AUTOPSY (2008)

This was not a bad little surprise, another of my chance findings in a second hand shop I was not holding out huge hopes for this one but it delivered the goods quite well!

Basically the plot centres around a group of 5 teenagers who are driving through a poorly lit forest and get into an accident,to make things worse somehow they've hit and badly injured an innocent man in the process. After calling for help (I assume the hospital staff have police scanners or something to intercept the call) staff from the mercy hospital arrive to pick up the man and offer the rest of them a ride to the hospital.

This is where it gets strange the hospital is staffed by a small crew of psychotics who use the inbound victims in bizzare experiments some of which are used to return the wife of the head of hospital back to health.... The plots fairly simple and the movie is quite well executed so its fairly enjoyable right the way though.... the only complaint (and its not a huge complaint) is that some of the shots seem over or under/exposed which is really the only give away that this would have been a low budget independent release. The gore and horror scenes look great with one particularly creative autopsy scene

Over all it's not an all time classic but defs worth a watch once if you're at a loose end and its quite enjoyable its also available to rent on youtube as well, rather than pay out huge on importing the DVD if you're not as lucky as I was to find it second hand

EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (2004)

After the general failure of the Exorcist 2 (I didn't think it was that bad.... it just wasn't that good) I held minimal hopes for this one, but upon loading this bad boy up, the opening scene of the priest amidst a back drop of crusaders crucified upside down I knew this one would be good.

Exorcist: The Beginning is set a few years after the Nazi occupation so lets say around 1950 around 25 years before the events of the original Exorcist film, when a much younger father Merrin has lost faith and left the priest hood to go on an archaeological dig in Africa to figure out what's going on with an unknown church that has been discovered. He settles in with the locals both a priest, Father Francis, the local Africans and tribesman, and even strikes up a friendship with a pretty young archaeologist, Sarah. Things start to get weird around the camp when he is able to enter the church and it appears to be a shrine to Lucifer the fallen angel.

This is where I have to commend the creatives behind this film... If you are into the occult or religious studies this follows the mythology of the fall from the heavens of the warrior angels who rebelled against God quite well... the religious (anti religious) symbolism is used excellently throughout the film and really adds an atmosphere of the arcane to proceedings

Nobody knows who built the church but father Merrin works out it is built on the spot where the rebel angels are said to have fallen to Earth after the battle that got them kicked out of heaven.  Instead of leaving it alone (like the natives suggested) curiousity gets the better of them and they unleash an ancient evil upon the camp and unsuspecting victims and Father Merrin is called upon to use the ancient roman ritual of the Exorcism

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is as good as the original Exorcist film but its a worthy sequel (unlike Exorcist 2) and lends an interesting background to the origins of both Fr. Merrin and the evil entity, Pazuzu that possesses Reagan in the first film, I found it kept my interest the whole way through the film and it was a gripping watch that stimulated me intellectually as well.

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FRIEND REQUEST

This is an interesting one for many reasons (also not to be confused with another film called "unfriended") ,,, as a film its well made and rather watchable so no issues with the entertainment value of the film... but another darker more sinister reason that it touches the listener is that it exploits a medium that nearly all of us use, Facebook.... or social media in general...

The film revolves around Laura who seems to be generally winning at life and doing well at school, she's good looking, has a wide circle of friends both online and offline and ends up accepting a friend request from a strange loner, Marina she knows from university

Their new found "friendship" develops into obsession for the new friend and soon its clear that she's mentally unbalanced and Laura wonders how she can get rid of her new friend without it backfiring on her...... Of course Marina takes the rejection harshly and kills herself which she records and sends it onto Laura via facebook

This is where things start getting weird, for some reason a wave of suicides happen at the school and although Marina is dead someone hacks the facebook accounts of Laura and her flatmates and posts the grizzly deaths onto their social media accounts as a revenge, Laura's friend count starts to tumble as people see the morbid videos posted to her timeline and online as well as in real life, Laura finds herself and her friends being stalked from beyond the cyber graveyard by Marina

Overall I have to say I quite liked this one, wouldn't say its a classic but its a solid and engrossing watch and kept my interest the whole way through. While it does have its fair share of killings and blood the film sits fairly firmly in the thriller category and as a film should have an almost universal appeal to users of the internet and social media.

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SALO 120 (DAYS OF SODOM) (1975)

One of the most (if not, MOST) disturbing films ever made. I guess it depends on what offends you, but its right up there with the Human Centipede and Cannibal Holocaust for all round sickness, and it seems to make every critics "Most disturbing films ever made" list if you've ever seen those on youtube. Based loosely on the Marquis De Sade's book 120 Day of Sodom this is, I guess an adaptation of that book but set in 1949 under Mussolini's rule of Italy.

The question remains, is this really a horror film? Hard to say, the film is littered with unspeakable horrors from start to finish and all manner of tortures......  but is more of an 'arty' independant film, but for amount of torture in it... I'll go with horror. This film itself outlines the cruelty inflicted on a bunch of teenagers kidnapped, tortured and molested for months by ruling members of the Italian aristocratic set, or ''libertines" as they are referred to. It is sick, depraved and filthy, in fact it is the only film I've not been able to watch in one sitting due to the cruelty and sexual sadism inflicted on said teenagers. Including acts as branding, rape, coprophilia and much more.

It was widely praised by film critics in its time but even more widely banned by the world at large... oddly enough the director Pasolini was murdered a few months before its release. It is available now on DVD/BR but I'd assume it would take some work to find it. Be warned though, it's a hard one to watch, a litany of human perversion and sadism if you will.


This film does raise the questions are there films that just don't need to be made? Is this film just sadistic filth? Or a film with artistic merit that needed to be made???..... I'm not sure .. Personally I'd be leaning on the side of filth but its a free world I guess, but it leaves me with a sick feeling that I've seen something that should not ave been seen. In a rare show of good taste I'm not going to show a link or preview for the film but check out preview before you decide to watch the entire film, if you do.

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