This piece of trash is the aborted fetus, the result of a pairing between Andy Warhols Empire having back alley sex with the Trustinus film Nightmare Asylum. If movies suffered from birth defects, this one would be suffering from Downs Syndrome and Quadriplegia.
This movie tries to accomplish many things... it fails at all of them. The entire thing comes off as a first year film student project by a student who should have been taking special education classes instead of film making.
It tries to be informative, proclaiming itself to be part documentary. But in the 4+ hours of running time, there is nothing you won't learn that you wouldn't get from spending 5 minutes on Wikipedia. The archival footage that is used is sparse, and the actual relevant bits of archival footage take up less than one minute of the 4 hours of running time. The "re-enactments" that make up the most "shocking" moments of the film are horribly acted, terribly shot, and ridiculously long paced. The "actors" used to portray the prisoners are all healthy and attractive looking Caucasians, all 7 of them. The movie (I refuse to call this a film) shows you all seven "prisoners" in the beginning, and as it it counts down each prisoners death we are often shown the others sitting in their cell, no looking frightened, or sickly, or even malnourished, but just plain bored. When the "experiment re-enactments" are shown, every actor involved looks like they are sleep walking through the scene... They put up no resistance, the lie there almost sedately as teeth are pulled, internal organs are ripped from their vagina's, they are burned alive, etc... The entire time they are being tortured these victims show all the emotion of a wooden plank ordering coffee.
It also claims to be a horror film, but it fails that horribly as well. For horror to work, you have to have an emotional attachment, and there is none to be found here for anyone. You don't feel anything for the victims, who just sit around looking like they are waiting for a bus until they meet their fates. You don't feel any resentment towards the "doctors" who look just as bored with their work. The only person with any on-screen dialog is the old Russian guy, the only person interviewed in the movie, Anatoly Protasov. The movie claims he is a former doctor and a translator who lived within a stones throw of the camp. He comes off as a sympathizer to the doctors. And the it is claimed he was an eye-witness to the events, it becomes clear from his own interview that he witnessed nothing. In each interview he seems on the verge of jerking off when talking about Unit 731.
What the movie tries to be more than anything else, is torture porn, of the most obvious and deliberate variety, but it can't even get that right. The effects are horrible, worse than any 90's 20 dollar "shot on a camcorder" film.The shots of people who have supposedly been skinned alive, the musculature under the flesh, looks like heaps of modeling clay.
Regardless, the gore would have failed even if it were done by experts, as it is edited so horribly, that any effect it would have on you other than than boredom is lost. This movie is the equivalent of porn focused on nothing but long drawn out scenes of a semi flaccid penis going into spoiled grapefruit interspersed with 4 minutes scenes of falling snow. There is more to get excited over watching a 12 hour long bingo game where no one wins, than there is in this movie.
There is nothing redeemable, nothing shocking, nothing entertaining, nothing informative, and nothing shocking about this movie... Anytime it comes close to having even a moment of those things, the horrible editing, abysmal pacing, and absolute lowest caliber of directing and acting ruin it completely. The only thing this movie accomplishes, is being the single most boring and self indulgent piece of trash I have ever watched.
The only people who will find this movie worth watching are mentally handicapped reprobates, and I am positive the only reason it was filmed was to give the director something to masturbate to.
Avoid unless you really want to waste your time in the most boring and tedious manner possible.
This movie tries to accomplish many things... it fails at all of them. The entire thing comes off as a first year film student project by a student who should have been taking special education classes instead of film making.
It tries to be informative, proclaiming itself to be part documentary. But in the 4+ hours of running time, there is nothing you won't learn that you wouldn't get from spending 5 minutes on Wikipedia. The archival footage that is used is sparse, and the actual relevant bits of archival footage take up less than one minute of the 4 hours of running time. The "re-enactments" that make up the most "shocking" moments of the film are horribly acted, terribly shot, and ridiculously long paced. The "actors" used to portray the prisoners are all healthy and attractive looking Caucasians, all 7 of them. The movie (I refuse to call this a film) shows you all seven "prisoners" in the beginning, and as it it counts down each prisoners death we are often shown the others sitting in their cell, no looking frightened, or sickly, or even malnourished, but just plain bored. When the "experiment re-enactments" are shown, every actor involved looks like they are sleep walking through the scene... They put up no resistance, the lie there almost sedately as teeth are pulled, internal organs are ripped from their vagina's, they are burned alive, etc... The entire time they are being tortured these victims show all the emotion of a wooden plank ordering coffee.
It also claims to be a horror film, but it fails that horribly as well. For horror to work, you have to have an emotional attachment, and there is none to be found here for anyone. You don't feel anything for the victims, who just sit around looking like they are waiting for a bus until they meet their fates. You don't feel any resentment towards the "doctors" who look just as bored with their work. The only person with any on-screen dialog is the old Russian guy, the only person interviewed in the movie, Anatoly Protasov. The movie claims he is a former doctor and a translator who lived within a stones throw of the camp. He comes off as a sympathizer to the doctors. And the it is claimed he was an eye-witness to the events, it becomes clear from his own interview that he witnessed nothing. In each interview he seems on the verge of jerking off when talking about Unit 731.
What the movie tries to be more than anything else, is torture porn, of the most obvious and deliberate variety, but it can't even get that right. The effects are horrible, worse than any 90's 20 dollar "shot on a camcorder" film.The shots of people who have supposedly been skinned alive, the musculature under the flesh, looks like heaps of modeling clay.
Regardless, the gore would have failed even if it were done by experts, as it is edited so horribly, that any effect it would have on you other than than boredom is lost. This movie is the equivalent of porn focused on nothing but long drawn out scenes of a semi flaccid penis going into spoiled grapefruit interspersed with 4 minutes scenes of falling snow. There is more to get excited over watching a 12 hour long bingo game where no one wins, than there is in this movie.
There is nothing redeemable, nothing shocking, nothing entertaining, nothing informative, and nothing shocking about this movie... Anytime it comes close to having even a moment of those things, the horrible editing, abysmal pacing, and absolute lowest caliber of directing and acting ruin it completely. The only thing this movie accomplishes, is being the single most boring and self indulgent piece of trash I have ever watched.
The only people who will find this movie worth watching are mentally handicapped reprobates, and I am positive the only reason it was filmed was to give the director something to masturbate to.
Avoid unless you really want to waste your time in the most boring and tedious manner possible.