Ghost of the Civil Dead - John Hillcoat - Australia - (1988)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095217/

Plot from Imdb: "The inmates and guards of a modern, clean and efficient maximum security wing are slowly and increasingly brutalised until they erupt in violence." 

Note: "In Roman law, a person convicted of a crime where the punishment included loss of their legal rights as a person was civiliter mortuus, a person without civil rights, a civil dead." (Wikipedia)

John Hillcoat ("The Proposition", "The Road") first direction is a very impressive one. Having collaborated with Nick Cave (as they did for "The proposition"), they created a bleak vision of a high security unit, doom to collapse from the inner violence of the industrial repression system that governs the place.

Extremely claustrophobic, strangely realistic (as far as we can tell), I found it highly political. From a cold point of view, the movie recreates perfectly the tension between the groups inside the prison. Even the guards seems prisoners of a dehumanized system. Highly brutal, even in the symbolic sense, this ozzie version of "OZ" (the prison tv series), is gonna hurt you and put you in front of a paradoxical question:  is Society creating more violence by trying to suppress it ?

Excellent first movie from Hillcoat, his sober but efficient style goes perfectly well with the macabre music by Nick Cave (who has a small role as a crazy inmate) and creates a real oppressive atmosphere that contaminates you. 

A impressive Ozzie gem. 

 Trailer (with french subtitles, don't ask me why):

Hana To Hebi aka Flower and Snake - Takashi Ishii - Japan - (2003)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388098/

Plot by AsianFilmReviews: "Shizuko Tooyama is a beautiful professional dancer with a successful marriage and a seemingly perfect life. What she does not know is her husband, Takayoshi, owes the yakuza a large sum of money. The yakuza threaten to turn over a videotape with Takayoshi engaging in illegal activities with them to his boss. The only way that Takayoshi can pay the yakuza off is by selling his wife to them for use as a sex slave. Shizuko is then kidnapped, ritually gang-raped and subjected to countless types of sexual torture. Her abuse is primarily for the enjoyment of the head boss of that yakuza family. It was his attraction to Shizuko that prompted his underlings to arrange her purchase. "

 

Remake of a classic from 1974, this Pinku, directed by Takashi ishii ("Evil Dead Trap" writer, director of some of the "Angel Guts" pinku series and of the petrifying "Freeze me"),  is visually splendid and has very good production values, contrary to a lot of "modern" erotic movies. The erotic tension is put aside unfortunately and the director obviously concentrate all of hs effort on the stylish achievement of creating beautiful "frames" of S&M sex. The iconic nature of these images is mesmerizing but distract the audience from the plot and the emotional involvement of the viewers. After her first abduction and submission to sexual fantasies, we find ourselves longing for something more and it doesn't happens. The desperate attempts to save her seems doomed from the beginning and we guess very soon that her salvation lies in her acceptance of her fate/own fantasies. Unfortunately, this is way too classic to be interesting to a pinku "aficionado". Despite that, one cannot put aside the real lavish S&M imagery and the quality of Ishii's direction.

Many have noted the connections between this movie and "Eyes Wide Shut"...I won't comment further as they are clearly not the same kind of movie, but it's clearly the Japanese movie that goes all the way in the  exploration of erotic fantasy where E.W.S staid only at the surface. Question of culture, I guess.

At the end of the day, the fetishist aspect of S&M is clearly depicted as beautiful and arty.  And it is. But too much of the eroticism is missing, for this movie to be completely successful.

 Sorry, no trailer available.

Mystics in Bali aka Leák - H. Tjut Djalil - Indonesia - (1981)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097942/

Plot from Imdb: "The true story of an American girl who learn the dark magic of LEAK BALI from a Rangda, a widow-witch."

I dare you ! I dare you to watch this movie and not imitate the devilish laugh of the Dark Magic priestess.I found it impossible to resist. Mouhahahahahahahaaha !

Based on the feared belief of "Leyak", the actual black magic of Bali, this movie is a treat for all the lover of old-school fx and surreal imagery based on ancient witchcraft. Apparently, the movie was banned in indonesia for quite some time. It's distributed in DVD by Mondomacabro.

The production values are pretty low as far as the  main story, the love affair, is concerned but the emphasis is really on the black magic ceremonies and spells. And they'll really rock your socks off. A flying head  with entrails attacking a pregnant woman and sucking out her baby, a woman turned into a wild pig before your very eyes,  the dark priestess turned into a snake, the spitting of rats, a deadly battle of magic powers, etc....All of this made in a genuine and naive way that shows a certain respect to the original belief.

At the same time, there are some hilarious moments in the movie: the priest trying to exorcise the decapitated body of the american woman by putting 3 toothpicks in her cut-off neck, this way the flying head of the Leàk cannot re-attached itself to the body (!!!) or the American woman is asked casualy by her lover: "Catherine, what's the matter with you?" after she spits rats all over the place.

Imaginative, funny, another classic from South Asia.

Some kind of trailer:

Mutant Girls Squad aka Sento Shojo: Chi no Tetsu Kamen Densetsu - trailer - Japan - (2010)

Co-directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), Tak Sakaguchi (Samurai School), and Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl and Hypertrophy Genital Girl). 

Looks insane as usual.

Hypertrophy Genital Girl aka Hidai Kasei Utsuwa shojo - Noboru Iguchi - Japan - (2009)

Strangely not on Imdb (;-D)

Plot:  Well, it's a porn movie with chick with hypertrophied genitals so, let's skip this part, shall we ?

After Robot geisha and The Machine Girl, Noburo Iguchi went on doing this absolutely insane AV. If you liked his "grand guignol" grotesque gory movies, I guess you have to be interested by his views on porn. And interesting it is: after an encounter of the third kind with a penis head alien, the main protagonists, two innocent young women grow gigantic sex organs: massive tits, a massive dong and a massive vagina ! They start immediately to find "interesting" use to it. Tsubomi is cute and quite funny in a difficult role (sic), as the lady with the gigantic phallus. The directors imagination seems to have very few limits : masturbation and auto-fellatio, forced orgasm ( a classic of Japanese AV) of the giant clitoris with electric dildo and the penis head of the alien from space, lesbian sex that end up quite logically as straight sex with a giant rod up the giant vagina (how perfect is mother nature), etc...This movie needs to be seen to be believed. An ideal choice for a romantic night with your loved one.

This should be a mandatory viewing for all readers of this blog.

Trailer:

And we even have a making of: