
Movies

Takashi Hirose's first feature-length film. It's been a while since I last watched a truly brutal horror flick, they've gone a bit out of fashion this past decade. That said, a lot of the actual horror happens off-screen and the flimsy grindhouse filters/effects are a poor substitute. The result was somewhat disappointing. A violent serial killer is leaving behind a string of brutally disfigured corpses. He's looking for a girl that suits his needs, but no one seems to meet his requirements. Until he happens upon a female killer who is just as mad as he is. The two are made for each other, but their eagerness to kill leads them into a violent showdown. For a film that is called Brutal and wants to be in-your-face and shocking, too much is left to the imagination of the audience. Hirose's frantic camera work and two sufficiently deplorable leads are the perfect ingredients for a real nasty splatter fest, but in the end you get a lot of off-camera stabbing and smeared-out blood. It's a good thing the film was relatively short, so at least it never became too boring or repetitive.Read all