On the Fringe: "Begotten"

Niku Daruma

On the fringes of cinema, there have always been films that push the boundaries of what society has deemed decent and acceptable for the public to view. Such films depict graphic violence, unsimulated sex, and other taboos that regular people dare not speak of, with some movies including all of the above. Here in the United States, films like August Underground and Faces of Death gain an audience in the underground circuit and obtain recognition mainly through notoriety and word-of-mouth. But across the Pacific, Japan has its own brand of extreme cinema, with an emphasis on combining both pornography and unapologetically brutal violence. Niku Daruma (aka Tumbling Doll of Flesh or Psycho: The Snuff Reels) is such a film, even though it may seem tame to fans of extreme movies.

The film begins in a dark room, with a man sitting watching the gorey aftermath of an ax homicide on a small television set (according to many other movies about psychopaths, this is shown to establish his craziness). Next, we are shown several men picking up a female porn star, and they are taking her to the set (aka some guy‘s shitty apartment). The scene they are shooting gradually becomes more extreme, as they start off with normal foreplay and move into rope-bondage. It is when they introduce her to an enema that she objects and wants to take a break. While going to the restroom, one of the men come in and beat her over the head with a baseball bat. The three men tie her to the bedposts with ropes, and proceed to perform multiple amputations and other graphic acts (which would lose their impact with curious readers if I mention them).



Niku Daruma is directed by Tamakichi Anaru (his surname actually translates to “anal”, which is very telling, considering Niku), who has made other gore-soaked fares as Suicide Dolls and Women’s Flesh: My Red Guts. He is also known for his pornographic work, with such titles as Mother and Daughter: Spit-Swapping Seduction and Near Relation Lesbian Kiss. Anaru no doubt has a peculiar taste when it comes graphic sexuality, and he incorporates this into Niku and has the narrative (or lack-there-of) take a violent turn for the worse in this respect. Although he does, in a way, cater to the wishes of gorehounds and fans of obscure extreme cinema, Anaru has clearly made this film just for the sake of being shocking and perverse.

I must admit, I expected more going into this film. Having read other reviews for Niku, I was awaiting the chance to be shocked and disturbed. However, what I got was a 69-minute film that was a 40-minute porno (a rather boring one at that) and a 20-minute faux snuff film. I probably would not have minded this, were it for how painfully long and unnecessarily tedious the snuff portion of the film was. It also did not help that there were no subtitles, which makes you care about the characters even less. Niku Daruma has a very limited release here in the United States, and can probably only be found on eBay or the darkest corners of the internet. If you are into this sort of movie and you have a morbid curiosity to see it, then go for it (if you can find it). But Niku Daruma is too painfully long considering its short running time and has incredibly sub-par effects that I cannot actually recommend it to anyone.

"Night of the Living Dorks" AKA "Die Nacht der lebenden Loser"

Writer and director Mathias Dinter’s Night of the Living Dorks may be a
German flick, but it may have more familiarity with the American audience
rather than its native youth. In an international boom of horror genre parodies
since the success of UK’s Shaun of the Dead, this just feels more like a teen
sex comedy than another zombie flick.

Phillip (Tino Mewes) and his two friends Wurst and Konrad (Samuel Cortez
and Thomas Schmieder) are the unpopular kids in their school, and are
constantly picked on by the elite, upper-class popular people. After
witnessing a voodoo ritual in a cemetery performed by Phillip’s next-door
neighbor Rebecca (Collien Fernandes), the trio crashes their car while
under the influence of marijuana. This of course, turns them into zombies
and they have to figure out a way to fix it while at the same time taking
revenge on those that have wronged them.

While Night of the Living Dorks is a self-proclaimed zombie spoof, it
plays as more of an American sex teen comedy than anything. The
conventional characters of the teen flick are there (the girl next door,
the popular girl that the protagonist pines after, the upper-class jock
nemesis, the wise-cracking side kick, the parents leaving the house in
their son’s care, etc.), and a Revenge of the Nerds-type influence on the
plot is more than obvious. Besides being an essentially bloodless movie,
it does little to poke fun at zombie films. In fact, the ‘zomie’ as we
know it actually very skewed here, as there is apparently an antidote to
reverse it, and those unlucky ones turned into zombies can live among
humans. All they have to do is eat a lot of raw meat, raid a blood bank,
and learn to suppress the urge to bite an ass or two.

Night of the Living Dorks isn’t all that bad, however. Even though it’s
just like every other National Lampoons teen sex romp we’ve seen before,
it’s actually funny. Instead of focusing on making as many references to
teen culture as possible, it’s just flat-out silly and entertaining, with
the dialogue being consistently perverted and goofy. The biggest flaw is
the fact that Night of the Living Dorks seems too American. A German
flick that makes references to Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
and Casablanca really doesn’t come off as too German to me.

If you’re looking for formulaic yet goofy and entertaining time, then this
is for you. But if you enjoy foreign films and/or horror genre spoofs,
this most likely won’t be your cup of tea.

2 stars/4