PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Italian director Davide Pesca returns to deliver another collection of tales of the deranged, artistic and gore-riddled. The last film I had the pleasure of watching from Pesca was Tales From Deep Hell, a ride through a gory and macabre Hades where the devil is the least of your worries. In his newest film, intense, realistic and sickening makeup effects by Pesca himself and an atmosphere of utter darkness, accompanied with an industrial sounding score, come together to make The Suffering Bible something magical in the black arts.
Much like in his previous work, Pesca brings five acts to make up The Suffering Bible. As each act unfolds in a sense of familiarity with the Holy Bible itself, the viewer is destined to feel the walls of sin close in on them. This is art cinema spiked with some very extreme gore and violence.
The five tales are accompanied by a wraparound story that wraps a noose around this twisted Adam And Eve theme, showing with two people, a woman and a man, blindfolded and writhing on the ground and covered in filth.
Act 1: My Only God
In this first act, we get two women, one who is obviously a little too attached to the other. The obsessed woman goes to absolute grotesque heights to make sure she and her female companion will never be separated again.
Act 2: San Tomas
This one features a monk or priest who violates Jesus on the cross, pulling out his heart and ingesting it. The heart doesn’t go down so well and causes the man some discomfort, to putting it lightly. I believe this act is based on Thomas the Accuser, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus.
Act 3: In The Name Of The Father
Act 3 has a woman committing some sort of self mutilation ritual as she worships the Bible in front of a cross where she tears at her breasts and cuts out her female genitalia.
Act 4: The Pact
This one features a woman mutilating another woman in a bizarre ritual. I don’t want to spoil it, so that’s all I’m going to say.
Act 5: The Redemption Of Lost Souls
Probably the most disturbing of the five, this short features three individuals who have committed some sort of sin. One by one, they are led into a room where they are brutally tortured and killed by masked assailants.
Be forewarned – The Suffering Bible contains a lot of nudity and a lot of self-mutilation in the most intricate and gory fashion. It’s a very disturbing film with some bold, controversial subject matter. When you are showcasing religion, especially the darker side of it, you are walking on the razor’s edge and The Suffering Bible follows this suit.
I love the visuals as well. Pesca’s effects are jaw-dropping as well as sickening, and his artistic style and eye for atmospheric details is very prevalent here. The Suffering Bible is a trip headlong into sickening art and visual violence, all played out to the extreme tune of society, religion and violence. This movie makes a statement and shows only the darkest side of humanity. Check out the NSFW trailer here.
