If you thought the SAW movies were a little harsh or if Hostel sickened you a little, here’s some advice: stay the hell away from Grotesque! Seriously. This movie really did get banned in Britain to the point that it cannot be sold within the country legally. That’s a harsh and rarely imposed sentence on any film, but considering that the film Guinea Pig came out of Japan, you can expect that when Japanese directors intend to be harsh they are going to spare you nothing. This movie is almost hard to review not because it’s bad, but because it’s difficult to endure all the way to the credits.

In case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, the reason British authorities banned the selling of this film in their nation is the fact that the plot and story are minimal. Unlike even Hostel which gives you some form of “justification” for the cruelties doled out to the victims, Grotesque offers no such intellectual comforts. According to director Kōji Shiraishi, this is precisely as he intended his splatter flick to be. He laughingly declared he expected the movie to be banned by moralists and then Amazon Japan quit carrying the DVD. Japan has a higher level of tolerance for this form of expression than many other countries are willing to allow so in its native land, Grotesque has not raised much alarm.

The important thing to remember about a movie like this is that you will see gore in excessive quantities, but you’ll see far more bodily fluids than just blood or vomit. The film shows the killer abducting a young couple, chaining them in the basement and torturing them for his own sexual pleasure. This is graphic torture along the lines of Hostel on PCP and it’s unrelenting, start to finish. We are not simply talking about pain, we’re talking about scenes of humiliation and debasement that are highly sexual in nature. These can be excruciatingly difficult to handle, emotionally. This reviewer does not believe that many people will watch this for actual enjoyment because it’s clearly intended as a shock film.

Even hardcore horror fans may find Grotesque difficult to stomach, both literally and figuratively, simply because it portrays the usual dismemberments alongside such activities as graphic genital mutilation of both a man and a woman. The atmosphere of the film is stifling to say the least and the twist partway through may well throw you. The primary question the audience is going to find themselves asking is, “How far is this guy willing to go?” The answer is not something this reviewer wants to give away.

Suffice it to say that Grotesque delivers on its title and also challenges the notions that a film intended as entertainment needs to have some sort redeeming feature to it somewhere within its running time. At 76 minutes of sheer madness, the movie gives zero relief in terms of answering our questions about the killer himself or why he’s doing what he’s doing.

In your reviewer’s opinion, this is because Mr. Shiraishi has no interest in rationalizing the behavior of his antagonist. Instead, he’s going to leave you to come up with your own conclusions if you care to ponder them. If the film enrages, then it should.

After all, what answer could there possibly be to the question of why a human being would treat even his most despised enemies in this way?

The frustratingly cold answer is: no reason will ever be good enough.