ATROZ (2015) – Social critique feat. a good hour and a half of pain
Guys, I always remind you that I spoil as if there was no tomorrow
I really don’t know where to start with this movie, it was a truly rotten and terrible experience. I had to put in effort to try and find a cover image that wouldn’t get me banned from all the social networks I post on.
ATROZ (2015) enjoys a truly praiseworthy reputation on the web, it is spoken of as something truly grotesque and, never before, do I find myself in agreement. To make everything even more intriguing, the fact that the movie was presented by Ruggero Deodato, yes, the Ruggero Dedoato of Cannibal Holocaust, is added. I think we can vaguely image how Atroz is gonna be.
Atroz (2105) by Lex Ortega was initially only supposed to be a short, it was essentially supposed to end after the first vhs, it was then expanded. Despite being an experience that is primarily very, VERY, visual and very, VERY gore, the movie is actually presented to us by the same director as a “social critique” (we’ll delve deeper later).
“Atroz” we can consider (for a good 90% of the duration) a found footage, because there are “three” main segments, which coincide with three tapes that are found and that are shown to us entirely. Tapes that are practically at the limit of snuff, but we’ll talk more about that later.”
ATROZ (2015) – Nails that jump like popcorn and filleted humans
Atroz (2015) is a strong film. Very strong, a punch in the stomach. I’m usually very unresponsive while watching films, but with Atroz I couldn’t hold back expressions of disgust or discomfort.
Brief plot: two crazy and ruthless serial killers are captured “almost by accident”, due to a car accident. Our two friendly friends (who I must admit are really scary), keep some video tapes that they could have ended up in The Poughkeepsie Tapes.
The three video tapes that we watch, are all three scary and repugnant, the violence perpetrated is all shown in full, nothing is spared and what you will find will be truly crazy stuff, that is things you wouldn’t even expect to be able to think of. Bloody, truly bloody and brutal. Even now, just writing about it and just having reviewed some fragments of the movie to search for some images, I feel that “EWWWWWWWWWW” sensation, in short I hope you always appreciate the onomatopoeic and detailed descriptions of Horrornauta.
In addition to the indiscriminate use of different forms of torture, violence (physical and not), there are also a whole series of paraphilias (including coprophilia, pissing and necrophilia), making everything even more terrible than it already is.
“For every tough person, there will always be someone tougher”
So I tried to express as best as I could the visual horror that was Atroz. I didn’t describe the practices and torture in detail, because obviously: number 1) excuse me but it’s cheating, if you want to know what happens go watch it and suffer as I did and 2) because it wouldn’t (obviously) be the same.
So leaving aside for a moment the punch in the stomach that is Atroz, as I anticipated at the beginning of the review, the movie poses itself as a social critique.
First of all, I feel like saying that yes, there is social critique, but it could almost take second place, the risk of “losing” it, due to the excessive visual violence to which we are exposed. However, it is there.
Lex Ortega through Atroz denounces the Mexican government system, and in addition also shows us that degraded and forgotten part of Mexico: prostitution and crime reign supreme; “killing in Mexico is simple and most of the time the state doesn’t give a damn”.
At the bottom of everything there is violence. Even the Mexican state itself makes use of the same questionable “methods”. And so our protagonists destroy poor victims but they, in turn, are destroyed by the “tougher” (whether they be the police or their own family environment). A cycle of violence that has no end.
Goyo: crazy protagonist who despite everything makes me feel bad too
Our protagonists are exactly the result of the place where they were born and raised: they are characters marked, destroyed, far from any form of redemption, characters who were born in violence and do not know any other form of expression.
The same protagonist, Goyo (interpreted by Lex Ortega among others), has a terrible childhood/adolescence behind him. A nightmare family environment, that completely undermines his person.
And so basically with the third vhs, when I see a Goyo who suffers sexual violence from his father only because his sexual orientation is considered “not natural”, I can only feel bad, very bad. It’s a theme that is a bit dear to me, so I took it a bit personally, and seeing that the family, what should be your safe place in the world, often and willingly is instead “your worst enemy” is heavy. Heavy because I realize that there are similar realities. And so this bastard movie of Atroz even makes me end up feeling bad for a crazy sadistic killer.
Simplifying, it’s a bit like the stereotypical “bully” issue: my family environment is terrible and it hurts me and so I in turn hurt others. I think it’s also quite inevitable not to make a small reflection on how the family and social context contribute to the development of the person.
I don’t comment on the ending, I’ll leave that to you. I just feel like saying that Atroz is absolutely not a film that I would recommend to someone who “is not in the field”, it’s not for everyone. But you know that if you’re here probably you are a monster like me, so I doubt you have any form of sensitivity ( 😉 ).
