Sadisticum is a movie that I know very little about. I came across it somewhere and due to its cover art I realized that this must be something like nothing else. As far as I understand, at least if you’re trusting Wikipedia, the film is still banned in Germany due to its violence. Still it can be seen for sale at the German Amazon site, so I don’t know. I’m a vivid advocate for films and other artforms being free of censorship. As long as, and this is important, the film depicts fictional violence or discomfort. I do NOT extend my view to real life violence aka snuff films and the likes of it. I just wanted to make that crystal clear! Still, if you are in doubt – DO NOT SEE IT!
With that said, I can only add that I haven’t felt this kind of physical discomfort when seeing a movie since the first time I saw Alejandro Amenábar’s Thesis in 1996. That is a film about someone making a thesis about extreme violence and ending up in a web of snuff films. But in 1996 I was 26 years old. Now, I’m 55 and have seen a few thousand more movies to add in my frame of reference. To be this emotionally and, frankly, physically, affected by a film is almost unheard of these days.
It’s disturbing stuff. Sadisticum, as well as Thesis, takes a very serious approach to the violence. There is no humor whatsoever. In many other extremely violent pictures you have an element of exaggeration which also brings a comedic effect. Take the überviolent film like Peter Jackson’s Brandead aka Dead Alive. It might be a crude example but I think you will get the point. It’s super violent and the gore is over the top. Most of us will not let that affect us at all. Maybe we’ll laugh at the exaggeration.
There are also movies like one I recently reviewed – Horror Hotel 2, where the guts and the gore has the main part in the story. It can be very well done but it’s still an orgy in gore and Intestines. Not really scary. In my mind, a movie gets scary when it can be said to depict a storyline so close to the real world that it actually could be the truth. It might just be something that would happen in real life and isn’t too far fetched.
Which brings us to the essence of Sadisticum. It’s a film in German, you need the subtitles if you don’t know the language. It started off several years ago. I don’t think actual years are stated in the story, but our protagonist is seventeen years old and apparently quite shy and disliked by his peers. Not to go into details but one day he snaps and makes his first kill. Everything is filmed with a handheld shaky camera, and will continue to be so throughout the movie. That is something that contributes to realism. You can also feel like you’re in the same room. It also emphasizes that we’re witnessing the event from his perspective. We don’t need a POV camera for that, we just realize that we’re in his mind. There are also a narrative voice over to make it absolutely clear,
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Many years go by and our protagonist lives a somewhat normal life. One day he’s the subject of a violent robbery and something happens to him. He gets transferred in his mind to his youth. He resorts to his inner fantasies and feels the urge to kill someone! It doesn’t matter who, he’s not interested in revenge against the robber or anything like that. The upcoming murder is totally detached from that kind of vindictive emotions. It’s more like he’s coming home and finally getting to become the person he already was deep inside. The willpower, conscious or not, to suppress the inner urges is gone.
Soon he starts to fantasize about something else. He doesn’t just want to kill again. He wants to torture someone. And not only that, he wants to do it in front of an audience of likeminded individuals. Hence he studies human anatomy and gathers an understanding about where the more painful pots on the human body are located. There’s a cold methodology to it that is really creepy.
You can guess what happens next. Of course he gives in to his inner urges. But there’s many movies that depicts extreme violence and torture. What makes Sadisticum special? First of all there is an almost emotionless precision in the torture methodology. The fact that it’s done in front of an interested audience makes it so much worse. Each encroachment is explained in detail for the audience. The whole point is to inflict minimum damage to the body, yet inflicting as much pain as possible. That’s his idea of effective torture. You want to inflict as much pain as possible without the victim dying or passing out.
And, yet it’s not very explicitly depicted. We get to see some very realistic mutilation effects but there’s no exaggerated violence. Much of it is actually made off camera and we get to use our imagination. Something that I, with the stubbornness of a fool, argue is the most effective way to get an extreme depiction to come across. The human imagination is far superior to what any imagery can display. What also strikes me is that, despite the movie’s title – Sadisticum, which implies some form of sadism, there seems to be no sexuality involved. I would find it more than likely to assume that there was some sexual arousal going on with the protagonist. But I don’t get any vibe indicating this. It’s just cold, emotionless, dark and very disturbing.
But that description of the plot on its own wouldn’t make the film so intense. I would argue that the main character and the actions he performs are one thing. But what makes Sadisticum really intense is the sound production and music. It’s really really important and created both a tension as it’s almost as rhythmical at heartbeats at times and other times combine extreme violence with something like twinkle twinkle little star. It creates such a contrast. I would go so far as to say that the sound production is the main character in Sadisticum.
Another thing that makes Sadisticum stand out in my mind, is that itäs not only a horror film or only a film that depicts extreme violence. I also think that it creates a deep dive into the human psyche. What really makes some people go off the rails and become something so far from the societal norm? In this case we can clearly see parallels to childhood and upbringing, bullying and a feeling of alienation from everyone else. Of course, this is not the entire story. I need to keep this fairly short(?) and since I’m not a psychiatrist or a scholar of the human mind anyway, I can only make some assumptions based on my layman’s intuition.
So, apart from upbringing and alienation, there must also be some personality disorder for this to fully blossom as in Sadisticum. That’s my thoughts at least. And that brings us to another point. Has society failed in its responsibility towards itself for not discovering these urges and tendencies at a very early age? Regardless, Sadisticum was a very intense experience and I don’t think I will experience something like that in many years again. This is an utterly provoking thought experiment!
Hostel you say? Torture, murder? Think again, Hostel doesn’t come close to the brutality of Sadisticum!
