It's Wednesday. 3 PM. Sun is out. Breeze is nice. On a TV somewhere in Ohio, a man watches another man jam a phillips head screwdriver into his urethra. That's the middle of Act II of American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice.
If you know me, you know I watch too many shows and too many movies to spend my time watching stuff like this. But I also love the adorable boy that runs this site. So, as a favor to him, I watched it and will do my best to review it.
Anyway - what I can tell you is this... The movie is quite literally centered around Daniel (Roberto Scorza), and only Daniel. Discomforted by the death of his Dad and for all we know many other mental ailments, Daniel returns to his childhood home. Which, by all visuals, appears to be abandoned. He shuffles up a beautiful staircase and into the bathroom. This is where most of our story takes place. As Daniel stares into the bathroom mirror, he is clearly scarred. Be it emotional scars, and/or physical. From the bathroom Daniel and the audience begin on a path. A path that's just as dark as anything you could conjure up. Is the journey about the self? Self-exploration? Self-mutilation? Self-enlightenment? Or is this a path of a person possessed? Possessed by an entity. Is it possible Ishtar (Flora Giannattasio), the Goddess of Love, Beauty, Sex, Desire, Fertility, War, Justice, and Political Power lurks underneath Daniel's crawling skin? Or...is Daniel just batshit crazy? You be the judge.
With only a couple characters and almost no dialogue, I feel this film truly relies on the special effects department headed by Athanasius Pernath. I feel the director, Poison Rouge said four words to Anthanasius, "Make the audience squirm." Mission accomplished. Speaking of Poison Rouge, I must say, wonderful direction. The pacing, editing, and presentation is clearly calculated and delivered, dare I say, given the content, does wonderfully represent Samuel Marolla's script. Couple that with a superbly dark score by Alexander Cimini.
What I will close with, and I mean no disrespect to the cast and crew - At my age, 25 straight minutes of dick mutilation has lost it's fun. Its not that I have anything against stories that have shocking gore, I just want more emotion than stomach turning. And yes, I'm very aware that they can be one in the same. However, I think it's very possible to do both, and just be slightly heavier in the emotion department. Having said that, most of the acting and effects are quite impressive.
Gore hounds rejoice. Either don't eat beforehand and if you do, make it hours in advance. That goes double for those of you that have a penis.
American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice is available now from Unearthed Films.
