation?

The story begins not with Debbie at all, but with a naked young woman tied to an altar. And despite me saying that, I should clarify this film is not a porn film – although there’s no shying away from the fact there’s plenty of nudity throughout. When our captive escapes, it becomes quickly apparent that she is wandering through Hell – but don’t feel any need to get attached to this initial character. DDD is no doubt very limited on the budget front, because Hell looks rather more like a suburban house done up to be dark and grimy, although some of the imagery in the opening scene (and indeed throughout) is pretty disturbing in spite of that. Debbie is out next arrival to the bowels of the underworld, and she lasts rather longer, managing to escape the clutches of her captor and set off on a bizarre and slightly confusing mission in the very heart of a struggle for ultimate power over Hell. She is tasked with retrieving the horns of the devil, with one each being held by the respective leaders of two factions fighting for control of the underworld.

There’s no doubt DDD feels like a labour of love, and something that all involved appear to be having fun with. The story probably sounds significantly darker than it actually comes across, and there are numerous things that make that the case – some of the fight scenes look really amateurish, the visuals can be bleak and shocking but can also veer into the absurd, and probably most egregious of all is the awful dub – with the film being shot in Super 8 the dialogue was evidently added later, and performed by rather too few actors and leaning for laughs that don’t always land. There are also numerous elements of Claymation, which I’m still on the fence about – they look decent in and of themselves, but when someone ‘real’ in the movie dies we often cut to a Claymation death, which does jolt me a bit. A fully Claymation movie from this team would certainly be of interest based on this offering though.

Ultimately there’s enough here that was fun, and there were some impressive visuals given the very limited budget (I’ve seen $1000 dollars quoted in a few places) but DDD is certainly not with its flaws. If you’re a fan of utter B-movies and exploitation films, then the odds are you will get a kick out of this one, and while I’m not a great lover of the form this kept me entertained –  admittedly sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones. I’d also slightly pick holes in the runtime here – while it is 63 minutes of a fashion, the main feature finishes at about 48 minutes and the rest seems to be behind the scenes footage, so it’s a push to even say this would take up an hour of your time ultimately.

RATING: 5.5/10. While critically there’s plenty to pick at, and this one is unlikely to live long in the memory, Debbie Does Damnation in many ways serves up exactly what you might expect given its title. I enjoyed it fine, despite its many flaws, and I couldn’t put you off if you want to switch your brain off for an hour and enjoy a few chuckles at a slightly silly, sometimes dark and often pretty imaginative little film curio.

Dir. Henry Xhonneux, 83 mins
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True, it may not be the first time I’ve uttered those particular words in writing this column for five or so years now, but I don’t think I’ve ever shouted it quite as loudly as I have for Marquis, a little-known late 80s production documenting (of a fashion) the Marquis de Sade’s imprisonment in The Bastille. Honestly I’m not up on my Marquis de Sade history, or indeed by reading of de Sade, so I won’t be commenting much on its veracity or historical accuracy.

Then again, bearing in mind that all the characters are depicted as human-size anthropomorphic animals, it’s probably not really trying to be a biopic per se…

So, Marquis is the deeply weird tale of the Marquis’ imprisonment, where he (in the form of a dog) is guarded by a love-struck rat called Ambert who has a strong sexual fascination with the Marquis. In the prison itself we also have the snivelling pig, Pigonou, the mysterious and seemingly important Lupino, a cow by the name of Justine who is pregnant with the king’s child after being raped, and a cowardly and conniving priest and jailor who effectively run The Bastille. My favourite character, however, probably remains Colin, the Marquis’ talking penis and main confidante throughout the runtime. Throw into that a dominatrix tormenting the submissive jailor to get favours and information and you have quite the interesting cocktail.

And god-damn it if I didn’t love every minute of this one.

It's fair to say that this is a movie that takes a little while to really tune in to, but once you’re past the initial stunned reaction this one is a huge amount of fun. The Marquis cuts a bizarre, enthralling and clearly disturbed figure who captivates the attention of many in The Bastille, and there are plenty of hilarious moments with the other characters throughout – the movie’s speciality is really its dark humour, which is certainly not going to be for everyone but tickled my funny bones just right. The performances are all well delivered, the puppetry/animatronics look really great, and because of all that the whole thing just has the feel of an absolutely out-there pantomime. The plot moves along at a really good pace, there are plenty of twists and turns en route and it has all the lewdness and strangeness that a film about the Marquis de Sade probably should. It certainly makes light of the real man’s proclivities, from what scant amount I know, and if anything presents him as the hero of the piece – a directorial choice that I expect could leave some viewers cold.

With all that said, taking Marquis in isolation as its own slice of craziness and inanity, there’s a huge amount to like here. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of originality in film, and this one certainly offers that up in spades with its surreal, twisted humour and unique visual choices. And it’s hard not to warm to the movie’s charms, despite the subject matter. Not only did I think this was a good film, I actually really enjoyed it – and those two things do not always go together in this particular column…

RATING: 10/10. Brace yourself for something utterly bonkers – the minute The Marquis starts talking to his own penis you will know exactly the sort of film that you are getting into. But even more than thirty years on from release this one looks great, it has loads of ribald comedy throughout and just has a fantastic energy and sense of fun it’s hard to resist falling for. I’ve not smiled watching a movie like this for ages – which might say more about me than is comfortable – but this one comes with the coveted top mark of 10/10.

I know. I know. Just last week you were asking yourself how on earth I’d omitted Begotten from the five-plus years of reviews, and this week I roll up with Tetsuo: The Iron Man. What sort of extreme and cult horror film reviewer do you call yourself if you haven’t reviewed this movie, I hear you cry! Well, today I shall be putting that right with a look at this industrial cult hit of the late eighties.

To provide a bit of background, Tetsuo: The Iron Man builds on Tsukamoto’s earlier short films in theme and style, and was made with money saved up by the director from his day job. The shoot took place over eighteen months, with many of the cast becoming frustrated and burned out towards the end of proceedings – although I can’t honestly say that bleeds into what we see on screen. No doubt the movie is made on a low budget, but I was pleasantly surprised just how fresh it looked, and how impressive the special effects were for a movie that is now over 30 years old – the black and white colour scheme and stop motion no doubt do something to hide the shortcomings the visual FX might have had. Like Begotten, the black and white actually adds to the feel rather than detracting, fitting the metallic tones of the piece here.

The story itself is presented in quite a complex fashion, with numerous flashbacks and switches in time, and this again adds to the surreal atmosphere. Our cast is unnamed, titled more by characteristics, and the plot begins as Metal Fetishist (played by the director himself) is flattened in the middle of the road by a distracted Salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi). His revenge is to transform the Salaryman into a nightmarish abomination of metal and flesh, with this dark transformation taking place throughout the film. It features a host of very well-delivered body horror scenes, including a few scenes with his girlfriend with dark sexual undercurrents, and a number of bizarre dream sequences to boot. What ultimately transpires is a battle between the Metal Fetishist and the Salaryman, all shot in striking stop motion – a cleverly selected device for those specific scenes.

That plot summary doesn’t really do this movie justice. By the time you’ve thrown in a superb, driving industrial soundtrack you have something visually arresting with real pace, strong performances and an unusual style rarely seen before or since. This one kept me – ahem – riveted throughout and left a real impression, with key scenes whirling around in my head ever since, and I came away really satisfied as a viewer. It may be tight at 67 minutes, but much longer and that relentless tempo and wild imagery may have started to lag – definitely a case of less is more here.  There’s two sequels to this one, and based on this gloriously overblown first offering I’ll certainly be seeking those out soon.

RATING: 9.5/10. I almost, almost went for the full 10 here, but there was the odd scene that slightly lost me so I just held it back a touch for that. But Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a movie with a bold visual style and a fascinatingly dark and surreal story to tell. The performances are strong and committed, and I was especially struck with just how well the effects still help up all these years on – the stylistic choices certainly seem to have enabled them to hold their impact. This is well worth going out of your way to check out if you haven’t yet, especially for fans of cyberpunk, science-fiction horror and body horror.

By Alex Davis 

I know. I know. You’re probably thinking to yourself, Alex, how can you have been doing Film Gutter for five and a bit years and not have reviewed Begotten yet? Simply put, it’s one of those anomalies made up of many factors – much of which is that I have to really drum up the enthusiasm to watch something quite this dark and unusual. I’ve still yet to turn my attention to Salo, or Melancholie Der Engel, so there’s plenty of the classics left to cover yet – I’ll get to them all, don’t worry.

But here we are – and if you’ve not heard of Begotten, it’s a late 80s experimental art piece that has developed a cult following over time. Directed by E. Elias Merhige, who originally envisaged the movie as a theatrical piece, it’s a painstakingly shot and crafted movie made in washed-out black and white. And when I say black and white I mean black and white, because the director spent a long time editing out the majority of the grey from the colour scheme. There’s no dialogue either, so it should be apparent from the get-go this is something pretty different from practically anything else in cinema.

The story itself – and honestly I had to do some research to really tell you about this – is a sort of creation myth, of a suicidal god killing himself before impregnating the Mother of Earth (yes, really), and the dark events that happen to her and the just-born Son of Earth. I can’t lie that it’s hard to really pull that apart without an assist – Begotten is as much a piece of visual art as it is a film, and while much of the imagery and ideas are fascinating it feels almost impenetrable to watch. There are no concessions made to the viewer – a number of the scenes actually make it hard to distinguish what’s going on, and the lack of dialogue makes everything even more difficult to interpret. However, I’m confident that’s deliberate, all part of the effect the movie was going for. When you add to that a soundtrack mostly made up of chirping crickets (or that sort of noise) only occasionally spliced with much darker, unpleasant sounds, it’s almost hard to stay awake through – I can’t help but wonder again if this is all on purpose somehow…

In many ways, the ‘lore’ surrounding this movie is what has helped it live on. Famed critic Susan Sontag was firmly behind the film, hosting private screenings at her house and dubbing it one of the 10 most important films of modern times. Merhige claims each minute of the movie took eight to nine hours to create, and estimates on how long it took to make the film go anything up to ten years. It has rarely been seen in cinemas, with IMDB listing only four theatrical screenings in the over thirty years since its release. There’s a widespread rumour that Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar album was designed as an unofficial soundtrack – its running time matches Begotten almost perfectly, and numerous synchronicities can be seen throughout. Manson allegedly had the film on loop while recording the album, and the artwork of Antichrist Superstar was heavily influenced by the movie.

Make of all that what you will, but Begotten is doubtless a cinematic experience worth checking out. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, or even loved it, but what I have always had a strong respect for as a viewer is a director with a distinct vision and the bravery to push that all the way – and that’s doubtless the case here. Everything feels carefully considered and crafted, and it’s hard to think that Merhige could have delivered his product any better than this. It’s interesting more than it is compelling, and a hard watch not just for some of its extreme content but also trying to puzzle out precisely what it is you’re seeing on screen. It’s sometimes argued that even 72 minutes is too long, and I wouldn’t argue too much with that – an hour maybe could have worked better. I wouldn’t even say it was enjoyable, but I’m certainly glad that I watched it regardless in terms of my own extreme horror education, and indeed broader film education.

RATING: 7/10. A slightly hard one to rate – if I were rating it as a piece of art and a unique vision, it would probably be 10/10, but then when I rate it as an actual experience to watch it’s a little long and hard to make out and hard to follow, so that drags it down to a more suitable 7/10. I genuinely wouldn’t put anyone off watching it – especially if you do want something different, as it’s hard to pick out anything quite like it. My closest reference points would be something like Eraserhead, or Flowers/Lung II, or maybe even Subconscious Cruelty. Go seek it out, but do brace yourself for a difficult viewing experience…

Another fairly random entry for Film Gutter this week, as the regular search for inspiration led me to this decade-old offering from Ryan Nicholson, who sadly died last year at only 48 years old. He left behind a fine legacy of extreme horror movies, and we’ve looked at some of his previous offerings before – Collar and Gutterballs in particular – and both of those were equal parts grim and comedic. That’s about what I was expecting from Famine, and that’s about what I got.

The story itself follows a cast of seniors in high school (as far as my understanding of the US school system goes) who are attending a 24-hour famine in an attempt to land some extra credit. The event is led by bitchy teacher Miss Vickers, who seems to have a particular fixation with ‘geeky’ Jenny. Those inverted commas mean that we’re told she’s geeky, despite the fact she doesn’t look anything like the ‘traditional’ high school geek.

The famine is attended by most of the jocks and popular girls too, and Sarah and Jenny in particular are constantly at loggerheads throughout the night. However the famine has a dark history, as five years before, the previous famine led to the death of a teacher. And, in true horror film style, there’s a mysterious killer stalking the students one by one…

It’s fair to say that Famine is nothing revelatory, and hits plenty of the sorts of slasher horror tropes you will have seen time and time again. However a lot of it is played for laughs – the school itself is called Sloppy Secondary, which sets up the sort of tone from the very beginning, and almost every role is completely overplayed. Jenny has a habit of shouting about every other line for no particular reason, our resident ‘psycho’ Kathy overdoes that particular routine with her random mumblings, and we also have the creepy janitor and the stern German headteacher to boot. There’s nothing especially subtle or nuanced about it, but there are a few chuckles here and there along the way as it pokes at both serial killer movies and even bits of the 90s and 2000s high school movie.

With that said, it’s not all giggles, and befitting much of Nicholson’s work as director the gore is pretty brutal and uncompromising. You might well have seen worse if you watch a lot of these films I review, but there were scenes in here that did have me flinching and uncomfortable for sure. This is enhanced by the gore effects too, which do look really good as always in Nicholson’s work.

Honestly I can’t go nuts on Famine – the jokes probably landed about half the time at most, and for everything that made me smile there was at least one moment that made me roll my eyes or sigh. It’s probably best described as a popcorn horror movie – if you switch your brain off at the door, have a few drinks and a good range of snacks, you’ll probably have some fun with this one. It didn’t have quite the brutality of Collar, and had more in common with Gutterballs with its strange mixture of brutal violence and base humour. It’s worth a look if you like horror-comedy with a more extreme edge, but if that’s not your bag then you might be better sitting this one out.

RATING: 4.5/10. Ultimately Famine was enjoyable enough, although at 77 minutes it was a pretty slight offering. Then again it’s hard to say what more you could have done had you extended the run time, with the plot being slim and all too familiar to many. The performances are generally likeable, deliberately hammed up to the hilt, although the script and the characterisation is pretty hit and miss to go along with that. There’s fun to be had here, but for me there’s no real sense that this one will live long in the memory, so it’s a slightly below average 4.5/10 from me.