I have watched some weird shit. Sometimes there are ideas that you have that don’t need to be communicated to other people. I don’t think I have seen anything that made me feel ill in the quite same way since Rabid Grannies, which made throw up in my mouth a little. I suppose if I had seen Human Centipede this might not seem too bad.
As a horror I suppose it does what it is supposed to do – it horrifies. I don’t think I was struck by bad acting in anyone apart from Johnny Depp, who seemed to be parodying some earlier and better Johnny Depp character.
Horror movies don’t really create much horror in me, just jumps normally. Is it weirder or does it have more power to lead you up to the horror because Kevin Smith directed it? Is it more surprising because it starts off like one of his comedies? I’m not sure.
Is what happens here any more horrific than the degradation and horror suffered by those in movies about real incidents. People ask the point of movies like this, and that derives mostly I think from the way in which the violence is directed. Maybe that’s the point? The absurdity of most violence, the way in which it seems out of the norm, and the way in which it affects your sense of the way the world works.
Would I recommend the film? Not really. I kept watching all the way, and was compelled to sit through it, but to say that you have to be in a certain mood to watch this film, ridiculously understates matters. Whether you’ll be in that same mood when the horror starts is another thing entirely. Whether that change in mood will allow you to make it to the end of the movie is the question. I have a lot of Kevin Smith movies in my collection … I watched this once, and that’s enough.