Subconscious Cruelty (2001)

From my favorite movies..

A Masterpiece!

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I watched this during the day but I must give it another go in the early hours of the morning to see how freaky it might be. As others have said, the first segment has a naked woman with her abdomen cut open (actually a darn good effect without any noticeable CGI) and an eyeball fished out to signify... I haven't a clue lol. Before this happens some words flash up about the functionality of the brain etc. The movie plays like some nightmare you may have, and doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm all for originality, I found it very interesting, but I don't shock much at all with things that are fabricated, so it could be a bit disturbing for some.The second scene has a guy who's impregnated his sister planning to kill the unborn baby. He plays with the sperm on his hands as he masturbates later watching her lying in her room. I must say, there is some wonderful music in this section, a lot of it reminiscent of the old Italian horror flicks I've seen. And some of the imagery is quite beautiful, the dialogue also makes some (very dark) sense. The entire act is driven by the incest which took place, and the pregnancy afterwards. There was something very enthralling about it all. Eventually the brother brews a hatred for his sister after experiencing her bleeding. There's certainly some very mature film- making here and Hollywood could never, ever, make something like this. The birth scene is intercut with that of a caught fish and her brother murders the baby as it emerges pulling it out and dripping it's blood in his sister's face. The brother rejoices at his killing a baby "during the process of creation" although given that a baby is created long before this, that point is a little lost. He then puts the dead baby on a shelf and his sister dies. Some mention of necrophilia then is inferred. I didn't really find any of it shocking. I'm not sure why. It certainly held my attention, but I can see why many would be freaked by this second part. Luckily, not many will ever witness this movie however so not too much to worry about. Act three has some nude folk seemingly making love to a field (yeah really). The field bleeds too when it's pulled open. Nope, I dunno what that was about. The life within nature maybe? Nothing wrong with a bit of environmentalism, but I'll draw the line at earth sex lol. Some twigs even bleed when broken, while the people lick it up. Maybe it's saying we are vampires sucking the life blood from the planet? Is that what it meant? Duh, I dunno.Next part opens with a hardcore sex scene (real and in close up) on a screen. Some guy sits masturbating to it. He orgasms, then goes to bed. Here he dreams that his penis is getting pulled apart by fish hooks and blood is flying out with reams of religious imagery and a cross melted down for drugs and injected in his head (yeah I got that bit, religion sure is some people's opium). There's then some jebus like character getting licked and bitten/ cut by naked women (if you believe in this myth you might be insulted) finishing with him getting his entrails ripped out and a naked woman rubbing herself with them. Again, I'm an atheist so water off a ducks back to me. He then seems to come back (like in the other tale) and gets a big stick shoved up his bloody bum. Yeah, I guess they were trying to shock here lol. Finally the original guy appears bathing in a river which might indicate some kind of rebirth, but the movie finishes with him lying (dead?) in bed with two faces and fangs demonstrating the first concept of the movie about the right and left hemispheres of the brain and their function. Phew, and that's it.Was it pretentious? Just a little. But it had some fine gore so I might forgive it. Art-Horror, whatever next?

Critics are a strange kind of people. Some of them are common people like you and me. Some of them are not. When a critic say Subconscius Cruelty is beautiful I wonder where they did grow up? What's beautiful with filming a field, some clouds or a tree with an old camera if you can't do it with style and capture the mood of the environments. Karim Hussain for sure can't. I've seen kids do better footage than Karim manage to do in Subconscius Cruelty. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is the whole recording, I refuse to call this a film, is just a bad excuse to picture nudity and extreme torture, rapes of both sexes, masturbation, sperm, pissing, cannibalism, child-murder and much much more. I love gore/splatter and I love horror. This ain't neither of those. This is utter crap and if my comments make just one single person skip Subconscius Cruelty it's been worth it. Always remember that your life won't last forever, don't waste two hours of precious time on Subconscius Cruelty. You've been warned.

First off - this film will not be for everybody. There are scenes of extreme graphic violence and "disturbing" images that by their nature alone will turn off many possible potential viewers. Obviously from the reviews on this board - SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY has divided those that have seen it. I'm among the ones who liked it very much for several different reasons. I feel this was a very ambitious (and quite competently pulled off...) undertaking for a bunch of 18/19 year olds with no budget and little experience. I think that each aspect of the film - the direction, the acting (though the character's performances are more likened to stage or free-form performance because of the nature of the film...) the production, the FX, the score/sound design - all are far superior to many films I've seen that exceed these kids budget and experience ten-fold. I honestly haven't been this impressed with an "art-house" style horror film since Nacho Cerda's GENESIS...First off - I'm not going to pretend to understand and/or grasp all of the graphical content in this film - but knowing that this wasn't a straight-narrative type of film when I went into it, I wasn't disappointed with how it played out. SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY is 4 relatively short vignettes that all sort of revolve around the theory of right brain/left brain lust/anger/psychosis vs. restraint/compassion/"normalcy". To very briefly give a synopsis of each "chapter":OVARIAN EYEBALL basically just has a naked girl who has an eyeball cut out of her abdomen. I'm sure it's symbolic of something - I don't think I was paying that much attention at that point and this one blows by pretty quick. The next "episode" - HUMAN LARVAE - is a nihilistic, horrific, genuinely creepy story of a guy who's both in love with and repulsed by his pregnant sister, who gives into his growing psychosis which leads up to the shocking conclusion of that particular chapter. HUMAN LARVAE is the best of the bunch in my book, and will probably get under your skin. The dead-pan narrative dialog accentuates the growing tension as you know something horrible is going to happen - but you're not quite sure what it is. Do yourself a favor and if you are interested in seeing this film - don't do too much research on it. Come into it with an open mind and an iron stomach and I think you be pleasantly surprised, especially with this particular episode.REBIRTH has a bunch of people in a field screwing the ground and blowing trees and stuff. Apparently an "arty" interpretation of the rape of the earth or something to that effect. Not bad, but this one is pretty short too and I sorta missed the point on it...And RIGHT BRAIN/MARTYRDOM seems to be about religion and religious hypocrisy and also along with HUMAN LARVAE, has some of the "hardest" images/messages of the whole feature...OVARIAN EYEBALL isn't anything to write home about, mainly because of it's very short running time but does make a decent segue into the insanity to come...and REBIRTH is also kind of short and not quite as thought provoking, but HUMAN LARVAE (especially) and RIGHT BRAIN/MARTYRDOM are so off-the-wall and well done that they more than make up for the other parts. I think the main reason that I liked this one so much is that as "shocking", "repulsive", "violent" and "excessive" as it is, it is also done very beautifully and you can tell this was a real labor-of-love from those involved. Nothing about the film feels cheap or rushed, and even if the content isn't completely decipherable, it's undeniably original - and that alone up's the points some in my book. Not that every "weird art-house" film that has an unintelligible plot should be praised for it's "originality", but SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY is the type of film that I do think I'll watch a few more times in the near future to see what other interpretations I may gain from it. Again, this film is ABSOLUTELY not for everyone - with some VERY extreme scenes of gore, murder, rape, incest, sacrilegious imagery, etc...that is definitely there to shock the viewer into taking a harder look at this film. I have to say it worked for me, and I'm anxiously awaiting the Hussain/Cerda collaboration that is rumored to come next. Check this one out if you have the stomach for it - 9.5/10

For the people who have compared this TRASH to the brilliance of David Lynch etc... please listen to your carer when they say... DONT USE OTHER PEOPLE'S PC WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION! This is complete and UTTER POO! There is NO art here. This is some person trying to make a name for himself with a cluster of gross out ideas which he was not clever enough to enforce into ONE main idea so instead he went for the easy option. Any one with half a brain could sit at home and conjure up some controversial images to shock viewers, but it takes a person with true imagination to be able to make it into a movie people WANT to watch.I am a LOVER of shock cinema. I have seen OR OWN pretty much all you can get... And I can strongly advise to anyone who LOVES the world of movies to steer WELL CLEAR of this garbage.This one is ONLY for people who like to over analyze what they are watching, OR for the 17 year old first time drinkers who dont know any better.0/10!