Movies I Will Never See: Grotesque

HorrorSquad's mothership Cinematical recently kicked off a new feature with the self-explanatory title of Movies I Will Never See. It never occurred to me that people would take it personally, that a simple lack of desire to see a particular title was both an affront to all of cinema and an instantaneous disaccreditation of one's ability to talk film at all. As the managing editor of Cinematical, HS editor-in-chief Scott Weinberg found himself in the unfavorable position of having to defend his ace writing team and their insights as to why they've never given hours of their life to a certain film.

Being the caring friend to Scott that I am, I figured if he's going to fight that nonsensical battle at Cinematical, he might as well fight it at HS, too. Then it occurred to me that bringing the front lines to our niche may take the fun out of the game. After all, the proliferation of horror across each canopy of the cinema jungle has given way to a nearly industrialized scale of low-hanging fruit.

There are recognizable films I know I will never see. Films that end up on my horizon because they're covered consistently on mainstream horror sites. And no, I'm not just talking about straight-to-video sequels I have zero motivation to see. I'm talking about titles I actively avoid. It just so happens that one such film re-entered my orbit: Grotesque. It is a new offering from Japanese filmmaker Kôji Shiraishi, but for all Movies I Will Never See intents and purposes, know that it is a surrogate for known quantities like the films of Fred Vogel as well as countless underground fake snuff films that no one save the filmmaker and the people in his mother's basement have heard of.

I'd like to share the note passed to me the other day in regards to the surrogate:

"Whereas Hostel was for kids, Grotesque is for adults. This is billed as the "cruelest Japanese splatter movie ever" and it truly lives up to that billing. It is no small relief that the film lives up to its Movie title, a torture porn genre that has largely taken over the horror field. No CGI effects here, just sadistic violence that rarely flinches away, use of excellent makeup and prosthetics and shot very convincingly. Needless to say, in the finest tradition of Japanese gore cinema, the plot is minimal, with a young couple played by AV actress Nagasawa Tsugumi and Kawatsure Hiroaki (recently in "OneChanbara") being snatched off the street, only to wake up shackled in a grimy basement. Without even having the decency to explain why, a particularly sadistic madman (Osako Shigeo) proceeds to degrade, torture and mutilate them. This film is not for the faint of heart."

I realize the above is not an official pitch for the movie - Google can't even tell me where it originated from - but I trust it's an accurate encapsulation of Grotesque. Hell, the very name of the movie is reason enough for me to not see it. There is no identifiable subject of what is being described as grotesque. It's just simply Grotesque, because clearly that's all the movie thinks is sufficient subject matter. Why not just call it Vomit?

I don't have time for any film that exists only for the purpose of depravity. Sure, I can stand behind films like Martyrs or Inside that use brutality as, respectively, a thought piece or an exercise in survival. I cannot, however, donate my attention to a movie that puts violence on a pedestal with no other agenda than to pleasure itself in its presence. I have zero tolerance for that. It's lazy and it's pointless, but I'll take things even farther; I honestly do not want to be friends with anyone who enjoys it.

It's one thing to make a film like Deadgirl, which exploits its premise in an attempt towards some kind of commentary, even if it fails to do anything intelligent with teenagers who repeatedly rape a reanimated dead girl. It's another thing entirely to revel in torture as nothing more than an endurance test.

I despise the prospect of Grotesque so strongly that I won't even watch a minute or two of it in the form of a trailer over at Bloody-Disgusting. I realize I'm writing off an entire ecosystem of seedy filmmaking here, but can someone explain why I shouldn't? I like to watch movies, I do not like to stomach them.