American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice Review – Yeti
American Guinea Pig: Sacrificetells the story of Daniel who is haunted by the death of his father. He returns to the house in which he was raised to embark on a spiritual journey that, he hopes, will end in him summoning the goddess Ishtar. Or in Daniel’s words, “to fuck her in a pool of blood until my dick explodes”. Sacrifice clocks in at an hour and for the bulk of that hour we are in the bathroom with Daniel with a few candles and some pretty wicked hardware as he pushes himself toward the divine.
When I say that he was pushing himself toward the divine what I really mean is that he was slowly and brutally mutilating himself. Let’s go ahead and get the obvious out of the way. This movie is absolutely fucking brutal. I’m not an “extreme horror” guy, mostly because I haven’t seen a bunch of it not because I don’t dig it. The use of practical effects in this movie is fucking mindblowing! There are even some really nice macro shots. They put you right up close on the action; you get to watch the steel enter the skin. I mean, even if you’re not a super big fan of the gore you’ve got to respect the artistry that goes into something like that.
It’s not just the macro shots that are great, though. The cinematography in this movie from beginning to end is fantastic. The lighting is pretty much perfect. As I mentioned earlier, the bulk of the movie is just watching Daniel fuck himself up and Roberto Scorza suffers so beautifully. Seriously, I have never seen anyone make pain and madness that believable for that long. With a finished product that looks this good, you would think that a veteran director was behind it. Nope. This is Poison Rouge’s directorial debut.
There really isn’t a lot of plot going on here. This is more of a character piece. It’s not just Daniel mutilating himself in hopes of catching the attention of the ancient sex goddess, it’s watching Daniel go completely batshit fucking insane while he does it. The first cut is done with some apprehension but after some time, he really goes for it. I mean he really fucking gets into it. I guess it’s not really a spoiler to say that Ishtar does make an appearance and let me just say kudos on the casting. I totally buy Flora Giannattasio as a goddess of old.
I’ve got to say, this movie may have only been an hour long but it sure as hell felt like more than that. Not because it was boring and I wanted it to end but, well, to be completely honest, when you’re that damned uncomfortable time seems to stretch out. Don’t get it fucked up, though, it may have been hard to watch at times but I really enjoyed this film. If this is what the American Guinea Pig series has to offer, I’m going to need more of that. This movie has me pumped to watch not only the other recent release, Song of Solomon but the rest of the series as well.
All in all, would I recommend this film? Not to everyone. But for those that I think would be able to appreciate it most definitely. If you dig copious amounts of gore or feel like you’d like to get into some more “extreme” horror I would say give this one a watch, broaden your horizons, stimulate your mind, Craig. If you’ve got that friend who thinks he’s a total badass, watch this with him and watch him fucking squirm. You won’t have to wait too much longer to summon Ishtar yourself; American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice comes out next month.
