31 Nights of Horror, Night 16: A Serbian Film
Three sentence review:
To give credit where credit’s due: good acting, musical score, and cinematography, but unless you’re a professional horror writer, regular film festival goer, or desensitized to absolutely everything horrific you could possibly imagine… PLEASE skip this one. A Serbian Film made V/H/S 2’s “Safe Haven” look like Disney’s A Haunted Mansion; don’t look it up, don’t watch it out of morbid curiosity, don’t watch it to see if it’s really that shocking, don’t watch it to see what the fuss is all about. I went through with it, I handled it, I don’t feel good about it – out of all the horror sub-genres, exploitation is my least favorite.
Bonus commentary:
I completely understand that the director uses this film as an analogy to the horrors the Serbian government bestowed upon its citizens, and I am not of Serbian descent so I can’t speak to that perspective. I also get that no one would be constantly talking about this movie without the presence of some of the scenes it includes. But, seriously, if the director never came out and told people that was his intention, would we have gotten that or would it just have been dismissed as – quite literally – torture porn? There was one scene between Milos and Vukmir that discussed this, but very briefly.
I also understand how some extremist defenders of cinema will argue forever that this is art and a metaphor for the government fucking its people, and how far a person would go for money, blah blah blah. I respect your opinion, and your right to say it. Watch it all you want – it’s there. It’s on freaking YouTube for free.
Here’s my opinion: I will absolutely never condone the visuals presented to me as a viewer of this film. Horrific. Give me Leatherface going to town on some dude’s leg with a chainsaw any day of the week, don’t ever give me this.
Seriously, don’t do it,
Katie
NERDCROPOLIS 