A Serbian Film

I've been watching all the films that get put in "top ten most disturbing" lists, I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of a lot of them. "Martyrs" for example was actually pretty enjoyable. Just finished "A Serbian Film", and I want to be compensated for the time that film wasted. I've never seen a film that was so unintentionally funny and boring at the same time. I'm watching this guy with a bad haircut clumsily miming sexual actions with an obviously plastic dick and I'm meant to be shocked somehow? There was one scene which did make my jaw drop, I'm not going to describe it, I'll just say "the baby scene", but as soon as it cut back to the actors trying to show emotion it lost me again. I didn't pick up on any of the "profound messages" that this film supposedly has, beyond a really weak "hey guys porn is bad actually" that doesn't get fleshed out in any meaningful way. This goes in the bin with "Salo", another film where I just feel like the director is desperately trying to impress me. This film just wishes it was "Antichrist" so bad. Watch that instead, it's great.

Edit: I apologise profusely to the Salo fanboys. I have made a huge, unacceptable mistake. The film is absolutely a genius IQ critique of fascist ideology and definitely not a dumb, pretentious self-indulgent snoozefest. A thousand apologies.

Edit 2: since I have you all here, I would like to take the chance to remind you all that Willem Dafoe wanted to perform the real sex scenes in Antichrist himself, but director Lars Von Trier was so shocked by the size of his penis that he didn't allow it.

Fuck that movie. I’m kind of judging myself that I watched the entire thing but I honestly was hoping it would have some semblance of a redeeming quality at the end. It did not.

To be clear I’m a horror writer and have been a life long horror fan. I have no issues with intense brutal violence in film and literature. I’m willing to keep watching beyond many peoples comfort level. I say all that to say I’m no newbie what it comes to violence and brutality and I don’t often reach my limit to where regret watching something.

A Serbian Film pushed me pretty well past my comfort level. Not in a good way. And yeah people can make all the excuses of “oh it’s about society, it’s about censorship, it’s a metaphor for blah blah blah” There are plenty of ways to do all that stuff and still be shocking without the child stuff. I’m all for extreme art for a reason but I didn’t find much art or reason for this. I found this movie to be sickening just for the sole purpose of being sickening. They wanted to see how far they could legally go. They wanted to be that film that gets banned in many countries and they wanted the notoriety of it.

Not a fan. Didn’t care for it. I’ll never think about watching it again. Ever. Lol rants over.

I just wanted to talk about my instance of watching this movie... and all I can say is.... this is probably the most mentally fucked up movie I probably have ever watched, surpassing Human Centipede and the I Spit on your Grave series.

I was around 15-16 and was curious if this film because it was brought up on a forum of movies you should never watched, but sadly my curiosity opened me to watch this.... and I can openly say.... it is fried into my brain, that I can't really say any film I seen in my life can stick out the way this movie does.

For those have watched it...... what did you think..? I know it's subjective but.... I can't understand how someone can watch this horror movie and not be phased by it.

My friend told me about this movie and said it's a good horror movie, but istg it's one of the most disgustingly disturbing shit I have watched in a long time

I have just finished watching this movie and I am honestly confused. I haven't read much about it beforehand. I've heard about it being "over the top" but I haven't expected this. Maybe I'm too sensitive, although I don't think so.

I find it outrageous that people are defending the movie, calling it "misunderstood" and portraying a "deeper meaning", moreover, a "SOCIOPOLITIC" meaning.

Was it really necessary to make it so graphic? Was the "message" necessary? What message is it even really trying to portray?

Abuse of all kinds are subjects that are often being shoved unter the rug or not make public. But is this movie really trying to approach this and "do" something?

By the amount of imagery and the kind of, it just felt like material for people who enjoy this kind of content to me. The "message" that it's supposed to send just feels like a cover up, like a way to publish this type of content without raising eyebrows.

You're free to try to "open my eyes", but as for now I just find it disturbing comparing the imageries vs. meaning content ratio.

Update: Thank you for your comments. I must say I was taken away by the shock of the moment, to say so. After reading what you had to say, I did look more into the story of the movie itself and was able to formulate my thoughts better. I elaborated this a bit more in one of my comments.

I don’t particularly want to see more of the kind of content i saw in this movie which made it so shocking (trying to avoid spoiling if anyone here hasn’t seen it but wants to) I am curious though especially since I highly doubt any movie could get worse than this one. it was honestly just fucking revolting.

Im mainly looking for something that will yes, shock me to a similar level or higher but without that kind of shit. Ill give an example to expand on what I mean

Ive seen Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave, The Girl Next Door, Funny Games and a few others but none of these really hit me the same as (specifically) ‘Speak No Evil’ or ‘Martyrs’ or ‘Antichrist’ or even Hereditary. Idk what it is they just hit different. Less of a gross out and more of a gut punch yk? If you get what I’m saying throw some stuff my way!

I’m curious for those who watched the film, what made you watch it and do you regret it?

I’m desensitized to a lot of things I see in movies. But I know this is one I wouldn’t be able to handle and I’m not interested in trying.

... what in the all living fuck have my eyes just bared witness too.

I'm a huge horror fan, and don't get me wrong this hasn't scarred me or put me off the genre or anything crazy, I'm just taken aback by the sheer depravity of what I have just seen.

Production quality of the movie is very high, which is what makes it that much more insane.

Synopsis: An aging porn star (Srdjan Todorovic) who's struggling to provide for his family agrees to make a film that, unbeknown to him, contains themes of pedophilia, necrophilia and may end with his death..

I've read a synopsis like that a thousand times, and normally is simply a pre warning of "shits gonna get dark, yo". Never did I expect what I saw. The synopsis does it little justice, if you can call it that.

The human centipede, Hostel, Saw (in its day) left me wanting more. This movie left me wanting less, much less. I had planned to watch another film afterward, but I'm just going to sleep.

To anyone wanting to watch this film I won't advise against it, I'm glad I watched it purely to say I have seen possibly the most fucked up film ever (legally) made, but do be warned that this film is no joke.

I would advise against watching it with a loved one unless you can tolerate the painstaking awkwardness you'll feel afterward, and for the love of god not on a date. I don't want to disclose the specific themes as to why I say this as it would ruin the movie, but it is truly out of this world.

The film is listed as a thriller/mystery, but above all, it is truly horrifying.

About 7-10 years ago I was having lunch in a Chinese restaurant while waiting to pick up my dog from the groomers. This was one of those restaurants with the booths that sit back to back, so you can overhear the other tables if you try. I was sitting behind two college aged women.

Basically I overheard one girl tell the other that, a week into college her roommate’s boyfriend brings over a “scary movie to watch”, then proceeds to show the girls A Serbian Film. Which, according to this girl, messes her up so bad she has to drop out of school and check herself into the hospital where she has to “get on meds” and “do a ton of therapy”. She was a crying mess as she told the story, felt sorta bad I was eavesdropping but she was talking loud.

Having read the full synopsis on Wikipedia I definitely could see how someone would be messed up by that movie, especially a teen girl a week into the world.

That story still sticks with me, I wonder how many people have been messed up like that by a movie…

Palagi ko na nakikita sa mga suggestions eh. It’s funny at first pero every fucking post na lang may comment na ganon. Unless the said movie ACTUALLY fits the need. Otherwise, please refrain naman. Respect the poster. Yun lang. Happy watching hmpf

So, after a year of mostly lurking, trying to glean some new horror titles to watch, the one that comes up a lot is A Serbian Film. I watched what I could stomach of the edited version, a few days ago, and I haven't been able to shake the horror of what I read in the captions, on my television. What kind of mind, comes up with that concept? I grew up in a big city, where violent crime is a regular occurrence. My parents were true crime enthusiasts, so there were always books about serial killers, and mass murderers (these were the only types of crimes that made national news, back in the 70's, when I was growing up), and I read most of them. But; I was a sheltered child. I had no idea about real evil. After watching what I could of this movie, I feel like I have been an unwilling/unwittingly participant in a horrible crime. Some films, leave you with mental scars. I found that 8MM, and Hostel, both left me shook. A Serbian Film, left me shattered.

The dumbest thing I've ever seen. I have always known what it is and what it's about and told myself I would never watch it. Well, I have been seeing it mentioned a lot lately and decided that I would go ahead and watch it to cross it off the list. Was it beyond disgusting? Yes. But I also find it so, utterly stupid. The censorship and victims of Serbia metaphor was just a bunch of BS, and a weak excuse to try and make the film as gross as possible. I'm sure you've all seen these kinds of posts hundreds of times, please don't waste your time watching this movie; nothing valuable comes from it.

On another note: what kind of parents let their children act in a movie like this?! What kind of adult willingly acts in this?

That was the most effed up movie I’ve ever seen. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.. BAM.. Seriously, it’s disturbing to think that someone could even think of a storyline like this. When I thought it was finally over after the pop.. NOPE.. One last gut punch.. I’m going to spend the rest of the evening watching Disney cartoons.

I'm looking for dark, depraved movies that are still really well-done and have three-dimensional characters and a decent/good plot. Movies that you can tell the director and production put a lot of heart and love into it. Movies that you secretly love but that you would never watch with a date. Movies that barely made it past the censorship board and make you hate humanity just a little bit.

Hostel, Eden Lake, and A Serbian Film are a few that immediately came to mind.

Other criteria:

-prefer English-language films, but international is ok

-prefer on-screen violence, but off-screen violence is still ok as long as violence is implied and otherwise well-done

-happy-endings where the "good-guys" live are ok, although I assume given my criteria there are no happy endings

-NC-17 and R-rated movies only. I really doubt any PG-13 movies meet my criteria

-Open to any type of villain, but prefer human. Also, while it is ok if the villain wins in the end, the villain should have the real ability to be stopped (not like Saw), and the villain should have weaknesses/flaws, he/she should not be some human/monster/immortal hybrid (not like Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc)

-as already stated, plot, storyline, and characters are important

Hit me with your best shot.

I can say this one thing for sure. As all the other people have said about this game, Kane and Lynch 2 was an unpleasant experience.

It might confuse you what I meant, so I will make this clear. This is not a good game at all, but it is the game that absolutely succeeds what it sets out to do. I wanted to play an unpleasant game, kind of like how sometimes I want to watch crazy violent artsy horror movies, and I felt that unpleasant, which made it bizarrely a compelling and worthwhile experience.

I played many "mature" or "masterpieces" that tried to, marketed for, and were acclaimed for evoking edginess, darkness, shock, disturbing, and grittiness like Max Payne 3, Outlast, Spec Ops: The Line, Hatred, Condemned, The Last of Us: Part II, and Dead Space, and those games were unpleasant... for not being edgy, dark, shocking, and disturbing at all. I wanted to be offended and unpleasant by the content of the games, not feel unpleasant for wasting my time. Their attempts at "seriousness" comes off juvenalie and comical without a hint of self-awareness.

If you briefly talk about those examples: the problem with those games is that the contents were too obvious--visuals, storyline, gore, cliches, tropes, etc. Those games' "ugliness" fails because they are too cohrerent and polished. Those games were more grotesque in terms of the on-screen violence with more deaths delivered through the gameplay, but I was playing a "game". I was not experiencing something like what would happen in documentaries or recorded snuff tapes. There are limits to the cruelty conveyed as a fictional video game. No matter how elaborate effects and graphics are, the idea that what is playing out is game characters and fiction, no matter how gross it is, instinctively does not feel to my heart.

Then what differentiates Kane and Lynch 2 from those games? It is the imagination. It becomes much crueler when the game, not just showing things on the screen, stimulates the imagination through various trickeries and elements. The most disturbing movie scene I have ever watched was not from Hostel, Martyrs, or The Thing. It's this and . Just the way these scenes were shot, and directed, with the unconventional contexts surrounding these characters, without the conventional presentation, truly elevate these moments into real, like, illegal footage I shouldn't watch.

Kane and Lynch 2 works for the same reason. It isn't all that violent and on-your-nose gory, but its aesthetics fill the limits of the cruelty conveyed on screen and touch on the player's senses. Despite being a big-budget game, Kane & Lynch 2 simply feels rawer because the unpolish makes up for the lack of the grand theatrical, cinematic production value, and as a result, it leaves more room for imagination. It is the game that doesn't make sense.

It doesn't have any conventional structure to the story. Things just... happen without any concern for a three-act structure. There is no message, no character introduction, no point. There is no complex motivation or exploration of the characters, but more about the character's reactions to the events. Just a series of unfortunate events leading to chaos that no one can learn a lesson from. There is no catharsis. Just a five-hour of frustrations, confusion, and anger. Some characters meet an undeservingly brutal fate for no reason. There is one infamous sexual abuse scene that is only delivered in audio and photos, and it feels frighteningly real, which shows sometimes it is more powerful to not show the graphic events. The game just ends abruptly, with the most WTF music blaring at the screen. It's not incompetency from the developers. It is a deliberate decision.

The dialogues are sometimes muffled. You don't get a clear view of the events with the low res and haziness like I am playing the 2010 iPhone footage. Scenes being amidst the events, no beginning and end. There is no "cut"--the entire level plays in a single take. The camera is at all times in a shaky cam with frequent screen tearings. Apparently, the Chinese songs used in the game were not licensed but composed for this game, and they sound authentic and fit perfectly. When the background ambient sounds hit, they sound like something you would hear in a Silent Hill game. When someone gets brutalized, like shooting someone in the head, there is a blur hiding the injury, as if it is a censored LiveLeak video. Some of the moments you get to play are just absolutely disgusting, like running around the streets naked while your entire body has been hacked up with razor blades.

However, much of the game's effectiveness is cut short due to the typical Gears of War cover shooter gameplay in which you mow down hundreds of combatants, which is immediately breaks the immersion of playing a "reality". It has a killer premise and execution in terms of the narrative and presentation, but as the game The Michael Bay approach of explosions and Ramboing an army follows every generic third-person shooter template of its era, and that was the biggest disappointment. I get that this isn't really a game that focuses on the mechanical complexity, but these are the same guys who made Hitman. If your superspy fantasy game of playing a bald Golgo 13 plays more realistic than the supposed "realistic" game, then the gameplay department didn't do its job. It is like the two separate teams were making an entirely different game from each other.

I completely understand the hate Kane and Lynch 2 got as well as the cult following it has years after the release like A Serbian Film and Antichrist. There are bad games that are bad because they failed at what the developers intended. I am 100% sure what I played and felt was what the developers intended to make the player feel. It was effective at achieving what it set out to do, even if what it wanted to do was repugnant. None of this would matter if you are not in the target niche audience.

Much of this game's achievement was cut short by the bland gameplay and had this game had a gameplay of a tactical shooter or a stealth game, it would have received more appreciation. When Rockstar gets to make another Manhunt game, I hope this is the game they take some inspiration from because it is a perfect match made in hell.

Im a fan of highly disturbing movies that leave me shaken for months. Dont ask why, i dont know lol. I watched A Serbian Film maybe 2 years ago, and it was pretty gross and disturbing, i felt highly uncomfortable, and now im looking for worse because apparently i enjoy tainting my mind. Is there anything worse? Ive seen: all 3 Human Centipede movies, Poughkeepsie Tapes, I Spit on Your Grave.

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I recently re-watched A Serbian Film with a friend, and we both had pretty negative views of the film before. Its a controversial film for its excessive violence and portrayal of children, but we were both interested in revisiting it after a piqued curiosity recently with extreme horror. After watching it, I think I appreciate what it aims to do more, but I don't necessarily like it. Nonetheless, I do feel there's an interesting discussion to be had about the possible merits and weaknesses of this film.

Arguably, A Serbian Film could be the most controversial film of the 2010s - banned in multiple countries, and many refusing to release the film uncut, it's a film that caused much dismay on the film festival circuit during its initial release. I feel it's understandable, the violence is excessive - sexual violence, humiliation, rape, degradation and children are included in this onslaught of gore. A retired porn actor, Milos, is given the opportunity of one last well-paying job. The production details are vague, but he learns that he's in too deep to escape.

The director Srdjan Spasojevic has gone on the claim that the film is a commentary on his views of the world regarding politicians in Serbia, the world's sensitivity and political correctness (there's a pretty interesting interview with IndieWire, whether you agree with him or not on the film, which you can read here: ).

I'm not a fan of A Serbian Film, but to an extent, I can see what the director means: the extreme violence is confrontational and disturbing, and it feels like it's intending to be as excessive as allowable on the screen in an attempt to rattle one's sensitivity. I also feel there's some weight in the comment on politicians too, and this air of celebrity that surrounds some of them, like an exploitative pornography focus on powerplay and degradation. I think specifically of the scene when Milos is being fellated by a woman in a dark room, tears down her face, as he's being choked and encouraged to hit her in the face. He's being pressured into a decision he doesn't want to make, and yet he must make it, in a somewhat similar way that some politicians make decisions that go against what they had once promised. Maybe a stretch, I suppose, but it feels like a scene that actually fits what Spasojevic claims to have intended with this film.

However, my gripe with this film is that when a film drops the viewers into the deep end of excessive violence, it begins to feel flat, and the intended impact disappears. Not only that, but any commentary seems to disappear too when the audience is more focused on the violence in the film instead of its satiric concepts. I feel the film personally "jumps the shark" when Milos gouges out a burly security guy's eye with his penis. It looks ridiculous and it makes me a little giggly seeing it.

I will, however, give benefit of the doubt: what if this is intentional? What if the violence is so excessive that it's juvenile on purpose? What if A Serbian Film is intended as a gallows humour dark comedy, similarly to Man Bites Dog? Milos pulls exaggerated facial expressions throughout that would make perfect reaction images, and after the trauma of the central family - going through rape and murder - and dying in a triple suicide, the film ends on a twist that feels like real gallows humour: the porn film production continues as one crew member unzips his pants, implying things are going to get worse. It's morbid, but with it being an unexpected twist - how would one consider a porn film to continue being filmed when what seemed to be the rest of the crew and stars of it are killed? - followed by a dark gag (understandable if you feel this wasn't intended as a joke, but I feel after all the excess, and the relief and solace we get from this family putting themselves out of their misery, it was an added absurdity that, after all the trauma, things COULD get worse).

I suppose in a long-winded way, I feel I appreciate A Serbian Film more, but I don't necessarily like it. I feel that a film like A Serbian Film has its significance in challenging what is acceptable in cinema, and for as long as it causes controversy, it'll remain in its own confrontational gratuitous way, important.

What do you think about A Serbian Film? Do you like it or hate it? Why? Which films would you recommend for fans of A Serbian Film? Do you agree with the director's words that it was intended to offer commentary, or do you feel those are words chosen to defend his film? Would be interesting to hear what others have to say on such a controversial film! :)