Ooru naito rongu 2

Internet nerd Shun'ichi Noda (Masashi Endô) owes a large sum of money to a violent gang of teenage thugs led by a sadistic homosexual with romantic designs on the poor debtor. Shun'ichi sees a possible way out of his awkward predicament when a stranger on an on-line message board offers to help him, but after arranging a real-world meeting he discovers that, along with two other equally gullible suckers, he has been the victim of a practical joke.

All is not lost, however, and Shun'ichi strikes up a friendship with his fellow victims, who listen to his tale of woe and think that they might be able to raise the cash. The guys go back to Shun'ichi's home to chill out, and are later joined by girl-friend Sayaka (Ryôka Yuzuki). Unfortunately for Shun'ichi, his persecutors also turn up, abduct him and his new friends, and subject them all to a sickening ordeal that pushes the poor chap over the edge.

I'd read that All Night Long 2: Atrocity was an even more harrowing viewing experience than its predecessor, but while it's certainly not Disney, being as downbeat and nihilistic as possible in tone, the film is surprisingly short on protracted scenes of explicit nastiness, its atrocities frequently and rather frustratingly left to the imagination, the camera cutting to the aftermath rather than showing the nitty-gritty.

The most notable examples of this are a bedroom assault on pretty Sayaka that makes a mess of the sheets but which leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks, and the torture of one poor character by a knife-wielding sadist that results in loads of nasty wounds, none of which are shown being inflicted. Given the film's reputation as a brutal shocker, and knowing just how far Japanese cinema is willing to go when it comes to gory torture, I have to admit that I found this approach rather disappointing.

Matters improve briefly when the victims start to fight back against their tormentors, the violence becoming a bit more in your face, with some gnarly baseball bat, samurai sword and blowtorch action leaving a room strewn with bodies and drenched with blood; sadly, the film returns to its original, less explicit approach for its finale, in which Shun'ichi, his mind twisted by what he has seen, goes on to kill his friends (and a rodent for good measure) while the camera lingers elsewhere.

Oh well, maybe All Night Long 3 will do the trick...

I've seen the movie in its original Japanese Version so some details of the Story maybe haven't got through to me. But, and this warning is real honest, All night long 2 is far the meanest movie I have seen to date. A Japanese Student is bullied by a group under the leading of an homosexual and misogynistic Psycho, who is sort of in love with him. The Student is forced to a dinner with the leader of the gang. For entertainment the Gangleader tortures an eventually kills a young girl, held captive in his apartment. Via Internet the terrorized student gets help from chatmates but the gang shows up for a very intense showdown. The "Atrocity" is more on the psychological side. No one in this flick is without it. The Theme of sexual abuse and murder for fun and pure entertainment is strong stuff and its never been displayed in this intelligent and evil kind before.

This film is extremely similar to a hardcore porn: scanty set decoration (80 % of "Atrocity" takes place in a lonely appartement...) and a thin plot. And as a porn movie jumps from one sex scene to the next this flick does the same with gore. Nevertheless the second installment of the gruesome "All Night long"-series is quite worth watching, because the characters are all well-developed and if you like extreme cinema and you´ve nerves of steel will surely have fun with it. Similar to "I Spit on your Grave" there´s no music brought on to make the shocking scenes of brutal rape and killing even more disturbing! If you´re into mainstream horror: stay far far away!!! However, if you like extreme sickos: check this out as soon as possible!!!

Japanese documentary film maker turned film director/writer Katsuya Matsumura's All Night Long series is one of the most depressing and darkest explorations on the brutest sides of humanity ever commited on film, with brain too. The first film, All Night Long (1992) was released theatrically in Japan, but this sequel, All Night Long 2: Atrocity (1995) and as far as I know the third one, All Night Long 3: The Final Atrocity (1996) were denied a theatrical release as the films were considered too strong and "unacceptable" and so they were released only on video, amid some heavy resistance. It is easy to see why but still the films are not without a real importance.

A nerdy school boy is spending his summer break from school mostly with his computer and chat friends and also a small girl figure doll he likes to paint and take care of. He is also bullied by a bunch of sadistic slightly elders that are led by a homosexual sadist who starts to interest in the boy and thus starts to seduce him. Naturally the boy doesn't feel the same way and as the leader of the gang is determined to get what he wants, it all leads to some incredible scenes of human degradation and genuinely off-putting violence and acts of abuse.

Like the first film, this is about the animality behind human nature and how seemingly normal and balanced people share the exact same instincts and potential to violence as the "bad already" people, in this case the thugs, do. Violence and instincts for it belong to the human nature. That is a thing that should be fought against as those rotten sides of our nature should be kept passive on the background no matter what happens. But we know how the world is like and how man kills man everyday in the name of some "righteous war or revenge" and so on. It is great how Matsumura has included images of real life terrors and war atrocities in this film making the film so much more universal and larger as it all really is there, not only in the little apartment the film takes place in, but everywhere around us. And extreme films like this are there to explain and ask us why. Why do people want to revenge and cause more violence? If more people would dare to watch films like this and also accept and admit their content and message, maybe some would see the light and change towards a better man, helping the world become a better place.

The film has also some clever small details, like the little hamster the homosexual villain likes to play with (and also kill them, naturally). That small and peaceful little creature is also splattered in blood once the carnage begins, once the humans have turned into worse than animals and peaceful nature. Some would blame the film for its depiction of sexual minorities (gays), but that is not possible as the film also has a normal homosexual male who is not dangerous or sadistic at all, unlike his boyfriend. Another clever detail is the video camera that records something the nerd does, and how it shows the slow turning of his character into something he has not been, straight to his face. And after that, everything indeed turns into hell.

The film is mostly without music which makes the imagery all the more nightmarish and disturbing whereas the first film still got a (rather creepy) music soundtrack in it. The violence once it bursts out (or once the film begins) is so cruel, sadistic and sick it is not necessary to go into details but if Pier Paolo Pasolini's masterful Saló o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975) felt too strong or gratuitous (which it definitely is not) then there's not a chance All Night Long 2: Atrocity would be possible to be sit through. Still Matsumura, like Pasolini, doesn't go into unnecessary details and close ups, camera just witnesses what men do to each other, on mental and physical level, and the both levels are horrible, including sexual degradation, abusion, forced drugs, rape and calculated sadism in the name of revenge.

The film has also a very wry bit of black humor at the end which underlines finally the development of the protagonist boy. He just became that way, and seems to end up like the one in the first part of the series. In my opinion, the massacre that happens at the second part of this film has some things that should have been done differently, like how the boy so fast turns into the devil himself (and turning also against the "innocent") and how one tormented couple is able to make love in the other room, something that fights against what has just been shown! Also, the film would have been even more noteworthy if it had included one pure character that would have left some hope for the light, and this same "error" is present in the third part of the series: the sequels work better if they're imagined to be connected with the first film which had the angel-like character to show how the animals still could and should live together.

All Night Long 2: Atrocity is perhaps the most extreme in the series, being equally disturbing and off-putting with part three, All Night Long 3: The Final Atrocity. The first film is perhaps the "easiest" to watch even though it has one of the most vicious acts of murder ever filmed at the beginning but it also has a slightly larger environment as it includes a high school milieu and other elements of society surrounding us, thus making the film even more believable for those who are not so ready to accept what the sequels so extremely suggest and prove, in their smaller environments, both taking mostly place in one single room or apartment. In my opinion, maybe that's why the first film is the most noteworthy in the series but the other two, especially this first sequel, are as well significant pieces of honest and that's why ugly cinema telling about us, none other than us. 7/10

All Night Long 2 (1995) is the second film of the dark and depraved All Night Long trilogy. If you thought the first film was nasty and it couldn't get any sicker, well it has. This time the movie was shot on video giving it an even more feel of realism, it's like watching a snuff film (if those things really existed). Gutter level horror film making at it's best.

A young Japanese student is having a hard time making friends. But he finds one on the internet. But he finds out that the person is not what he seems to be. The poor kid is tormented by the gang of homicidal nut cases and drive him up the wall. Can the kid protect himself and fend of the gang of sadistic sickos or will he fall into the same hole of depravity that the rest of them have fallen into?

Why are these films made? Who knows but if shocking the hell out of the viewers and being as twisted and insane as you want to be is the golden rule then it has succeeded on all levels. The trilogy ends with a film that is so insane I had a hard time finishing it.

Rated X and it shows.

Recommended for fans of the genre. Others need not apply.