Capsule Reviews: Disturbing Movies

This post herein contains many disturbed scene imagery. If you had a weak spot for horror films (let alone a disturbing exploitative films), it's in your best interest to skip this post entirely.

Saw III (2006)
There was this kind of machine with mechanical hands that grip a woman's ribcage. When the woman's failed to meet the requirement to obtain the key that's going to release her from the machine, the mechanical hands swung outward, literally rips the ribcage from the woman, killing her instantly, and let us, audiences see the inner organs of the dead woman (this version - where the shot came from the front - was unrated, the theater version shows this process - rip the ribcage - from behind the victim). That was one of the machine featured in the Saw III, third and latest installment in the life of Jigsaw, a serial killer whose obsessions was to build a wicked mechanical device to conduct various torture to his victims. I had waited for several months actually to watch this film. Because with all the hypes that has been going around this film, i had thought that it takes a lot of courage to watch this film. I was wrong. Saw III's torture scenes were well done, but the actual shoots weren't. It was a MTV's styled zoom-in zoom-out, fast-forward that followed immediately by a slow-mo, or vice-versa, that rips-off the suspense. And though some scenes received a rather lengthy camera focus, it wasn't sufficient to made me hide behind my pillow - which i had to admit, was close at hand. In short, i was rather disappointed with the overall presentations. I had expected a gorier and more suspense. It was in par quality with Saw II but not enough surprise to surpass the first installment. Though i had to give thumbs to the script writers who were able to wrote a coherent timelines with the previous two installments. The fact that the idea of a trilogy hadn't occured until Saw I's surprise financial success was all but give more kudos to the team. It was interesting to guess (as it already happened) what kind of back-drop story to the fourth installment which consistently scheduled to release on October 2007.

By the way, Saw III hit the local theater this week. Though you can't expect much of it (some footage would clearly be censored), but i think that it would be a worthy experience.

Guinea Pig: Flowers of Flesh and Blood (1985)
Rather disappointed with Saw, i dare myself to watch this film. The result was, i hadn't been able to sleep with lights off for couple of days. This film has been infamous especially with the help of none other than Charlie Sheen. Rumor has it that after seeing this film, he called FBI, and said that in Japan some murder has take place, and the murder was well documented.

The plot to this film was so simple that it could be well ignored (only 42 minutes running time, by the way). A woman walking home at night is attacked by some unknown stranger and as she wakes up, she found herself chained in a bed, and this stranger slowly, i repeat, SLOWLY dismembered and disemboweled her. During this 40-is minutes i kept telling myself that it's only a movie. It's only a special-effect. But my, it was very very well done. It's magnificent how much one could do with latex. And as i told you, i had nightmares after i've seen this film. I had this film from several years back, but i only managed to gather enough courages to watch it recently. For those of you interested go to this site. This film was available to download from the site. I was about to watch Cannibal Holocaust, but after i've seen this film, i think i would stick to regular movies for a little while for now.