Men Behind The Sun

Rating:
Summary: Prepare Yourself
Review: When people ask me what is the most horrific film I have ever seen, I tell them it's this one. Don't be fooled into thinking it's a spiced up horror film...it's not. Especially for UK horror fans, who think that finally getting their hands on the famed "video nasties" that were banned in our country for many misguided reasons in the 1980's is giving them access to the most unspeakable horrors ever committed to DVD. Most of that trash never approached what this film is prepared to dish out.

You can see from the other reviewers on this page just how seriously nasty Men Behind The Sun is, so I don't need to add any graphic description of the content. Suffice to say that you might really feel like you have seen live people (and animals) tortured, killed and dismembered. And in some scenes, you actually have. There's not a trace of humour or light relief in any of the proceedings, it all unfolds in the screen like some hideous historical lesson. Which of course, seems to be the point, as the movies puports to chronicle what went on in a notorious World War 2 Japanese POW camp, and shows the way they used the prisoners for all manner of appaling experiments.
It's really more like a ritual of endurance to watch some scenes all the way through, rather than entertainment as I know it. It's not even some sleazy low budget number, this is a glossy feature with seemingly considerable funding behind it. There is also a plot of sorts, and characters who have motivations and emotions, which probably makes the whole experience worse, to be honest.

Building up a film in this way is bound to disappoint a few gorehounds when they finally see it (yes I'm sure there are a few who will say "Was that it?" even to this), but for most people the dry, documentary approach to the shocking images that will assail you is a brutal slap around the senses from which you may not recover for a very long while.