Cutting Moments

This was pretty cool to see. An anthology of shorts, my favorite was the short "Bowl of Oatmeal," which contained the most atmosphere. The showcase is the short CUTTING MOMENTS. This was one of the hardest pieces of film I have ever tried to watch... very gruesome!

Five strange little horror films that, thanks to the inventiveness of the filmmakers, manage to rise above their obviously limited budgets. I received this from a friend on a double-sided DVD that also includes the movie Buried Alive. I watched this first, expecting it to be the lesser of the two, but hopeful, considering the Tom Savini quote emblazoned on the box art, that it might surprise me. It certainly did, and for a freebie, there is no cause for complaint. The acting - all seemingly from 'semi-professionals' - is uniformly awful, the effects cheap and nasty, but the ideas more than make up for that. Other posters have gone into the plots in detail, so I won't bother, but I agree that the Bowl Of Oatmeal is the least enjoyable segment. Interesting, but not as much fun as a crack-smoking mutt or a nagging old biddy driving her murdering husband nuts! The final titular short is thoroughly nasty, and even I, a David Cronenberg fan, had to watch it through my fingers! If you don't find the sight of a woman cutting off her own lips with a pair of scissors disturbing, I fear for your sanity...

My only question would be the year of production. There are next to no credits on the end of the Region 2 DVD, and although IMDb claims this was made in the late nineties, the cinematography would suggest it was all made on the cheap - perhaps as student films - in the 80s. In fact two of the films have clear 80s references; the old couple's gravestones say they died in 1987, and the teen-movie short has repeated references to Breakfast Club star Molly Ringwald. Have they tacked on four 80s flicks to the recently successful Cutting Moments short to make a feature? (If that's the case, what has happened to these filmmakers, who show a lot of promise in this collection?) Or are they all from the nineties and the two films I mentioned are 'period pieces' - Principles of Karma being a parody of the 80s teen-movie, for example? I hope someone else can update IMDb to ease my curiosity...

But anyway, if you can forgive the poor production values and you like macabre tales, you're in for a short, sweet treat!

A woman resorts to extreme methods to win back the attention of her bored husband: she uses a brush to scour her mouth and cuts off her lips with a pair of scissors. This seems to do the trick, and it's not long before the couple are together in the sack having fun with a shiny pair of garden shears!

The title of this 20 minute shocker, 'Cutting Moments', was used as the collective name for five disparate short films released together on DVD. On its own, Douglas Buck's bloody tale of desperation and self-mutilation would still be considered a worthwhile effort for purveyors of cinematic excess; however, when lumped together with four much weaker and less memorable stories, this sick little feature appears all the more impressive: the shining light in an otherwise rather dull and disappointing compilation (although 'Crack Dog's titular drug-addled mutt deserves an honorary mention).

With messy DIY facial surgery and a non-graphic-but-still-winceworthy penis removal, those who likes their horror to push the boundaries should enjoy this twisted little piece of nastiness.

First thing's first. All of the stories in this classic anthology look like separate short films. Somebody put these together, and, knowing Douglas Buck's title segment was the most shocking, they saved the most effective one for last. I dig the whole anthology. "Crack Dog" is surreal, gory, and downright hilarious. "Don't Nag Me" is less outrageous, but no less clever and darkly funny. "Bowl of Oatmeal" is downright bizarre filmmaking, and (while I consider it the lesser of this collection) I enjoyed it also. "Principles of Karma" was really, really good. It has some good things to say about how unfair things can become for some truly good people when oppression spawns extremists who ruin their own revolution by paving another road to hell with good intentions. "Cutting Moments", the title segment itself, simply blew me away. I have never seen things this grotesque that were as powerfully dramatic as those on display in Douglas Buck's highly effective short film. The sadomasochistic gore and self-mutilation scenes have an inexplicable force behind them so strong that even the sickest scenes take on a feeling of harsh drama. "Cutting Moments" as an anthology is definitely a favorite of mine, a diverse collection of the perverse and, more often than not, hilarious. Still, BE PREPARED for the title segment. If it doesn't make you puke or totally depress the hell out of you (or both), something might be really wrong with you.

The final segment of the short story collection must be the most psychologically destructive short film I have ever witnessed...I still shudder thinking about it, and it has been 3 weeks since I pushed the DVD into the machine...This is definitely NOT for the faint-of-heart, nor should a child have the unpleasant opportunity of seeing it... The rest of the collection is dreary and unoriginal, and one wonders why they would place such a disturbing masterpiece amongst a pile of wasted junk...But, excluding those, the main event, aptly entitled Cutting Moments, should be witnessed by all afficionados of the horror genre and seems to have been lost in the worldwide DVD/VHS market...I discovered this work of genius in the thriller division of the local Look & Listen megastore, selling at a cheap price....