Review: Brutal

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet

 Brutal

Written and directed by Takashi Hirose
Unearthed Films / MVD Visual
67 minutes, 2018
www.facebook.com/brutalfilm
www.unearthedfilms.com
www.mvdvisual.com

Unearthed Films, it seems, is the (pall) bearer of brutality to the human flesh. It is run by Stephen Biro, who bought out the rights to the original Japanese underground Guinea Pig tapes and proceeded to not only then release them, but to start his own torturous series, appropriately under the banner of American Guinea Pig. And along the way, with those and other releases such as this one, has made a name for himself and his company as purveyors of the odd, the perverse, and the brutal.

Which brings us to this new film, fittingly titled Brutal, from the shores of, again, Japan. In the first chapter, we are quickly introduced to Man (the single-named Butch), as he slashes and beats a series of women who he keeps asking, “Do you understand?” Of course, they are too scared for their lives, which end quickly and painfully.



Butch

Meanwhile, across town, Woman (singer Ayano [Ôami]) is also stabbing her way through the hearts and peni of men who try to pick her up on the street in the second chapter. Her question is “Am I okay?” I’ll let that mull in for a moment.

 

The third chapter is, of course, their meeting. Rather than it being cutesy like the violent rom-com Psychos in Love (1987), a different approach is taken. Will it end with them pairing? Or perhaps more like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1989)? Fear not for I will not give spoilers.

Just how brutal is it? Well, I guess that depends on your violence barometer. It certainly is more than most mainstream films, even ones dealing with malevolence, but it is also not as much as some of the other Japanese films, such as Takashi Miike’s Audition (1999) or the Guinea Pig titles.

Japan can be an odd country when it comes to ways of approaching the subject of the feminine, including in cinema. For example, they obviously idolize the female form (sometimes in very creepy ways, i.e., schoolgirls), and yet there is a certain lack of respect as far as power dynamics goes. Intentional or not, that does creep its way into this film, as well. For example, both Man and Woman are strong, give in to their primal urges, and are killer with a blade (both figuratively and literally). However, in the first chapter, we see Man brutalize a number of women in detail, and ”lovingly” show how he cleans up after. For the Woman’s chapter, we are given more of a montage of her work. Sure the number of victims is larger, but it goes so fast that the personalization is gone, making the women targets more vulnerable and the men quick though painful kills in most cases.



Ayano

There is no back story for these two serial killers, though there is a hint of motivation by the end of this short work. But even that is a big question of how they got into their situations that led to their anger. But the biggest issue for me is the ending, which I believe I understood what is implied, but the how is where I start scratching my head.

 

The film itself is shot in a choppy manner with lots of video noise (not found footage style, though) and a heavy guitar sound backing it up. The actual music, however, is very rap based, which shows up in the extras as three music videos. The other extras are a 1:06 “Behind the Scenes” which condenses all three weeks of the shoot into essentially 22 seconds each, some Unearthed trailers, and chapters. Considering the film is in Japanese, I am not considering the captions as extras as much as necessities.

For a first feature length release – albeit shorter than most - Hirose rises to the occasion and brings what he promises, a film that is what its name claims. I’m still trying to figure out, however, the meaning of the second couple in the film who seem extraneous.