GROTESQUE (2009)
WARNING: The following review is intended for mature audiences only. Those who are turned off or offended by descriptions of extremely graphic violence, such as an eyeball being plucked out by a sharp needle, nipples being sliced off with scissors, guts being pulled out of a live screaming victim, and a scrotum being impaled by spikes, should not read this review. Viewer discretion is advised.
Grotesque received quite a bit off press when it was banned in the U.K. for "featuring sexual sadism for its own sake." Hmmm. That sounds like an excellent selling point for me. But what are other people saying about this movie?
As expected, we get the usual bleats, like "This movie deserves to be banned" and "Only a sick fuck would watch this movie."
For our purposes, let me offer this exchange. Peter Hall at the Horror Squad website put Grotesque on his list of "Movies I will Never See." This elicited a viewer response, saying, "So far, it looks like the films on your 'Movies I will Never See' List are the same ones on my 'Movies That Give me a Huge Ass Boner' List."
So which is it? Totally disgusting or boner material? In my opinion, a lot of the former and just a bit of the latter.
Koji Shiraishi's movie tells the delightful story of a couple, Aki (Tsugumi Nagasawa) and Kazuo (Hiroaki Kawatsure), who are abducted and tortured by a madman. And that folks, as far as I can tell, is the entire plot of the film.
Aki and Kazuo are smacked over the head with a hammer in a dark underground parking lot. When they awaken in a dingy basement dungeon, they are tied in standing spreadeagles by thick ropes on two metal slates and are sporting white whiffle-ball gags. The killer (Shigeo Osako), a calm, methodical type, turns the slates around so his two victims are facing each other, and thus can witness the horrifying things he will do. Aki does a nice job of looking terrified and confused.
After working on Kazuo, including a blood- and vomit-inducing impalement through a hole in the ball gag, the killer leaves the two lovebirds tied up (the bonds are simple but look effective) in the dark. Aki has a flashback to a dinner date with Kazuo before the abduction. Aki's more cute than gorgeous and looks and talks like a sweet Japanese girl whom you'd love to see tortured by Randa Mai. Instead we get this weirdo killer, who does have his good points.
Aki probably regrets drinking all that wine at dinner because she relieves herself just as the lights are turned back on and the killer returns. After some coffee and cake, the maniac walks over to Aki to prove that he really takes the cake. What follows is the best (or only) GIMP scene in the movie.
He lifts up Aki's skirt to reveal and cut off her panties in full view of Kazuo, just to show him what he ain't getting tonight. The nutter cleans Aki up a bit with a cloth. He unties her blouse, lifts up her slip and cuts off her bra to show her smallish but nice-enough tits. He caresses what seems to be every inch of her skin as she pants in fear through the gag. He kisses her legs, and moves up to her tits and gently licks her nipples. Aki's eyes widen and she stares at Kazuo in a plea for help that will never come.
Something else comes instead. After groping and licking those breasts, our horny killer shoves his hand up Aki's skirt and fingers her. Aki's reactions are quite good as he increases the speed of his action until she orgasms (she's a squirter). The killer considerately shows Kazuo the juice from Aki that covers his hand. He wipes it on Kazuo's nose.
(He then gives Kazuo a handjob and his spooge hits Aki in the face. Good distance, I might add.)
The victims are chloroformed and wake up strapped down on their backs.
I assume that that part of the movie is the "dreaded" sexual torture that so offended the censors. Although I really liked this scene, it could have easily been a tame one from a Japanese bondage video. There was nothing really shocking or brutal in these so-called rapes.
Anyway, from this point in the movie, it's pure torture in every sense of the word.
Briefly, Kazuo endures:
Fingers cut off by a chainsaw, nails hammered through his scrotum, eyeball plucked out with a needle, castration by knife, Aki's severed finger shoved up his nose, intestine pulled out and tied to a pipe.
Aki suffers:
Fingers and right arm up to the elbow cut off by chainsaw, nipples chopped off by scissors, forced to wear a necklace consisting of Kazuo's fingers, gutted with a chainsaw, decapitated with an axe.
(The victims are kept alive because the killer tends to their wounds.)
Yes, these scenes were definitely cringe-worthy and the special effects were probably good enough to convince Charlie Sheen that this was a snuff flick.
As a movie, the film does not make any pretenses from the start: It's simply about a lunatic who, for reasons not really explained, tortures these two people in every vile way imaginable. The torture is indeed relentless but Koji Shiraishi does add some artistic elements, like the part where Aki and Kazuo finds themselves in a spotless hospital room, bandaged up and recovering from their wounds. The killer is the kindly doctor who feeds them and helps in their rehabilitation. Aki and Kazuo cheerfully encourage each other and even share a laugh or two.
This bit reminds me of the "false hope" scene in Funny Games--it was absolutely unnecessary, disrupted the flow of the terror and was totally retarded. You've lost your fingers and an eye, you've got a gash in your side, your balls have been perforated and the last person who will ever touch your now-missing dick is a guy! Would you be laughing? Would you be telling your nipple-less girlfriend that things will work out? NO! You'd be looking like this! or this!
Other "artistic" elements include Aki's severed head biting the killer in the neck and Kazuo, showing remarkable strength for someone whose guts are splashed on the floor, stabbing the killer with scissors.
Overall, the production values of Grotesque are high and the acting is quite good, especially Shigeo Osako as the creepy killer. But I can only give this movie a low grade simply because it really isn't much of a movie. It does indeed seem an excuse to show off the latest effects in the gore genre, and frankly, they were really nothing new. If the intent was to shock viewers and make them feel "dirty," then I'd say the "August Underground" movies do a better job.
GIMP-wise, the fingering-groping scene with the lovely Tsugumi Nagasawa was nice, but the only one really worth mentioning.
If you're into dismemberment, this movie is for you. But for those looking for cute Japanese women getting sexually tortured without all the blood, my advice is to watch a Japanese Attackers film instead and ask A Canadian to review it :-)
My Grades
As a movie: D (Not an F because the movie did piss off the prudes)
GIMP scene: C