I watched "Grotesque" because of the hype around it and because it had been banned. So of course this raised some further interest about the movie. Plus, Japan have been putting out some pretty good gory movies the last couple of years.

However, I don't really understand why "Grotesque" would be banned, because it is not really that horrible, perverse or extreme. Sure there are some grizzly scenes, but hardly enough to ban it. I guess some critics and censors are a bit too sensitive at heart.

The story told in "Grotesque" was both good and quite bad at the same time. The good part was that we follow this deranged person who kidnaps and tortures people to satisfy his own perverse, depraved sexual desires. And the bad part of the story was at the same time the storyline, because it was weak and when he suddenly started to nurture the people back to health and promise to release them and turn himself in (eventhough he didn't do it, of course),then the movie took a turn for the worse, for the more cliché. Also, there was a bit too much time spent on some really unnecessary sexual scenes, bordering on where it would become soft-core porn. That also brought the movie down a notch.

What worked for the movie, though, was the brutality of some of the scenes and the usage of blood and gore. There were indeed some scenes that will have you curling your toes in sympathetic pain and disgust. Especially for the male viewers, then there are some scenes that will leave you curled up in pain and wincing. I am talking about the torture scenes involving the guy's genitals, of course.

As for the cast in "Grotesque", well it was limited to just basically three people, the two abducted people (the man and the woman) and the torturing abductor. The movie is carried by the guy playing the cruel abductor, because he really does put on a good performance as a deviant maniac.

The sets and props in the movie were good, because there was a very good feeling to the place where the guy tortured the man and woman, a sort of dirty, gritty and deviant feeling. That was also one of the great things in the movie, because they had really managed to set a good mood and tone for the movie with the sets.

"Grotesque" had lots of potential to be so much more than it turned out to be, but it faltered on a weak storyline and the director's need to show tacky sex scenes. When the movie ended, I was left with a sense of 'was that really it? This movie was banned, really? Come on...' and I was disappointed by the overall movie. Sure there were really good parts in "Grotesque", but it was somewhat of a disappointing experience. There are better Japanese gore movies available with better story lines, though often less impressive effects, but the gore makes up for that. Sure "Grotesque" is worth a watch for gore-hounds and fans of Japanese gore flicks. But as a horror movie, "Grotesque" wasn't scary at all, it was just twisted and gory.

Gurotesuku, or Grotesque as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, is set in Japan & starts as a guy (Shigeo Ôsako) attacks a couple (Hiroaki Kawatsure & Tsugumi Nagasawa) who are on a first date, he knocks them out with a hammer & puts then in his van. When the couple regain consciousness they find themselves in a small room, ball gagged & tied to rotating tables. The guy stands there & makes it clear to both that he will torture them & if their will to survive is strong enough & he gets sexually aroused enough he will spare them, however once the unbearable torture begins how long can the captives hold out for...

Also known under the title Grotesque: Unrated Version which was what the version I saw was called this Japanese extreme torture horror flick was directed by Kôji Shiraishi & was recently banned here in the UK which has predictably had the effect that everyone now wants to see it because it's 'banned' whereas if Gurotesuku had been rated 18 without any fuss no-one would ever have heard of it & it would have sold a few hundred copies on DVD at most. Hell I will openly admit the only reason I bothered to track a copy down & watch it was because it had been banned & not because I wanted to watch it, to be brutally honest I don't really have a problem with the film & I personally would have no problem with this being made available to adults who want to see it but I don't work at the BBFC (the British film censor board) so it wasn't up to me... Anyway, what we have here is a film almost totally devoid of any meaningful narrative or plot & an increasingly boring conveyor belt of sadism, humiliation & torture as some guy (we never find out who he is or his name) gets sexually turned on by watching other people suffer & try to survive & cope with horrible injuries he inflicts upon them. That's it really. The majority of Gurotesuku has a minimalist documentary feel about it as it focuses completely on one aspect in a voyeuristic way but then the makers pull a bizarre ending out of the blue that seems to contradict the deadly serious harsh realistic brutality that preceded it with a silly dark comedic end that involved a flying severed living head & motives for the killer that amount to him smelling which felt like it was more suited to The Evil Dead (1982) than a film attempting to come across as snuff. At only 73 minutes it's short, it does have some impact because of the brutality of it although I don't really know who it would appeal to, it's certainly not a film you would sit down with your mates & watch, unless you have weird mates. Not worth the notoriety that the recent BBFC ban will undoubtedly give it to be honest, this is just a Saw or Hostel film without any of the plot or character development or sophistication.

Although well made there's a lot of quick edits & shaky hand-held camera movement which gets annoying. Despite what you may hear Gurotesuku isn't that extreme, it's just that it's unrelenting & it's torture scene after torture scene without any chance to take a breather between them & I didn't think any one particular moment was any more graphic or disturbing than anything from the aforementioned Saw or Hostel films. There's some blood splatter, needles are stuck into people, hands are cut off with a chainsaw, severed fingers are seen, an arm is chopped off, a head is chopped off, a woman has her nipples cut off with scissors, someones guts are pulled out & this guy hammers nails into his victims testicles that isn't overly graphic but the mere thought of it will send shivers down any mans spine & he also cuts his penis off which again isn't actually shown (due to a well placed sheet) but it's clear what is happening. The special effects are pretty good actually although for such a modern film that is expected. The constant juxtaposition of classical elegant music on the soundtrack that conflicted with the vile nastiness of the torture on screen got a little boring & repetitive by the end.

Gurotesuku actually reminded me of the Guinea Pig Japanese series of films & in particular Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (1985) & Guinea Pig: Flowers of Flesh and Blood (1985) both of which were also pseudo snuff films supposedly showing real torture & murder. The acting is quite good, although the spoken dialogue is Japanese it's quite intense & the actor's do a decent job.

Gurotesuku is a film which will now be sought after & become notorious for nothing more than a bunch of people saying it should be banned in the UK for no good reason as far as I can see & quite frankly it doesn't really deserve the publicity since it's not that good & has no real story, artistic value or social relevance beyond two people being tortured & eventually murdered.

When a film is deemed so heinous by the BBFC that a certificate is refused outright, fans of extreme cinema are naturally intrigued; I know that when I'm told I can't see a movie because it might possibly damage my fragile little mind, I'm all the more keen to view it, curious to see if my sensibilities (and stomach) can withstand the challenge.

Fortunately, these days, where there's a will, there's usually a way, which means I am now able to fill you in on the details about this sick flick from Japan which has gotten so many censors' knickers in a twist.

In a nutshell, Grotesque is director Kôji Shiraishi's reply to horror film-makers in the West, who in recent years have been claiming 'torture porn' as their own concept, when in fact, the genre was practically invented by the Japanese (can anyone say Nikkatsu? Or hows about Guinea Pig?). By ramping up the violence in his film to never-before-seen levels of nastiness, Shiraishi is basically flipping the bird to all the Eli Roth's of the world and screaming 'Follow that, if you dare!!!'

The story, for want of a better word, sees a young couple, Aki and Kazuo (Tsugumi Nagasawa and Hiroaki Kawatsure),abducted by a lunatic (brilliantly played by stony-faced Shigeo Ôsako) who sexually abuses and physically tortures people in order to get his jollies: apparently, this sicko can only be sexually satisfied by observing his victims' will to survive.

For starters, the psycho pushes a large nail to the back of Aki's throat (through a hole in his ball-gag!) and inserts another into his abdomen; then both Aki and Kazuo are stripped and sexually stimulated to... ahem... completion (cue lots of sticky bodily fluids). This doesn't seem to do the trick for their captor, so out comes the chainsaw, and off come the fingers (which are used to make a pretty pair of necklaces). Kazuo also gets her nipples and an arm removed as punishment for screaming out.

Aki is then asked if he would die to save Kazuo and replies that he would; this results in our loony breaking out some more tools and saying the one thing no man ever wants to hear: "first I will hammer some nails into your nuts." Ouch!!! A spot of nut hammering and a little penis pruning later, and it's mission accomplished for the maniac, who is so thrilled by Aki's willing sacrifice that he spares his life, nurses the pair back to health and promises to set them free.

Oooh! The little liar: he has no intention of letting them go, having devised a further challenge for Aki—one which he hopes will result in an even more satisfying climax.

Whilst Grotesque is admittedly little more than an excuse to show 73 minutes of amazingly harsh and realistic scenes of sadistic torture (at least until the surprisingly comical OTT finalé, which is like something straight out of a Peter Jackson style splatter-fest),it achieves its purpose with aplomb, providing a relentlessly gruelling experience for those of us who like to test our limits; you may have seen equally repellent scenes in other films, but its unlikely that you'll have seen as many in a single film.