The Butcher | DVD Review

Tartan’s Asia Extreme label has been resurrected, thanks to Palisades Media Group, and one of the first new releases on DVD is South Korean director Kim Jinwon’s The Butcher. If you thought that films like Hostel and the entire Saw series – films largely seen as the progenitors of the current ‘torture porn’ trend in the horror genre – were full of gratuitous violence, you ain’t seen nothing yet. At least those films had plots to go along with their gratuitous violence. The Butcher is basically 75 minutes of nothing but ultra-violence, held together by a promising concept that unfortunately goes nowhere new.

The whole premise of The Butcher is that it’s presented as if it’s a snuff film, with POV cameras mounted on the heads of the victims, and some cuts to the camera being manned by the film’s “director”. As the film opens, we see four people bound and gagged on the floor of an old slaughterhouse as two members of the “crew” discuss what they are about to film. From there, it’s pure violence and gore, as two of the victims are quickly dispatched off-camera – we get to witness this from the perspective of the two remaining stars of the snuff film, a married couple. This is probably the best scene of the film, as it easily conveys the fear and shock of the victims through camera movements and the couple’s panicked cries. Once the pig-masked killer enters the picture, though, it’s all downhill. The “director” plays mind games with the husband, offering him the opportunity to go free if he can come up with an inventive way to murder his wife. Surely these mind games and other little things were meant by Kim to portray the depravity of not only the killers, but of the victims as well. You can see where Kim was going with this and The Butcher could have been an interesting statement on the times we live in, but come on, it’s an extremely bloody and violent film that didn’t need to be that extreme to convey its point.

It would seem that horror fiends and gorehounds would have plenty to revel in with The Butcher, and the effects are actually pretty well done for a film that was written, produced, edited, mixed, and directed by the same person. The lighting is appropriately dark and gloomy, and the color palette is mostly shades of gray with a lot of red, making the blood stand out more on the screen. But in reality, it’s difficult to understand why The Butcher was billed as being too brutal and shocking to be released in its own country. There really isn’t anything more shocking than the aforementioned Hostel and Saw. Perhaps it’s the nature of the film itself, with it being a supposed snuff film and all. But what puts it over the top is quite possibly the sound: chainsaws buzzing in the other room, the ‘squelch’ of an eyeball being popped out of its socket, and especially the fear and panic heard in the cries of the victims. The acting was actually rather impressive, at least by the victims. But when there’s no story or character development to go along with it, the film falls flat.

The DVD is presented in a well-done 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with competent Dolby 2.0 Stereo sound. As far as special features are concerned, there’s really not much of worth:
There’s an Alternate Ending that was better left out, as it would have been the only scene to not stick to the “snuff” concept. Besides that and the original theatrical trailer, though, all we get is a behind-the-scenes photo gallery and a montage of storyboard sketches that map out the entire film. Really nothing to write home about.

If you squint hard enough, you could kind of see where Kim Jinwon was headed with this idea, but the lack of any character development and any real semblance of a plot doesn’t help. Sure, the concept of The Butcher means that there really can’t be any character development or even much of a plot, and it’s actually a decent film if you can recognize that, but most people will not be able to get past the ultra-violence to be able to see that point. Strictly for gorehounds, and possibly some art-house film buffs, but that’s about it.

Movie rating – 2

Disc Rating – 1