When I was sent the review for R-Point, my friend Kevin mentioned at the bottom of his email about a film he quite fancied getting a hold of. That film was "The Butcher" and I figured that I should maybe give it a watch, see what it is about. I was a little put off when I read the tag line on the DVD box:"The Korean horror film too brutal and shocking to be released in its own country"
But hey, I am fairly desensitized to violence, so why not. I figure nothing could be that violent really.
The whole film is shot in a handy cam fashion, as seems to be the style these days with many horror films already on the band wagon. The plot revolves around two guys who have a group of people hostage in a remote area; it looks like an abandoned slaughterhouse. Each of the people have a camera attached to their heads to show us from their own perspective as they are beaten with a claw hammer and eventually dragged away. One by one, people get moved into a room where you hear screaming, gushing, slushing, splatting and other disgusting noises. It takes a while before you actually see any violence, and the film is only 70 minutes long any way, so there was a lot to catch up on. Eventually two of the people are dragged through and we see things through their cameras.
They are a couple and this film seems to be trying to portray itself as a real life snuff film. The couple are faced with the two men from before and a larger man wearing a pig mask brandishing a blade. The male is offered a choice, if he can last ten minutes of what is going to happen to him, both he and his wife will be released. From here, it gets messy.
I have never been one to enjoy these sort of torture porn films, where the more gruesome the better. I do enjoy gore in horror films sometimes, but in other cases it almost takes it too far. Now I don;t like to give spoilers in my reviews, but I feel I should mention that this film has the following things in it; someone being beaten in the face with a hammer, sodomy, the removal of body parts using a chainsaw and many other vile things.
This film tries to break boundaries by being forcefully shocking and it succeeds in doing so. However, it also succeeds in being extremely juvenile and it almost seems at times that its mission is to actively disgust you rather than provide any sort of entertainment. The one thing I feel it does interestingly is the handling of the characters decision making. It is certainly of interest to see how the characters behave when they feel threatened and then the difference in that behavior when the are threatened.
Running at 70 minutes is just about all that I could take from this, I was more repulsed than anything else. Sadly this film has failed to make any lasting impact on me other than short term buyers remorse. Some movies I have watched have made me think in similar ways...they were overly violent, but there was an interesting plot and the characterization was good. "The Butcher" just fails on a lot of levels. Someone once said that the reason we perceive all eastern horror films to be brilliant is because we only see the portion of them that are worthwhile bringing to other markets. I would posit to you that this is the beginning for the end of this statement, the bar has been lowered significantly. If you are into the whole hardcore torture horror then maybe this is what you are looking for, but if you have any semblance of a conscious or morals this probably isn't for you.
Rating 2 out of 5
See it if you liked:
Hostel
Saw III
Quarantine
What does IMDB say?
Review by Stephen King
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