Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) Poster

Parents Guide

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Certification

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Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • Two teen boys are told to pull their pants and underwear down and expose themselves to a group of adults to be inspected. The camera pans from the boys faces all the way down to their crotches and their penises shown in clear view.
  • Many sexual acts are shown or talked about (graphically) at one time or another, but usually without showing direct sexual contact; acts include sodomy, coprophilia, transvestism, S&M, rape, and masturbation.
  • Young men and women are forced to participate in sadistic sexual acts and ones that are designed to be degrading and humiliating.
  • There is plenty of full frontal nudity. It is mostly young men and women, who are sex slaves, at a mansion. We see penises and vulvas, usually from a distance.
  • There is a scene where a young man and woman have a mock wedding, and all the other sex slaves are naked with genitalia showing and one of the fascists stops the ceremony to come and grope and kiss the naked bodies of both the men and women.
  • Two men have sex with each other; it is in a dark room, and we see the "top" man's buttocks during this scene.
  • A young woman urinates onto a man's face, and the man drinks it.
  • Two of the "sex slave" girls are in a lesbian relationship; we see them kissing and having sex.
  • A man and a woman are briefly seen having sex together; they are both killed for having "normal sex."

Violence & Gore

  • A girl's scalp is cut off. Very graphic.
  • Probably the most shocking and twisted movie you could possibly watch, along with Cannibal Holocaust, Serbian film and original Martyrs.
  • A young man's tongue is cut off. Brief, but graphic.
  • A person's eye is graphically cut off with a knife. Lasts for a few seconds.
  • Two or three people are briefly seen having their nipples burn with candles or branding irons, some onscreen some offscreen.
  • A woman eats a piece of cake with small razor blades in it; she yelps briefly and bleeds a little while doing so.
  • A young woman is killed quietly offscreen; we see her body afterward with her throat in dried blood.
  • A young man is whipped on the back several times after not "begging like a dog."
  • A man is shot after he is caught having sex with a woman, the shooting is offscreen, but we see some bloody bullet holes, his love is shot in the head offscreen directly after this
  • Several young men and women are raped.
  • A young woman commits suicide to escape the degradation and abuse by jumping out a window. While we do not see the impact, blood is shown next to her. This lasts for a few seconds.
  • We can see people being hung on nooses; this is only from a distance though.
  • A woman tells violent stories with a smile on her face (she recounts one where a woman has a rat sewn into her vagina).

Profanity

  • The word "bitch" has been said a few times
  • "hoe" is said several times, though (usually) not in an overly derogatory manner. There is some sexual dialog. Also a few uses of "fuck" and "shit" in the Criterion dubbed version
  • Stories of past sexual encounters are told with graphic detail.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • Several characters smoke throughout the film.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • The atmosphere is unsettling, even if there isn't a whole lot of violence and gore. The woman gleefully talks about some twisted and perverted things.
  • Everybody eats human feces at a dinner event, some are smiling and loving it while others are disgusted/gross.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • The film ends on a very sad/upsetting note. Nearly all of the victims are killed and the others have no chance of escape.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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