Brutal: Written Review

Brutal

Written Review

Hi everyone and welcome to EPISODE ONE OF SEASON TWO of MyIndie Review Vlog! The show that gives you spoiler-free reviews of indie films.

My name is Asaf Angel from MyIndie Productions, and for today’s season opener I will be reviewing Unearthed Films’ 2018 extreme horror feature Brutal, written and directed by the talented Takashi Hirose.

Thank you to Takashi and Unearthed Films for sharing this work with us!

A ruthless serial killer targets young women, kidnaps them and binds them in his apartment, a few at a time. He viciously beats and tortures each of them, while the rest scream and cry in terror, unable to process their inevitable demise.

The killer, simply known to us as ‘Man’, effectively portrayed by Butch, is introduced completely unfiltered as the very first scene opens mid-session of a murder spree. What is blatantly apparent to us viewers, is the sheer anger that consumes our killer, although his motives are left unexplained when we first get the lay of the plot. He despises the women he murders, as if holding a grudge against them. But why?

His hideous practice does not end with murder and mutilation, but I will leave that for you to discover rather than spoil.

In the meantime, by way of a second segment, we are introduced to another character, also a ruthless killer. A young female, simply introduced as ‘Woman’, is targeting men. Played by charismatic actress Ayano, our second killer has a knack for skewering genitals with sharp knives until her victims bleed out, or are assisted onto death in other creative ways. We are introduced to her for the first time also in mid-session of a horrific and angry killing spree, as she executes her victims while fueled by pure rage.

Takashi does a great job of keeping us focused on the absence of motive for each of our killers, as he uses these deliberately constructed question marks to give depth to the story and increase our curiosity and interest, having us, the viewers, as odd as it may seem, CARE about our nasty pair of killers.

Now I am going to say something weird, but for those of you with the stomach to watch this film, it will likely seem fitting: this film is essentially about love and connection, as a basic human need that applies to us all, even the homicidal killers among us. Funnily enough, before seeing this, a fellow reviewer, when recommending this film to me, jokingly referred to it as a ‘rom-com’.

Takashi built utterly unique characters, possessing no apparent conscience, who are incapable of having a certain need met and are thus driven to doing what they do. It can almost be concluded that our killers do not actually enjoy hurting people, but use extreme violence as a way to drown this deep pain that burdens them. Takashi challenges us to decipher what that pain is and by that, has us invested in the well-being of, for a lack of a better word, a couple of monsters.

In a nutshell, the story carefully reveals what drives our characters, only it does so in an extremely amplified gory fashion. The visual language is abundant in grit and styled like the old exploitation films of the 70’s and 80’s, in a somewhat similar fashion to the Tarantino/Rodriguez-helmed Grindhouse project.

To sum up, Brutal is an extremely gory film with an artistic core which produces undeniable value that transcends above the visual language and style. Takashi built a nightmare world especially made for extreme gore fans who can appreciate a multilayered story.

I did have some issues with the way some elements connected to others, but in total, this is a wonderful film I would recommend you watch ONLY if you are blessed with the stomach for extreme violence and graphic nature, which this film dishes out in abundance.

Brutal gets a 7.5/10 on the Look At Me, I’m a Film Critic scale
Go check out Brutal. It’s available on Unearthed Films’ official website and on Amazon. Links above. I’d also like to thank Stephen Biro and Suzie Ayala from Unearthed Films for helping make this review, and many others, happen.

We have a very large and exciting selection of projects to review this season. I’m very glad and grateful for all you indie filmmakers for sharing your work with us. It is going to be a busy season, where we plan on combining two or more short films for single episodes where we can. That way we may be able to get through reviewing more films faster, as we only produce one episode every week.

Until next time, keep supporting Indie Film. Watch, Share, Spread the word! My name is Asaf Angel. I thank you for tuning in to MyIndie Review Vlog. I’ll see you next Thursday!