A Serbian Film (2010) - ★

Director: Srdjan Spasojevic
Writers: Aleksandar Radivojevic, Srdjan Spasojevic
Stars: Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic, Slobadan Bestic, Katarina Zutic, Luka Mijatovic

A Serbian Film would have to be one of the most overblown movies ever talked about. Review after review, people and critics were saying that this was the most disgusting, horrific, bloodiest movies ever made. While it is disgusting and graphic, I found the THOUGHT of the movie more disturbing than the actual movie itself. It came across just plain ridiculous to me, which made it very hard to find anything truly affective. It deals with pedophilia, necrophilia, incest, torture, and murder. I'm one of those people who gets disturbed by movies easily. Hostel (2005), 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and even Guinea Pig (1985) were more shocking and disturbing to me than A Serbian Film. So many people are calling this the ultimate extreme shock-horror film of all time... but to me it was a grossed-out pile of "meh."

A retired but masterful porn-star, Milos (Srdjan Todorovic), doesn't really miss the porn-industry, but he misses the money he earned doing it. He is the father of a precocious young scamp, and husband to a beautiful wife. When his former porn co-star tells him of this man that makes 'artsy' porno's, Milos soon ends up signing a contract to do a movie for a huge sum of money. The catch is, he's not allowed to know what kind of scenario's and types of porn he will be doing, so that he'll be more natural. Being the "intelligent" man that he is, Milos agrees to do the movie even though he has no idea what it's about. He soon finds out that it's a sick and twisted project that involves many disgusting scenarios.

Here's why I think this is a terrible movie. There's the obvious display of pedophilia, necrophilia, incest, torture and murder... but that's the whole point of the movie. What I find worse is that they modelled a really shitty story around these disgusting issues. The director wanted to make a film where he has free reign to show sex, violence, and shocking images. It comes across as if they planned the scenes, then constructed a third-rate screenplay around it. Many have dribbled on about how it shows the degradation of peoples morals due to lack of money, poverty, etc. If that was the message, then I guess I couldn't see that. I was too busy watching a woman being beheaded whilst having sex... In my opinion, this is far from an inspired vision, or an original film. I have no idea why A Serbian Film became one of the most infamous snuff films of all time... there's just nothing 'great' about it.

It starts of slow, boring, and filled to the brim with run-of-the-mill stuff for the first 30 minutes. We're shown that he's a nice guy, with a happy family, being normal and whatnot. It's to bring our defences down for the shocking events to come. There were parts of the film where I couldn't help but ask, "How the fuck did they get away with that?" Particularly the new-born baby scene. It happened smack-dab in the middle of the film, which made me concerned about what was to come. Thankfully, nothing worse did come later. BUT, there were a shitload of other disturbing things that happened.

I wasn't thrilled. I wasn't entertained. I didn't marvel at the cinematography, costumes, music, dialogue, or acting throughout the film. The performances were good, but I ultimately found them to be unrealistic and at times a bit silly. That's just my opinion, because most people call the acting 'marvellous.' I don't know how to say this without sounding like a freak, but this film just didn't make me feel anything. I was always aware whilst watching this movie that it was a sick shock-film... nothing really got under my skin. People call this the most disgusting, horrifying, etc. etc. film ever made. I found it all to be very 'eh' with the occasional 'ugh.' It was missing the shocking realism that makes my skin crawl. After all the hype, A Serbian Film turned out to be just... meh.