American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock | Movie Review

bloodshockFollowing American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore (here is our review) directed by Stephen Biro in 2014, also comes to our attention. American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock, the second installment of the American series inspired by Hideshi Hino's Eastern saga.
Ballpoint pen, creator of the project as well as founder of the Unearthed Films label, also appears in Bloodshock as screenwriter and producer while directing the film is Marcus Koch, the latter an effects designer, among others, on both chapters.

After this brief introduction, let's move right on to talk about Bloodshock, the story of which features a man (Dan Ellis) who is tortured by a "mad doctor." The physical and psychological torture inflicted on him serves to test the level of a human being's threshold of pain tolerance and thus also physical endurance.

bloodBloodshock plunges us into this context of pain, made all the more bleak by an icy but at the same time elegant black and white. A b/w that seems to hide color from reality almost making itself a metaphor for the dull life of the protagonist, who, now hopeless, suffers the pain inflicted on him. Lovers of snuff movies, however, might consider this choice as limiting, as the black and white empties itself, in a sense, of the heinousness of the torture carried out.

Until the end of the film, it is not known why the victim finds himself locked in a padded cell and then repeatedly tortured in the doctor's office. What the viewer witnesses are the movements to which a human being is subjected: from the cell to the torture room and back again. Constantly and mercilessly for the viewer, these scenes are repeated varying only in the type of punishment inflicted by the mad doctor. They range from punches to dental extraction, from hammering on the knee to cutting the tongue, from incisions and stitches to fractured bones...all punctuated by the anguished ticking of the metronome or distorted sounds for effect (Gene Palubicki and Jimmy ScreamerClauz). The sound design accompanies the audience into a perverse world to offer, as the only escape, silence.

bloodshock2The sequences, repeated, also have the power to pull the viewer into an unhealthy dimension, making him a helpless witness to such cruelty.
Marcus Koch's film is not the usual extreme film that spews torture into the audience's eyes at the expense of everything else.
In addition to excellent special effects (Koch has proven his prowess on several occasions), the film boasts wonderful direction and good use of lighting, virtues these usually latent in extreme cinema. When, in films like this, everything works (story, script, direction, special effects, cinematography and cast), then the horror becomes truly real, almost perceptible, tangible. Bloodshock is an example of this.
Credit is also due to the actors, particularly those who played the victim (Dan Ellis) and the perpetrator.

Bloodshock by Marcus Koch also gives a magnificent, unexpected ending that almost seems to give a touch of "color" and "love" albeit in a sick context. Very much appreciated indeed.

The cast consists of: Dan Ellis, Norm J. Castellano, Barron Christian, Alberto Giovannelli, Lillian McKinney, Gene Palubicki, Shiva Rodriguez, Maureen Pelamati and Andy Winton.

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Barbara Torretti
Barbara Torretti
Editor and moderator of the DarkVeins community. Passionate about horror cinema, I also do reviews and interviews pertaining to the film, music and art circuit.

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