joseangeles

Amazing sleazy adult psycho exploitation/thriller! This one woman goes blind but the blindness will only last for 3 days. When her husband (a rich doctor) is going somewhere away for work, Anthony Wong (greatest Hong Kong actor ever) comes in to trap and terrorize her in her own home. Wong seemed like a friend just visiting at first but slowly we discover how messed up in the head he was and why he's doing this (there's actually a very fascinating story behind everything and you question who the bad guy truly is in the grand scheme of things). The girl's blindness makes her easy to torture and hold captive so Wong's insanity is even more threatening, lots of surprises and twists you'll have never seen coming. My favorite twist has to do with "steak". Most hilarious scene though is the "shower scene". The unsuspecting girl had no idea what Wong's depraved character was doing as he stood right behind her naked wet body. Decent amount of sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and violence with some blood (scissor castration, stabbings, fights) but not as graphic as Anthony Wong's other movies like "Ebola Syndrome", "Untold Story", or the lesser known "Love to Kill".

Comedy about a very pathetic lonely guy that blows all his money on porn and eventually hookers, you won't believe how sad this guy's life becomes. It becomes so sad it's funny and that was intended. We get a real sense of "the day in the life" of a guy who's a true loser with women as the main character narrates his mundane antics in such a mundane voice. The humor gets pitch black and sleazy at moments, like an uncensored episode of "Married With Children". Best part of the movie is the soundtrack and the guy eating beef jerky while watching cable porn. Some of the scenes where women strip kind of drag, but the killer soundtrack will occupy and entertain during those times.

A washed up actress resorts to eating the brains of a few unfortunate people who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She does this to stop from mutating into a gruesome creature. She became a creature in the first place because of an experiment to regain her youth gone wrong. Apparently brains contain something that can transform her back to normal. Seems like a b-movie with a convenient set-up to show off some splatter but the story is actually full of rich character development and a strong tragic story. It plays out like a compelling "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" type drama that lectures on the ethics of science and how money can't buy back time. There's a pretty good amount of gore and blood with the brain eating violence and also with the slimy and gooey ending that looks like something out of the movie "Society" which had surreal special effects.

Japanese indie film with humor and philosophy where the three main characters run literally almost through the entire film, chasing each other due to strange circumstances and comical coincidence. As they are running, we see what is going on in their minds and how they got where they are at the moment. The act of running is a metaphor for these down-on-their luck people's lives. In some way, what they're really chasing for is not what they were originally chasing, but for meaning in their lives and an escape from their personal problems and broken dreams. Running makes them all feel truly alive. The big life-altering running adventure comes to an end when they accidentally get in the middle of something big, violent, and so absurd that it's funny in a clever way. One of my favorite films of all time by genius director Sabu.

Disgusting memories of a massacre where many innocents died during the Vietnam war torture the mind of a man to an unhealthy extreme. One night, after flipping out from the disturbing flashbacks of the massacre, he decides to put an end to all his mental anguish once and for all by leaving his wife and home behind to pursue a quest to kill his old NAM buddies he deems guilty of the atrocity, and thus must die in the name of justice. He sends out letters to his unsuspecting friends, telling them that he's coming by just for a visit. When he meets each friend, everyone gets along fine at first but then everything transforms into one ugly and intense episode as he gets cold and distant in personality, resulting in impressive psycho rants and eventually death.

The psycho rants are really the main strength of the movie. When the guy would start going crazy, he'd have such a blank creepy stare on his face and didn't even blink at all! Suddenly he would just go on and on about grim memories or sometimes act like he really was back in the war again, showing no mercy to anyone. The harshest encounter in the movie is when he forces his friend's wife at gunpoint to tie up his friend, who was previously shot on the hand by him. As his friend was bleeding and couldn't move, he started to violently rape his wife in front of him. The raped wife was crying and yelling for help like mad. There was not much nudity but it was like seeing an actual terrifying rape. It reminded me of the rape scene in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" where a woman gave such a disturbingly real performance during the abuse to the point that she needed psychological help in real life! Another noteworthy incident is with one guy getting drained of blood through a needle and tube. We don't see how the forced bleeding was set up, instead the lifeless body is just shown dripping blood while the psycho talks to it about why he did what he did in such a morbid and serious fashion. I really like the trippy music that would play during the nasty moments of the movie too.

This is a very simple low budget movie done to perfection because of the brutal concept, realistic dialog, and chilling performances. There are some messages and moral dilemmas that are very clever and subtle within the film. You grow to appreciate this film more when you think back at how it illustrates how different people try to cope with their guilt for whatever atrocities they are responsible for. Some try to forget as if nothing happened, some try to justify their atrocities by dehumanizing the victims as mere "gooks", some try to give back to the community, and some think killing is the solution for killing (the main psycho's view). Don't expect a Rambo, shoot' em up type action movie. I found this to be more of a serious psycho/horror drama with a gloomy mean-spirited atmosphere similar to classics such as "Repulsion", "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Combat Shock", "Axe", "I Spit on your Grave", and "Deathdream". Highly recommended for fans of gritty nihilistic cinema at its rawest.

Cliché "sexuality and emotion" drama with hardcore sex gimmick, that's about it for the movie. Seriously, it's just monotonous people being whiny about their sex lives and just wondering around being depressed until the end when finally the woman that can't orgasm is happy and the gay couple with relationship problems overcome their troubles. I will give credit to the stylized hipster atmosphere of the movie. But other than that, this movie is empty, predictable, and yet another overrated drama that makes you beg the question, "what's the point?" The one thing that will make this movie memorable is the hardcore penetration, autofellatio, and gay threesome. But those scenes are only there cause it's daring bold art and not just some gimmick to prevent it from being yet another forgettable average "indie art film" right?

The concept of flashbacks being told through different version was a disaster. It didn't flow naturally thanks to the tiring atmosphere. Same nonstop over-dramatic music that got to my nerves (very contrived and expects sappy music would win my emotions on cue, pfff, you'll have to do better than that). Symmetrical and colorful cinematography was impressive but played out too much. (More style than substance). The transitions to the present and past were sloppy too cause of the same gloomy tone of voice and simple choppy dialogue (although I think the Western distributors are to blame for that). The philosophy was typical. "Sword fighting and (insert any non-violent art form) are the same". There were too many pointless "pissing-contest" fights, which were too slick and unrealistic.

Maybe I was expecting too much. I shouldn't expect much from anything in Century Theaters though. Also, like 70% of this movie is slow motion. Very unnecessary and tasteless. It's like adding too much wine in whatever someone cooks with wine. It's supposed to be exquisite, but becomes disgusting in large uncalled for volumes.

This is not timeless classic material. I'm a big Asian cinema fan and felt this was just a flashy movie for pseudo-intellectual Americans to eat up and brag about how they're not stupid for not watching whatever mind-numbing Hollywood filth there is. Then they all pat themselves on the back for reading subtitles. This is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon mania all over again.

Colorful lively visuals, dull lifeless story. What a shame. Will amaze anybody that's new to this genre though/Century Theater mall-boppers in denial.

Movie has its good and bad moments, which makes it decent. Just decent. Neither great or awful. The fights were slick and executed perfectly with such fluid motion. Blood squirts and occasionally a limb will be severed off. Most of the fights don't last that long though. One slash and the bad guys were dead.

So there weren't any real swordfights where you'd hear steel blades clinging at each other much. I don't just look for action in a movie, but in this case, the action was the strongest element. The plot was just about an evil gang terrorizing a village and there needed to be revenge. Also there were two geishas that had a huge grudge with these guys as well.

The problem with this little plot though was the movie's timing and dialogue didn't carry it well. The dialogue was too simple and some scenes were drawn out. A lot of the conversations didn't really need to be that long. Once something is established, let it go, do not stay fixated on it you filmmakers. Otherwise it ends up looking unedited and the movie doesn't feel like it's progressing. Other than those dead moments, there is some humor that you kind of think is there but you don't feel like laughing.

Only hilarious part was when some guy pulled out his sword and accidentally slices his friend. There's a long tap dancing scene at the end, which got boring fast. But towards the ending, is the sweetest part that redeems where the movie was lacking. Zatoichi mentions thought provoking lines that can be taken literally or metaphorically. There's a philosophy about people relying too much on seeing, that evil can disguise its image, deceiving those dependant on judging by sight. Who are the real blind ones then huh? The best bloodshed is towards the end, of course, like with most movies. 7.95/10

Basically there was this guy trained in Tai chi since he was a kid (hence `Born Invincible'). The whole plot of the movie is just about some kung-fu school figuring out how to kill this guy in order to keep their school's honor. The movie manages to keep you sitting through the whole thing. I usually get bored by real bad kung-fu films and then fast-forward to the fights to wake myself up, but this was intriguing enough to pay attention to.

It all started when some students tried to help an old man getting beaten by the villain's henchmen. This then establishes the years long feud. Eventually, the henchmen are killed until there's a final showdown with the main villain of the film. And they're ready to exploit his weakness, which the movie took some time to figure out.

The kung fu here has lots of fancy flips and jumps (villains finishing move is a jump-flip head-butt). This isn't some goofball kung fu although the movie is pretty hilarious cause of the cliché bad guy and Asian people fighting for honor as if they'd die without it.

I'm looking a bit too deep here, but the best thing about this film is it questioned whether it's right if the good guys cheat in fights for justice. The dubbing is hilarious and over the top like in all horribly brilliant kung-fu films. Good film to watch every now and then to see some ideal kung fu fighting. 9/10

The screenwriter poorly attempted to re-create the "Exorcist'. But put in some blah-blah love story that makes you sick instead of keeping you engaged. There is no substance whatsoever in this entire film. It had the potential of being something special but blows it by showing a bunch of people yack about things nobody cares about. Extremely boring, I wanted to leave the theater when I saw this but the dumb movie tickets were expensive so I had to withstand the dreary torture which felt like it lasted forever. Nothing on screen connected relevance back to whatever the characters were talking about.

They use computer graphics in here that instead of wowing me (as it intended, I hate CGI) just ruined the movie even more. Some people say this movie did horrible in the movie theaters because of how "thought-provoking" and "slow-paced-without-action-because it's an intelligent film" it was. What is so intelligent or thought provoking when the story is basically about pretty boy Heath Ledger as a priest who has a love interest and disobeys his religion? Seems like an uninspired concept. Oh and there's some mumbo jumbo about the "sin-eater" (movie was originally going to be titled "sin-eater"). Lame concept but the movie took the "sin-eater" thing too seriously, making the movie become pathetic and delusional about how dark and intelligent it was. Yeah, I know there were really sin-eaters in the medieval times but this movie just makes it sound cheesy.

Nothing in the movie was executed right and I forget why I even bothered to see this movie. If you want horror films that actually have depth, watch Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant, Naked Blood, Society, Cannibal Holocaust, Pin, Exorcist, Omen, or any of the Romero "Dead Trilogy" films. Nonsense dialogue does not equate to intelligence people, mainstream movie fans think that though (same kind of people that think a ridiculous movie like Hulk is a cinematic masterpiece). If you want mind-numbingly boring horror, watch the Order. This movie makes church seem like a roller coaster ride.

There was so much potential in the film. But it all diminished because of a nonsense story and worst acting ever. I don't mind bad acting ("Pieces" and "Gore Gore Girls" are hilarious). But this movie was supposed to be taken in a serious context. I couldn't believe any of the acting at all. Especially the long one part where we have the whole vital background story bluntly mumbled.

Couldn't the filmmakers embed the background story in a more creative way, rather than just having a girl read it so lifelessly as if she's being forced to read homework? I felt like I was trying to read through those long boring "User Agreement" things, which nobody reads in reality.

After closer listens to the story, I found it to be just fantasy mumbo jumbo. There was no enlightening view points given, which is something I look for in all forms of art that are taken seriously. "Dawn of the Dead" & "28 Day's Later" are good examples of horror movies that teach us something.

It's as if the poor story was just thrown in so they could have an excuse for calling the wild experimentation with cinema a "movie".

All in all, the blunder from that narration really threw me off the whole movie. I couldn't piece together any relevance to the creative bizarre (yet limited to low budget) imagery with the dialogue. The movie died in front of my eyes as far as I'm concerned after that point. Nothing could redeem the film from that horrid narration part. No wonder it's so cheap.

Eric Stanze is a true visionary. He just has to get stronger stories and a better budget. We see crap like "Biker Boyz" cost millions to make while Stanze could create so much more with that kind of money. I really wanted to like this but the story and acting were a huge disappointment.

I should probably mention the crazy parts of the film really are like a Nine Inch Nails video, as others have said. And the film does slide in strange random images, kind of like Oliver Stone. Also, there are some gore parts but it's no "Dead Alive" or "The Beyond" in that department.

I managed to stumble across this film when I went around searching for an "intelligent film with gross-out gore". And that's what I got when I ordered this cheap DVD. The film starts out following this 17 year old that feels alienated in his upper class home. Everything seems perfect but nothing is what it seems. There are a series of revelations the protagonist (Billy) discovers as his curiosity grows. Unraveling the truth was no easy task because of "Society's" many conspiracies and cover-ups.

The movies political voice lambasted against shallow people only worrying about social status and popularity (as illustrated with Billy's ex-girlfriend in the beginning). It also shows how the rich, literally, feed off the poor. This reminds me of how back in the Roman Empire, the peasants were heavily taxed, which was one factor of the Fall of Rome, where the poor revolted. There were clever puns thrown in that some people might have missed. The rich would eat and tear a person (well just one person) in an erotic orgy zombie-like attack, "rich feeding off the poor" - get it? There lots of references about how everyone would be "contributing to society" too.

Society has the oddness of "Jacob's Ladder" and "Nick of Time", the social satire of "American Psycho", and the gross effects of "Bad Taste" and "Re-Animator", only more emphasis on slimy repulsive sludge. Some people got dismembered in ways beyond my imagination. It wasn't bloody but it was gooey, I felt like some of the goop splattered on my face, as I stayed glued to the screen. This bizarre part makes up about the last 20 minutes of the film. Searching for answers made up most of the movie.

Other stuff I should mention: There's a little love story on the side mixed in. Film might feel like it ended a bit prematurely. Some nudity and sex scenes. A fat lady is thrown in for comic relief. You will see someone have an actual butthead. The music is pretty good and fits the movie's tone. The box says it's unrated, not rated R.

So if you want gross splattastic effects used in a film that mocks greedy shallow rich people that think they're better than us humans (the rich weren't human?!) in a cynical imaginative manner, "Society" is good choice.