Ultrakillbot review by Sabrina Scotthttp://ultrakillbot.com/?p=1820
I took a brief trip to Montreal last week – a much needed break from the dirty strike-laden Toronto – and despite my ignorance I was lucky enough to drop in while the Fantasia Festival was underway. If you’re unfamiliar with the festival it’s one of Montreal’s unending summer attractions and focuses particularly on films of the thriller, monster, horror, scifi, and, of course, fantasy varieties.

The only film that really grabbed me by the balls was Graphic Sexual Horror. Difficult to ignore and hard to say in public, it is quite possibly one of the most compelling film titles I have heard in a while. The cinema was entirely packed to the brim with eager spectators, waiting to see a film that documents and seeks on some levels to explain the hardcore BDSM and torture porn website Insex.com – which bragged 35,000 members when it shut down in 2005.

There was something unique about Insex’s approach, something equally genuine and terrifying. The films featured on Insex seem more like serial killers’ home videos than the typical falseness and overacting that is involved in most pornography. Insex videos are gritty, very lo-fi, filled to the brim with elaborate torture contraptions and real screams. The most repulsive thing about typical pornography is its obvious fakeness, and a brand of exaggeration that is in no way convincing or alluring. What BDSM fetishists find appealing about Insex is its pure unadulterated reality – I suppose that’s what you get when you ignore limits and safe words.

Graphic Sexual Horror was an interesting piece of film to behold – shocking, humourous, and illuminating in the way that few questions are truly answered. It featured a great deal of material from the Insex archives (which have been sold to a European company), and since PD, the head honcho of Insex, was required to get this essential material for the documentary, one wonders if he was allowed to have the final say on what exactly was allowed to be shown or said. Regardless, the producers of Graphic Sexual Horror interviewed numerous Insex models and riggers, all very different people in their own right and their reasons for involvement with the site were as unique as the people that held them. I feel as though there was enough material for two films, at least – perhaps three, but then again I am quite the curious individual and feel as though things can rarely be over-explained. The environment Insex employees worked in was so complicated and multi-faceted I feel as though I have only brushed the surface – an allegory of the cave sort of experience.

Upon the film’s conclusion I was unsure if what I had just seen was a documentary about a snuff manufacturer who had somehow emerged scot-free. Sure, no one was killed, and all models signed releases stating that they understood they might undergo physical pain or injury during filming. Some models would even get paid four thousand dollars per day of filming – a sure motivator to bite the bullet and ignore that whatever limits you had were just thrown out the window, all for another few bucks. Complain, and you weren’t asked back – which may explain why some models returned again and again despite the discomfort and in some instances rape.

There’s a certain mentality shown – evident in both the girls and the producer – that because money is involved (a large amount of money, at that) limits are tossed out the window. While some models in the documentary admitted they would have paid PD for the pleasure of being tortured by him, it was obvious that others simply endured necessary pain and kissed his ass because of the financial compensation involved. Exploitation is another ball park entirely – who exactly was exploiting whom? The models, after all, had chosen to be there, but surely since PD (at the height of his subscribership) was making two million per month he could afford to pay girls more than four grand per near-death experience.

Lately Graphic Sexual Horror has been making the festival rounds, and to my understanding it is unavailable to purchase at the time being, though a DVD version is in the works. The film has won tons of awards and received many well-deserved accolades, so if you have the opportunity to see it I would strongly encourage you to do so. Yes, even if you do have a weak stomach – see it. You’ll be glad you did.

Hey, if nothing else, it’s a conversation starter, right?

http://ultrakillbot.com/?p=1820