“Hell is not a place you go. You carry Hell with you at all times.”
What do you get when you mix The Blair Witch Project with Silent Hill and Jacob’s Ladder (though Silent Hill did rip off the latter film)? The many flavors of Baskin, presented by Batman’s sidekick:
- Red
- Blood
- Bloody Eggs
- Roadkill
- Singing in the van
- Frogs
- Cult
- Mansion
- Evil
- Nightmare
- Chicks with dicks
- Buttfuckers galore
- Meat twig balls
- Dumb polis
- Fucking bodies
- Fucking meat
- Cutting meat
- Blood gushing dreams
- Stool
- Eye cutting
- Intestine pulling
- A key to the head
- Goat skull
- Panic attack
- Turkey
- Naked in the woods
- Lock the back
- Birth
- Ugly fucking baby
- Ugly mansion dwellers
- Orgy
Anyway, the film basically revolves around this group of police who talk dirtier than the gangsters in Reservoir Dogs. The film starts off with them talking about doing anal with transgenders and some such stuff, while meat is being cut very very slowly. Very slowly, that slow seesaw of the knife going through that meat which could’ve come through anything. Did I emphasize how slow it cuts?
Any decent chef would know that that’s a shitty way to cut meat, not to mention that it’s so fucking slow it’s going to piss the customers off and drive the business into the ground. And it’s bad form. A respectable chef would cut the meat properly to give it better texture, less rips in the meat, and would have a nice sharp knife to get the job done.
But I get it, it needs to be slower and less efficient for the sake of atmosphere. Because that is something this film relies heavily upon, atmosphere. Especially during the second half when they visit the haunted mansion.
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But before they get there, there’s all sorts of foreshadowing the prepare you for the unexpected, which I guess doesn’t make sense, but neither does some of the shit in the movie, so…
As I said earlier, the cops talk of fucking chicks with dicks, while a chef is cutting up meat. Yeah, that actually comes into play later on. Then there’s eggs filled with blood, a bunch of frogs, balls of twigs with meat on or in them. It’s like a more fucked up version of the 10 plagues of Egypt.
And like most horror movies, there are times when the main characters act like fucking morons, mainly during this one moment where they panic and run during the second half of the film. Nope, they’re not hardened tough as nail cops. They turn out to be wimps. I mean, to be fair, a lot of what they encounter later on would make anyone lose their mind and shit their pants, but still, it’s bothersome.
I suppose I should discuss the themes and message of the film. The whole thing is a nightmare that gets worse as it goes on. Something to do with childhood trauma, probably a sexual childhood trauma thing, fucked up versions of sex, treating people and women like meat to be butchered and burned to a crisp. Oh God, did this film take inspiration from A Serbian Film? Don’t worry, there’s no newborn porn, as far as I know…
Do I recommend this film? Eh, sure. I didn’t get all that invested in it until they arrive at the mansion, which occurs about halfway through the film. But there’s enough content to hold you over until then, and certainly enough to get you through the rest after the halfway point, if you have the stomach for it. If it wasn’t obvious before, this is not a family film. It gets extremely violent, and very disturbing in several ways. Good luck eating any flavor of ice cream while watching this film.
Rating: 3/5
Edit: Oh yeah, and I’m surprised I didn’t catch on to the Lucio Fulci influence. This has The Beyond, and City of the Living Dead vibes all over it.
Other good blog reviews of this movie:
The Anomalous Host 