Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Butcher (2008)

*Flick.. hisss...pufff......

Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A
I won't lie when I say half of the movies reviewed is motivated by the covers alone. Its a well design/composed film cover that urge me to watch the film despite now knowing if its good or not. It's pretty dramatic, the cover, with a chainsaw-wielding maniac in a pig's mask. Also one of the reasons is that it's banned in Korea, which is rightly so, because this movie is so far out from the usual direction of korean cinemas, it's best suited for western audiences. The movie runs in the same line as movies such as french new-generation gore Martyrs, À l'intérieur and others. It's a POV movie helmed by director Kim Jin-Won (Interview here).

The movie starts off with 4 victims, bounded, completely unaware why they are being abducted. Little do they know they're part of the production of a snuff film, helmed by a maniac aptly-named, "The Director". One by one they are tortured and filmed with cameras fasten on the helmets they are wearing. It's interesting because what you see if what the victims sees while being tortured and killed off. On the other hand, a second camera is used to record the perpetrators side of the story. It's basically a story of survival on how the victim managed to escape the clutches of the captors.

There's 2 parts in this movie that traumatizes me to this day. One, is the part where the "Director" played mind games with one of the victims, giving him a sense of false hope of surviving. And second, a very prominent scene between 2 men. I won't reveal all, but if you enjoy being traumatized like me, or just to test your boundaries of how far your limit for the extreme goes, watch it. What makes the movie even scarier is the whole movie is shoot with a very raw, lo-fi, lo-production feel, to maintain its realism, to make it seem as if you are there on the event. I would say, if you can stomach A Serbian Film, Matyrs or any other gore movies, give this a go.


4 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

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