In 1984 the news that a movie like GROTESQUE had been rejected by the BBFC (the UK’s version of the MPAA) would be just another chapter in the endless “video nasty” media circus. These days it’s rare that a horror movie finds itself with an outright ban (or, indeed, actual cuts) so GROTESQUE has enjoyed more publicity than most in its so-called “torture porn” sub-genre. The reason for its refusal turns out to be a bugbear that has remained consistent with the British classification board : the (debatable) eroticism generated by scenes of the villain stripping and molesting and torturing the female protagonist at some considerable length. The grueling sexual assault – in front of the character’s boyfriend – occurs in a sub-genre that, at least in its popular American form, has normally avoided sexualized torment.
The movie effectively pares down the torture format to its barest level : here, the very first scene features the central couple being captured, plunging the audience into the torture den immediately and keeping them there, save for a brief respite in the form of a flashback to the first date that preceded their abduction. This establishes the fact that these two young people are sweet natured and appealing, but that’s about all we get in the form of exposition or conventional build-up.
The couple in question are Kawatsure Hiroaki and the pretty Nagasawa Tsugumi, who are coshed on the head, shoved into a van and bound / gagged by an ordinary-looking mild-mannered madman (Osako Shigeo) as soon as we meet them. In the early stages of their captivity, he questions them about their sex habits, talks to them about food and tortures them repeatedly. He informs them casually that, so long as they excite him sexually with their will to survive he will let them go, though his threshold of satisfaction with this excitement proves to be pretty high.
Set in a single location with only three actors and a discordant original score alternating with often ironically used classical music, GROTESQUE is a striking exercise in audience endurance, with three remarkable performances under the trying circumstances. Visually, it inevitably echoes the movie that kick-started this sub-genre’s emergence into the mainstream : reflecting HOSTEL are scenes of characters vomiting while gagged, multiple chainsaw-finger severing, etc. Echoing the enduring SAW franchise are the sadistic choices the villain gives the leads : a typical one being that, if Hiroaki simply surrenders, Shigeo will simply stop torturing him and begin terrorizing Tsugumi instead.
Where the movie differs from the Eli Roth-instigated American cycle, however, is in its desire to take things to more extreme and uncomfortable levels : the heroine is ejaculated upon during one especially uneasy sequence, and subsequently has her nipples snipped off in close-up (shades of Lucio Fulci) and her arm sawed off; while the hero – en route to a mere penis severing – suffers horrendous eye mutilation and nails being hammered into his balls (again in wince-inducing close-up).
Also notable is that, in a trend dominated by faceless or largely wordless torturers, Shigeo is an equally charming and sick presence, a fascinating figure of fear who has simply done all this for sexual excitement. This memorable deviant ends up caring for the characters as much as he torments them – vocally admiring their perseverance, promising their freedom and going to great lengths to heal their wounds…though he then decides that their pain excites him so much he wants them to survive even more torment. With the bulk of the movie’s dialogue, Shigeo is mightily impressive.
Aside from its prominent use of some very unpleasant and convincing old-school make-up effects, the movie also pulls off scenes of grotesque protracted suspense. A key sequence involves our hero dragging himself in a desperate, manipulated bid to save his girlfriend while part of his insides are hanging out and chained to the wall opposite.
Ultimately, the well crafted, technically fine GROTESQUE succeeds as one of the few movies in this cycle to be genuinely grueling and upsetting : it doesn’t’t invite us to be turned on or amused by this unfolding spectacle and is effective in being compellingly repellent. Drenched in bile, puke, spunk, blood, spit and piss, it has three persuasive performances and a nihilistic circular ending that follows a suitably deranged climax. Enjoy an uncharacteristically gaudy moment involving a severed head and “Land of Hope and Glory” on the soundtrack because this moment is the only gore gag in GROTESQUE designed for entertainment.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
