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After serving a one year stretch in prison for drug-dealing, Terry
Hawkins decides to "take care of the people who took care of
me". For that reason he enters the porn-industry. Soon, he hooks up
with Ed (Edward E.Pixley) & Nancy (Nancey Vrooman) Palmer, him an
untalented porn-director, her his main actress, who expect new creative
impulses from the young man - even if this means going into snuff
movies. But when Terry finds out the Palmers & porn-producer Steve
(Steve Sweet) make money of his movies, he decides to get back at them,
inviting the 3 of them & fellow porn-actress Suzie (Suzie Neumeyer)
to a business meeting with him & his gang, & as a welcome
surprise ties all 4 of them up. As a precursor of things to come, he
first brands then decapitates Suzie. Next he forces Ed to direct
some scenes of a movie, but as the man proves reluctant, Terry decides
Ed would be of more use in front of the camera - & since Terry makes
snuff movies, you might guess who gets stabbed very soon. Next it's
Nancy's turn, who Terry ties to a table to give her a brutal vivisection
- keeping her awake as long as possible using smelling salt. Once
she's dead, it's Steve's turn, too, & he has too suck on a goat's
foot sticking out of a girl's fly before he is killed by a drilling
machine. Supposedly to give the movie a moral ending, a title crd then
informs us that Terry & his gang were later apprehended &
convicted to lifelong prison terms. Even within gore- &
torture-movies, this one has a special place, for being totally amoral
(the tagged on title card at the end does not help one bit since it has
no dramatic effect at all). Desite the fact that the gore effects
are so-so at best, & much does actually happen off-screen, the film
has a verité look due to its shaky camera-work, unaethetically lit sets
& rather grainy footage, all topped off by the relentlessness of the
script, that shows the actor Watkins doing exactly what the director
Watkins wants him to: present torture at all costs with no holding back
(with the intention being convincing where the effects fail to be).
Another shocking thing is of course, that it is almost impossible to
identify or even sympathize with any of the characters, since the lead
torturer wants revenge for having been cheated out of money made on
snuff movies, while his victims were the ones making the money from
snuff. Maybe the feeling the movie gives its viewer is best described
by a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche "If you gaze into the abyss, the
abyss also gazes into you." |