
Being dutiful to a genre solely devoted to the most hard-hitting films on the planet is difficult to rationalise. I mean, it doesn't make me a bad person. Monday morning blues? Very few people will hack off their arms, attach machine guns and take it out on everyone else.
Maybe it's just me who craves an irregular escape from the mundane. I guess it's because I'm not a people person. Let's face it – my career choice points in that direction.
At the turn of the century came the Asian horror explosion – already gaining momentum thanks to Hideo Nakata's masterful Ringu in 1997. From the wreckage crawled torture-porn, with every country around the globe stepping forward for a share of the spoils. To these weary eyes, already forced to endure the likes of Rabid Grannies (1988), Fertilise The Blaspheming Bombshell (1990) and Teenage Catgirls In Heat (1993), it was all too much.
Everything about the 21st century oozed menace, and I couldn't get enough of it. Two films that made the most significant impact at the new millennium were Takashi Miike's Audition (1999) and Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000), but more about those gems later.
The West had to endure remakes after unnecessary remakes as horror became fashionable, but alongside so many mishaps were several movies to keep exploitation fans deliriously happy. Cabin Fever (2003), The Devil's Rejects (2004), Hostel (2005) and Saw (2003) were impressive, as was the Australian Wolf Creek (2004), but nothing could prepare us for what France had in store.
A country that at one time seduced travellers with its culture, café terraces, village square markets and bistros woke up one morning, decided to kidnap its visitors and slaughter them with eye-popping glee.
Switchblade Romance (2003), Them (2006), Frontier(s) (2007), Inside (2007), Mutants (2009) and The Pack (2010) are the most laudable entries but Martyrs (2008) wins hands down. Pascal Laugier's film gets the kick out of a woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child. It leads her on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity – one of the most insane movies I've seen in a long time.
If those aren't enough to turn the stomach, you'll be pleased to know that cannibalism also made a much welcome return to the menu. Dumplings (2004) and the implausible but impressive Macabre (2009) are main courses that all should savour. While Meat Grinder (2009) and We Are What We Are (2010) relied more on mood rather than over the top visuals, they still had enough filling to leave you feeling nauseous.
Severance (2005), Donkey Punch (2008), Mum & Dad (2008) and Eden Lake (2008) proved that British exploitation was alive and well. The Rec franchise (2006, 2009 and 2012) kept Spain in the running, or should that just be running, even if the chills are gradually replaced by ever-thickening bloodshed.
Another worthwhile trilogy, beginning with Roar Uthaug's Cold Prey (2006), offered the welcome sight of blood-spattered snowscapes. And Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow (2008) delivered Nazi zombies in Norway. It was a gruesome but wounded movie, injected with humour, gore and brilliant set-pieces, but only if you survived the banality of the opening twenty minutes.
In America, women were further exploited in Teeth (2007), Dead Girl (2008) and The Woman (2011). Brutal from the outset, the latter includes some astonishing performances and a final act that pushed the boundaries and all the right buttons.
All these films and I've barely mentioned Japan during the noughties. Takeshi Miike, born on the outskirts of Osaka, leads the ways with such works as Audition (1999), Visitor Q (2001), Ichi the Killer (2001) and the Dead or Alive Trilogy.
Takashi Ishii's Freezer (2000) and Sion Sono's Suicide Club (2001) demand attention, but if it's all-out gore that you're after, look no further than the works of Sushi Typhoon. Tokyo Gore Police (2008), Robo-geisha (2009) and Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl (2000) are nonsensical but fun – perfect appetisers for the creatively juicy revenge-flick The Machine Girl (2008) from director Noboru Iguchi. More engaging than most splatter-fests, if you haven't already, you need to witness this hilariously distasteful, gory masterpiece.
After that, you should savour Dog Bite Dog (2006), Gong Tau (2007) and Dream House (2010) from Hong Kong. South Korea chips in with Nowhere To Hide (1999), the outstanding Old Boy (2003), and Jee-won Kim's I Saw The Devil (2010).
So, what have we learnt? Horror glamorises violence in graphic detail. At times it presents the audience with little more than unrelenting humiliation, brutality and suffering. But it doesn't have to. Guts Of A Virgin (1986), in which a film crew making a porn film are dismembered by a demon in a warehouse, and Stop The Bitch Campaign (2001), about a man humiliating teenage prostitutes to get them off the streets, push the boundaries too far in the wrong direction.
The very best movies from this genre don't dwell on graphic scenes of murder, rape, castration and cannibalism. They include them, perhaps, but instead, the director offers insight into human nature rather than yet another close-up of someone's bludgeoned body as a monkey and giraffe abuse it with pineapple. For now, I'll leave you with my current top five.
5. Antichrist (2009), Lars von Trier
How far is too far? There's no point asking Lars von Trier. Anyone who has watched one of his movies will understand that he does whatever he wants. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a grieving couple who retreat to Eden, an isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage after the death of their baby.
With nature in as a forgiving mood as the auteur, it isn't long before things go from bad to worse for the couple and the viewer. Split into chapters, Antichrist starts unsurprisingly slowly, pitting the couple against their guilt, not helped by the deformities of nature popping up to offer more torment.
It isn't until the second half that the director infuses a visually stunning slow burner with gratuitous voyeurism and violence that rivals anything Takashi Miike has ever done. Some will greet it with disdain, but this is horror at its most disturbing and almost unwatchable, which indeed is what the horror genre should focus on.
4. Ichi The Killer (2001), Takashi Miike
Ichi the Killer tells the story of yakuza enforcer, Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), searching for his missing boss. He comes across Ichi (Nao Ohmori), a repressed and psychotic killer who can inflict pain levels that Kakihara has only dreamed of. Hand out the sick bags.
And this, for the midnight screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, is what they did. Nice. It was merely a gimmick, but there were probably one or two people present that evening grateful come the film's monstrous finale.
One of Miike's most notable works, blessed by eye-popping performances, a warped and twisted sense of humour and gruesome comic book imagery, Ichi The Killer is as extreme as they come. But then, if you're going to give someone pain, you've got to get into it.
3. Old Boy (2003), Chan-wook Park
After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi) gets released, and he's reasonably angry. Directed by Chan-wook Park, Old Boy is infested with so much bloodshed and violence you'll find absolutely no way of addressing its characters' problems by using a critical, systematic approach. And you certainly won't rely on rational argument either.
You'll probably never eat sushi again either. And it's perhaps wise to fast for a few hours in case the ultra-violent set-pieces bring your dinner back up again. Still, Old Boy is much more than being outrageous just for the sake of it. With a standout corridor fight scene, brilliant performances and a dental extraction using a claw hammer, you'll struggle to find another movie that thrills and spills in such gleeful abundance.
2. Battle Royale (2000), Kinji Fukasaku
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary 'Battle Royale' act. Kinji Fukasaku's classic is certainly not to be confused with the watered-down novels by American writer Suzanne Collins.
Their premises may sound similar, but Fukasaku's film combines intelligent social commentary with raw, uncomfortable action sequences and a dark vein of humour running through the very heart of it. The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence.
Battle Royale: The Director's Cut provides more back-story for some of its main stayers, but at the end of the day, this is Lord Of The Flies reincarnated as an over the top action movie, with excruciating – not to mention outrageous – set-pieces from the outset. I mean, seriously, what would you do?
1. Audition (1999), Takashi Miike
So, after many hours sitting in front of the gogglebox forced to endure the finest extreme cinema has to offer, here is the film I regard as the genre's most significant. Miike's tale about a widower taking an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife, may sound like something starring Julia Roberts from the nineties. But Audition is far more disturbing than using the wrong fork at dinner.
This film is Miike at his very best, crafting a movie that slowly develops into one of the scariest and nastiest films you'll ever witness. Asami is a fruitcake with a toolkit to end all toolkits. Audition will linger long in the memory, demand repeat viewings and make you question its ingenious narrative. And the scene with Asami sitting by the phone as she waits for a call from Shigeharu will get you every single time. Unmissable.
Comments