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Gory Movie Reviews By Tim Wambolt
(Banner art by Dusk)
Philosophy of a Knife
It has finally happened. It took nearly 16 years for it to happen but it has now officially happened. An impressively long cinematic record held by Braindead since 1992 has at last been broken. Andrey Iskanov has created the most violent movie ever made. This is not an opinion, the film is over 4 hours of pure torture, consisting of the sickest and most explicit violence imaginable. So until somebody makes a 5 hour long gore-fest, Philosophy of a Knife shall remain the most violent movie of all time. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect about all of this is that the scenes in this film are reenactments of atrocities that actually happened.
Before the credits even roll the film opens with a prisoner being decapitated in the snow by a member of the Japanese Army, this will be the quickest and most humane death you will witness in the entire film. After this a very stylized title screen appears quickly followed by a scene of graphic dismemberment, as corpses are hacked to pieces with axes and limbs are sawed off and burned in furnaces. With this Andrey Iskanov welcomes you to Camp 731, the facility that was conducted by the philosophy of a knife.
During World War 2 a research laboratory was created by military police of the Imperial Japanese Army for researching epidemic prevention and developing weapons of mass destruction. Within these facilities a unit of chemical and biological warfare research team called Unit 731 committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by conducting torturous and fatal experiments on Soviet and Chinese prisoners with estimations resulting in around 200,000 casualties.
The chief medical officer of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii was the commander of Unit 731 and lead the various weapons testing and warfare experiments being conducted in the laboratories, many of which are depicted in the film Philosophy of a Knife. The first of which involves the vivisection, the experimental surgery of a living pregnant woman without anesthesia. The doctors impregnate her then infect her with diseases and remove her organs and fetus while she is still alive, simply to study the results of these diseases before her decomposition. After this Andrey brings us to the infamous teeth yanking scene that you may have caught part of in the trailer for the film. If not, you should know this, the victim's teeth are not just pulled out, they are painfully twisted and bent and hammered out of her gums one by one, as she screams and bleeds until every last tooth is removed from her mouth.
Throughout the film survivors of the incident such as Anatoly Protosov, a former military translator for the USSR, are interviewed and reveal insider information, such as the incident of authority figures being convinced that Ishii's testing facility was actually a lumber mill, causing Unit 731 to often jokingly refer to their test subjects as "logs". After several scenes of vile experiments are depicted, such as the one involving a kid's face boiling from exposure to x-ray radiation, or the scene where a woman is experimentally raped by a man with syphilis for research before the man is slowly gassed to death, or the scene where the researchers strap a woman to a chair, cut her forearm wide open and then shoot her in the neck, it is then that we see their "joke" being taken one step further as these "logs" are chopped apart with axes and thrown into the fire.
Even watching Men Behind The Sun 1 and 2 back to back probably will not prepare you enough to view Philosophy of a Knife. The film is presented without any restrictions or censorship issues towards it's depictions of excessive violence or graphic nudity and with this Andrey Iskanov enters into territories that neither Tun Fei Mou or Godfrey Ho dared to or were allowed to venture. For example, in one particular scene a woman is stripped naked and tied to a chair while a large cockroach is forced inside of her vagina in graphic detail. After several hours of the cockroach moving around inside of her, the doctors cut and peel off her entire face and the cockroach exits from her mouth. They then put her face back on her head and carry her off to the chopping room. As the experiments continue, a man's face is slowly burned off, a woman's forearm is cut open and sawed in half, and a screaming pregnant woman's unborn fetus is ripped out through her bleeding vagina with pliers, piece by piece, along with parts of her own organs and intestines.
Unit 731 had a great interest in researching the effects of frostbite and gangrene on test subjects exposed to extreme temperatures. In one scene of the movie a boy is stripped naked and left tied to a post outside in the snow for several hours while soldiers pour ice cold water on his feet, hands and genitals. He is then taken inside the laboratory where his affected body parts are sliced open with knives. He is then forced to walk, causing him to collapse and die as his legs and feet split apart. After this his face is sawed open and he is chopped to pieces and in the chamber with the rest of the rotted, dismembered corpses. And all of this is in the first half of the movie, it only gets worse from here.
By the time you insert the second dvd you might at this point, be slightly more prepared for the violent radiation exposure scene to follow, which causes a naked man to graphically shit and vomit blood until he dies. Hopefully you handled that well because the next scene gets pretty rough! It features a woman being hung by her arms and electrocuted with cables shoved in her mouth, as the doctors cut open deep, wide gashes into her biceps and face. After this, they pull out her tongue and cut it in half with a knife. Following this scene is a very long and graphic autopsy. Then another woman experiences a similar treatment but this time her back is cut open until her vertebrae is exposed and the electrical cables are forced into her open wounds. Which leads us now to that compression chamber that made Men Behind the Sun so infamous. This time we get an up-close-and-personal glimpse of a boy being exposed to so much pressure that his limbs cave in and his head bursts apart in an explosion of blood.
Many more deaths follow, 3 boys are hung by their arms and gassed to death, a woman who tries to escape is shot through the chest and head and another woman looking for an easier way out slits her own throat with a katana. The death scenes in this film are given a creepier ambience through the use of haunting industrial music and various film filters giving each death scene a dark, bleak and morbid atmosphere similar to a David Lynch movie or a Nine Inch Nails video. Gorehounds and historians are guaranteed to be both fascinated and disgusted by all the newly discovered evidence, interviews, photos and video footage of the actual atrocities that took place, presented for the first time in this film! Andrey Iskanov was actually investigated by the KGB regarding his research for the film. They searched his property and confiscated his computers, along with all of his evidence and film footage. He was arrested and taken to a Military base for interrogation and locked in a concrete cell without a toilet. He was given very little food and was made to sign consent forms for search and seizure of all of his property.
The incidents at Unit 731 were hidden from the public for so long and even to this day, as you can see from Andrey's imprisonment, extreme measures are still being taken towards covering up the truth. It makes you wonder what else is going on today that we may never know about for years to come when someone else finally decides to risk everything just to make the truth known to us. In a way this makes Philosophy of a Knife one of the most powerful films ever made, it simply can not be ignored any longer. Andrey did his part and more, please do yours by helping to support his efforts and order Philosophy of a Knife now, this film must be seen. Please contact Producer Stephen Biro of Unearthed Films for ordering information.
http://www.unearthedfilms.com
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The Gateway Meat
The President of the United States has been assassinated, is this the sign for Satan's followers to open his portal and fulfill the prophecy? One small family believes so, and since Grandpa is dead it's up to them to carry on his tradition, but the only way to do this is with offerings of human sacrifice, the gateway meat. Written, edited by and starring director Ron Decaro, in his third and final installment of The Brightside Trilogy. This is his first feature length film and the sequel to his two previous short films, The White Lie and Eating Razors, (the latter of which is partially featured in a gory, face-stabbing flashback sequence during this film).
To assist in the opening of the gateway, the family calls upon the help of a mentally disabled friend with an insight into portals, along with a murderous psychopath played by actor D. Whitney who gives a very intimidating performance as a cocaine snorting necrofeliac. The star of the show however, is Ron DeCaro's daughter, a very smart little girl who gives an exceptionally creepy performance for someone so young, especially when making death threats and tasting human blood. It is apparent that Ron is a very good and involved father, as sick as the film is you can tell that she knew it was all fake and that their family had a lot of fun making this film together. Ron shot the film in 16 x 9 format with a newer video camera, giving the film a more professional look then his previous projects, some slight motion blur is apparent at times but the picture's resolution is very sharp and crisp throughout. Much of the cinematography is impressive and adds to the tension, such as the scene where D. Whitney first enters the liquor store. The camera follows close behind him with a handheld documentary style feel that imerses us into the action, reminiscent of Bruce Willis approaching his apartment complex in Pulp Fiction. Professional looking outdoor transition shots showcase the beautiful surrounding bay area and many scenes are given a nice modern touch with stylized blurs and fades throughout.
Fans of underground horror will also be excited to hear voiceovers on the radio frequencies featuring Fred Vogel, the director and star of the August Underground trilogy, along with the Brian Paulin, the director and star of Bone Sickness. With those two being friends of Ron DeCaro, I can only imagine what kind of sick collaborations they may all decide to work on together in the future! And with Gateway Meat having so many August Underground comparisons, (which were terrifyingly reality-based films) I must admit that I was slightly skeptical beforehand as to whether or not the Satanic and portal-opening aspects of the film would seem too cheezy or out of place in a film so dark and brutal, but to my great approval Ron DeCaro was wise to avoid any supernatural elements by letting the viewer interpret that he might be using the evil for simply being beliefs in the heads of the crazy people, making the film that much more disturbing.
Which brings us to the gore! As of it's release The Gateway Meat is easily one of the top ten most violent films of all time. This is a very impressive achievement considering the film's budget, there was a lot of love and dedication involved in this project. The special effects wizards behind The Gateway Meat put an impressive amount of detail into the gore, making the molds and prosthetics look disgusting and believable, even in area that are only briefly shown, these effects have to be seen to be believed. I predict big things from these guys, today's Rated-R hollywood gore doesn't cut it anymore and fans of the genre are craving the real deal. Thanks to students of Tom Savini's school, movie make-up violence has come a long since the days of Herschell Gordon Lewis films. In fact, with The Gateway Meat joining the ranks of such recent gorefests as A l'interieur, the August Underground trilogy and the Vomit Gore trilogy, the 80's era that reigned supreme in the gore category for so many years with such faux Japanese snuff movies as Flowers of Flesh and Blood and Tumbling Doll of Flesh may soon have to surrender the crown of sickness to modern cinema.
Blasphemous, racists and overall offensive dark humor appears throughout the film, helping to break up the tension and giving the film a nice pace and an entertaining feel. The violence in the film however, is very brutal and realistic. Walls are soaked in blood, rooms are decorated with severed limbs, fingers and faces that have been peeled off. Tongues get cut with razor blades and bitten in half. One man gets shot in the face with a pistol, blowing his brains out all over the wall behind him. Other people get bludgeoned with sledge hammers and punctured with nailbats, genitals are electrocuted with jumper cables, tubes are inserted into victims to drain the blood from the body, a woman is partially skinned alive and sodomized, other people are sliced open with razors and disemboweled, faces are chopped open and eyeballs are ripped out and squeezed until they pop! In one scene the killer creatively slits a man's throat with box cutters and pulls his tongue out through the large opening with pliers, creating a bloody "necktie."
If you think you can handle a film like this or would like to test your limits, I highly recommend purchasing The Gateway Meat to help support Ron DeCaro's future projects. The dvd is packed with extras, beautiful artwork and has an impressively professional technical presentation with many special features including trailers, acting auditions, a behind the scenes look at the making of the film that is both very humorous and insightful into the world of special effects and film making. Also included are galleries of photo stills, audio commentary with the director and cast members, along with several hidden Easter eggs. For gorehounds, artists and fans of special effects, sickos and supporters of independant film making, The Gateway Meat is a must have movie for your collection!
Click the link below to order your copy now!
http://www.ftbomp.com/webstore.htm
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