"Subconscious Cruelty" is a tedious little splatter flick with aspirations both to shock and to the avant-garde. It fails on both counts.
I admit, it is pretty gruesome and disgusting, and there's plenty of sex in it for those interested in that sort of thing. But what is the point of it? It's just not that interesting.
The movie is an anthology of short films. The first one shows a naked woman lying on a slab while titles on screen explain about left-brain and right-brain theory, and we get shots of a brain intercut with the woman. A scalpel slices open the woman's abdomen and a hand reaches inside her and pulls out an eyeball. Segment over.
Wow! Symbolism! That's some heavy stuff there, man. Too bad I can't be bothered trying to think what it might mean - I don't care, and chances are, nor would you.
The next segment is possibly the most memorable. A naked man peeks through a keyhole at a naked woman while she has sex and he masturbates watching her. An endless, tedious monologue on the soundtrack explains his state-of-mind in a tone of voice that seems better suited to an instructional video for printer cartridge installation. The woman gets pregnant and gives birth in perhaps the most nauseating childbirth scene ever committed to celluloid. The young man apparently murders the baby and drips its blood into the mother's mouth, who then also dies.
The next segment is perhaps the weakest of all. Naked people roll around in a field, and take clumps of earth in their hands, which fill with blood. Segment over.
The last segment is possibly the most offensive of all, for those of us who have religious leanings... and of course, if we did, we wouldn't be watching it anyway. So who is it going to offend? Anyway, there's a pointless introduction with a guy in a bar somewhere, who then goes someplace else and fantasizes about women raping Christ on the cross while other women rip the skin of his legs, tearing it off and exposing the bone underneath.
About the only people I can imagine this appealing to are edgy teenagers going through their "I hate religious sheeple" phase, which usually comes one or two phases before they become born again. For the rest of us? It's no big whoop.
And that's it. The movie has been described as "gory, gruesome, shocking and disturbing" on IMDB. I'll grant the first couple, and maybe the last one in a pinch, though I wasn't particularly shocked. I wasn't disturbed at all either, though. The movie didn't change how I felt, and now that I've watched it, I'll probably never think about it again.
I admit, it is pretty gruesome and disgusting, and there's plenty of sex in it for those interested in that sort of thing. But what is the point of it? It's just not that interesting.
The movie is an anthology of short films. The first one shows a naked woman lying on a slab while titles on screen explain about left-brain and right-brain theory, and we get shots of a brain intercut with the woman. A scalpel slices open the woman's abdomen and a hand reaches inside her and pulls out an eyeball. Segment over.
Wow! Symbolism! That's some heavy stuff there, man. Too bad I can't be bothered trying to think what it might mean - I don't care, and chances are, nor would you.
The next segment is possibly the most memorable. A naked man peeks through a keyhole at a naked woman while she has sex and he masturbates watching her. An endless, tedious monologue on the soundtrack explains his state-of-mind in a tone of voice that seems better suited to an instructional video for printer cartridge installation. The woman gets pregnant and gives birth in perhaps the most nauseating childbirth scene ever committed to celluloid. The young man apparently murders the baby and drips its blood into the mother's mouth, who then also dies.
The next segment is perhaps the weakest of all. Naked people roll around in a field, and take clumps of earth in their hands, which fill with blood. Segment over.
The last segment is possibly the most offensive of all, for those of us who have religious leanings... and of course, if we did, we wouldn't be watching it anyway. So who is it going to offend? Anyway, there's a pointless introduction with a guy in a bar somewhere, who then goes someplace else and fantasizes about women raping Christ on the cross while other women rip the skin of his legs, tearing it off and exposing the bone underneath.
About the only people I can imagine this appealing to are edgy teenagers going through their "I hate religious sheeple" phase, which usually comes one or two phases before they become born again. For the rest of us? It's no big whoop.
And that's it. The movie has been described as "gory, gruesome, shocking and disturbing" on IMDB. I'll grant the first couple, and maybe the last one in a pinch, though I wasn't particularly shocked. I wasn't disturbed at all either, though. The movie didn't change how I felt, and now that I've watched it, I'll probably never think about it again.