American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock

How do you review a film like this? Well, imagine being a hospital patient with "locked in syndrome." This is an illness where, due to a very specific type of stroke, the sufferer finds themself trapped in a body that, while completly devoid of voluntary muscle control, can feel every indignity of a normal person. So imagine that a fly lands on your nose. You are unable to swish it away, but you can feel every little itchy leg as it dances on your shnozz. You cannot ask for help, because you cannot move any of your voluntary muscles including those which control speech.

OK, you get where I'm coming from. Now imagine you took an enourmous painful diarrhea defecation, and had to just sit in it for an hour and a half before your wet-nurse came in to change your adult diaper. That is comparable to what its like to sit through this film. To paraphrase Christopher Walkin, "That isn't any kind of fun. But in terms of what this movie has to offer, that's as good as it's gonna get. And it wont ever get that good again." However, if you wish to ignore my heartfelt advice, and soil your mind with this load of visual fertilizer, the smell of which, will stay with you for a long time, you can watch it free on YouTube at a channel called Kings of Horror.

But don't say you havent been warned!

The American Guinea Pig franchise is the American take on Japan's now infamous and banned series of films that all fell under the series name "Guinea Pig". The Guinea Pig series were a collection of notorious cult films that emerged out of the Japanese underground in the mid to late 80s to early 90s. The first film in this series, The Devil's Experiment, centered on a kidnapped woman who is held captive in a warehouse where she is exposed to a series of tortures inflicted by her captives who are exploring the human body's threshold for pain. This film's narrative holds distinct similarities to the plot of Bloodshock; and this is intentional.

The American Guinea Pig series pays clear homage to its original Japanese predecessor, and this is seen in the plot similarities between the films within the two series. The first film of the American Guinea Pig series, Bouquet of Guts and Gore, actually contains plot components that connects itself to the original Japanese Guinea Pig film, Flower of Flesh and Blood. Similarly, the third film in the American Guinea Pig series, Sacrifice, shares clear plot similarities with the original Guinea Pig film, He Never Dies. This model is no different when it comes to Bloodshock.

Bloodshock also centers its focus on a captive person, being held against their will, and forced to endure torturous experiments by the hands of the individuals holding them captive. Unique to The Devil's Experiment, rather than examining the human body's threshold for pain, Bloodshock's experimenters are harvesting the blood of their captive. The reason for this is interesting. During the infliction of pain and stress, the body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in the brain that reduce your perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. These experimenters are using their victim's blood as a new kind of recreational drug. The film's victim is being used as crop to harvest.

This approach is intriguing and allows the film to exhibit similar graphic scenes of torture and violence, as in The Devil's Experiment, while having a story that is more complex and allows the film to explore untouched areas that the original Guinea Pig series was never able to reach. Additionally, the practical effects in this film are quite impressive and are a definite step up in terms of realism and graphic imagery from the original series.

That said, this film does not come without its flaws. For one, some of the acting in this film is quite awful. This is to be expected with any low budget indie endeavor, and often can be dismissed or forgiven. Unfortunately, when it comes this film, it extends into damaging the picture. Most prominent, there is a scene where the film's protagonist is held in a chair where a large man is punching him in the face. He is then hit in the knee caps with a large hammer. These blows are clearly fake, to a point where it is nearly comical. This poor acting in contrast to the film's magnificent practical visual effects creates an uneven, sloppy, and at times silly juxtaposition.

Furthermore, the filmmakers attempted to take the series in a more artistic direction, presenting the film almost entirely in black and white, and giving the film an ambient and eerie score. Many have argued that the black and white decision hurt the film. I personally do not hold this perspective. I found the black and white to be vital in regard to the film's climax, which I will not spoil. I do however find issue with the film's sloppy audio editing. The film's score is powerful, yes, but I felt that he filmmakers relied too heavily on it for the picture's tone and atmosphere. Going so far as compromising necessary sound effects that would have enhanced practical imagery in exchange for creepy sounds of ambiance.

The film's climax does save the picture to a degree, where a gruesome finally of passion, self-destruction, beauty, lust and gore all flood the screen in vivid detail. Unfortunately, this is short lived once the credits start to role. The film's credits are interspersed with scenes that attempt to add to the film's plot, but ultimately just feel like unnecessary filler, and actually hurt the picture. Out of the four American Guinea Pig films that have been released thus far, I would consider Bloodshock to be the weakest of the bunch. That does not mean that the film does not have some redeeming qualities. It is still a brutal and visceral picture but compared to the other films in the series Bloodshock just doesn't pack the same punch.

Two extremely resilient prisoners, a man (Dan Ellis) and a woman (Lillian McKinney), are subjected to a series of brutal medical procedures by a sadistic doctor.

I've always considered films like this to be challenge—to see if I can stomach the extreme violence being depicted. American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock is a challenge all right—to see if I can watch the whole thing without losing interest.

Bloodshock proves to be an apt title, since I was shocked to see that nearly all of the blood in the film has been captured in glorious black and white! While the gore is graphic (yet nowhere near as relentlessly nasty as its predecessor, Bouquet of Guts and Gore), its effect on the viewer is seriously diminished thanks to a misguided attempt at an art-house style that simply doesn't suit the material. It seems like such a waste of effort.

Director Marcus Koch's art-house approach also leads to interminable scenes that focus on the victims while they are locked in a padded cell, sharing poignant notes with each other through a hole in the wall, all of which serve to make the film a real chore at times. The pretentiousness is ramped up to 11 for the final act in which the two victims, free at last, decide not to escape but to get it on, reopening their wounds whilst having sex. At least that part pulls fewer punches, with the messiness now in full colour.

A final twist—revealed during the end credits—tries to make some sense of what we have seen, but does little to improve matters.

A man and a woman are put under extreme experiments so that natural morphine and adrenaline are created in their blood. The doctor draws out the blood at the right time. He then injects that blood into his own blood stream for some sort of wicked high. Weird.

This wasn't like a Guinea Pig movie at all. It's supposed to be the sequel to American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts And Gore (2014) which was a nasty slice of film. This was the one where they used bolt cutters to get through the rib cage. Bloodshock however doesn't even compare. There is a couple of cringing moments but mostly boring believe it or not. This is shot in black and white which doesn't help the cause for this film. It does work for the director who wanted the end to be in colour showing the two patients ripping out each others stitches and playing in each others wounds. For an ultra violent black and white done right watch Infidus (2015).

This one just seemed too tame and puts you to sleep. Hopefully their next outing will be better.

In one scene the woman's chest cavity is opened a good ten inches exposing everything and you see the heart beating. I wondered what he was going to do to keep things from getting infected and suddenly the doctor bends over and licks all inside of the chest cavity. Problem solved.

I was very curious Bloodshock, simply said it's about a man who's locked up in a white room. And every few minutes he gets tortured in all kinds of creative ways, the first half hour was decent but nothing too shocking unless you've never seen the harder stuff. It starts to get interesting after 40 minutes, i thought that for most of the time it was just pure torture for the sake of torture and nothing else, but oke there's a little subplot about another prisoner of which i won't spoil anything. In my opinion the movie was just oke because i expected it to be just as extreme and nauseating as Stephen Biro's Bouquet of Guts and Gore , it never reaches the same level of gore. But Bloodshock does deliver at some moments, especialy near the end. My final point of criticism is that i personally would've rather seen the movie in color, but to each his own. If you like blood and gore just add it to your collection.