PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Writer/Director Juval Marlon has unleashed his latest film atrocity, Sturmgewehr, upon mankind. The underground Swiss filmmaker, who runs Beheading Films, has been releasing more and more disturbing material, starting with short film Torture Fetish and Dead Baby Mutilation. Marlon then took a break from underground, snuff-style gore, making a film about local kids into electronic hardcore music and their struggles. Then came Strychnin and Torture Fetish 2. Sturmgewehr is Marlon’s latest and most accomplished project to date.
Synopsis:
A businessman named Brand serves his clients with murder videos. But he does not kill himself, others do the work. Two men have to kidnap a girl from a disability home and to torture her. A marathon of pain and sadism takes its course.
Marlon teased Actor Thomas Goersch (Woyzeck 2017, Carcinoma 2014) into an incredible, career-altering performance. Goersch plays a snuff film dealer who enlists two men to create a new movie for him. An unfathomable and depraved idea is hatched. The men will go to a hospital and abduct a mentally disabled young woman and her pregnant female caretaker. They take the two women to a secluded outdoor area and carry out various tortures and humiliations on them. Lots of graphic and depraved shit goes down, including a very real looking tongue mutilation with needles and a girl being forced to perform fellatio on the barrel of a gun. We get plenty of graphic, close up dismemberment of limbs.
Sturmgewehr is dark and wretched. The gore effects have really been amped up for this one, especially compared to Marlon’s previous work. I see a vast improvement in both effects and acting. The hour-long running time brings the film into full length film territory. Thus far, the movie has no English subtitles, and unfortunately, it is dialogue heavy until about 30 minutes in. I would have loved to be able to understand the conversations. Sturmgewehr is a grim, serious experience with no lighthearted relief. It just beats you over head as you watch the torture and killing take place.
It’s not new or original material, but Sturmgewehr is nihilistic enough to deliver a rather disturbing experience. There is not much reaction out of the girls as they are carved up. They are drugged, sure, but a bit of terror always resonates well with this type of material. Overall, my impression of Sturmgewehr is good. I see the natural progression of Director Juval Marlon from where he came from with making underground films. This is his best work to date, and gore hounds will eat up all the intense, bloody effects.
https://youtu.be/6Iz_c4Eoopw
