NSFW – The 13 Most Entertaining Video Nasties
Matt Molgaard
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I Spit on Your Grave: Talk about unforgiving productions! Meir Zarchi’s barbarous revenge piece I Spit on Your Grave reformulates everything contemptible about extreme pictures. The movie is hard to watch, and when you really sit back and absorb the fact there’s a featured rape scene that lasts damn near a full 30 minutes, you’ll likely reach that same conclusion. Yet, for all its nastiness, I Spit on Your Grave is a compelling film because it really forces us to contemplate human decency and the limits to which a filmmaker will go to “entertain” (it can be more repulsive than entertaining) audiences. Don’t anticipate an amazing picture; rather, take this trip knowing that you’re going to experience controversy in blunt, ruthless fashion. Again (I can’t hammer this home enough), I Spit on Your Grave isn’t amazing, but it is relevant.
Flesh for Frankenstein: One of the strangest and most graphic spins on the Frankenstein tale, Flesh for Frankenstein, or Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein as it’s often labeled, is a mind blower. It’s certainly not a technical masterpiece, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t extremely entertaining in certain sequences. We’re subjected to some odd things in this one, the general idea behind the creation of the monsters being the crux of it all. The flick is essentially about hyper sexual monsters, which somehow, in some way, really tickles this particular funny bone. It isn’t for everyone, but anybody looking for a truly twisted take on an age old tale will find some entertainment here.
Faces of Death: Faces of Death is an obvious pick for most controversial film of all time (it has some competition, most of which is included in this article), but few sparked the social response birthed by this strange offering. The picture is a collection of what we’re supposed to believe to be actual executions and scenes of profound brutality. And, believe it or not, some of it actually is real, culled primarily from old newsreel footage. A sizable portion, however, is staged. There are a few segments that are clearly faked, but the overall impact of the picture is absolutely unmistakable. People have been talking about this flick since its release in 1978, and chances are people will continue to talk about it, as remasters and re-releases are still hitting the market. It falls in line with pics like I Spit on Your Grave and Cannibal Holocaust in the sense that it isn’t a good film so much as a magnetic one. But that’s enough. It’s the kind of pic that just needs to be seen at least once, for the sake of diverse viewing and loyalty to the genre, if nothing else.
