I am upset by SRPSKI FILM (SERBIAN FILM) (2010), and you would be too

Posted by Daniel Metz

I was popping into the Alamo to pick something up on Tuesday when I overheard a coworker talking about this movie that made someone throw up the night before. Apparently some people were actually concerned that Tim League, proprietor of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, would be arrested for showing this film that was so vile and offensive as to be legally obscene. It was playing again that night, huh? I had to go.

There isn’t really anything I can say about this film, because I know my mother reads this site and I don’t want to upset her (HI MOM!). This is the most disgusting and shocking film I have ever seen, and I’ve seen ‘em all. Martyrs, Inside, 2 Girls 1 Cup, the video where the guy cracks his face open, 13 Going on 30; none of these films stand up next to Serbian Film. The most apt word to describe this film, and the word I came up with as the credits started rolling, was “upsetting.” This film will upset you (if, by some miracle, it ever plays again in the USA).

That said, it is in some ways the film I have always been dreaming of. Every time I watch a torture movie like Saw or Hostel, I think to myself: this would be much more horrifying if there were disgusting sexual elements thrown in. When a woman’s teeth are being ripped out by pliers so that her bloody mouth gushes all over her naked, bound body, why not shove a dick in that oozing crevice, hold the victim’s nostrils shut, and suffocate her to death? Oops, I just gave away one of the less-horrifying scenes in Serbian Film.

Just imagine what's going on underneath the frame...

Regardless, the combination of physical violence and sexual torment has always been, to me, the obvious next step in the extreme, body-horror genre. Serbian Film hits the ground running, offering up the most–here’s that word again–upsetting scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Just thinking about them now brings a lump in my stomach and a cringe in my teeth.

The director, producer, and screenwriter were at the screening and at the length Q&A discussed the film as an allegory for the Serbian people’s plight of the last fifteen years, who are constantly being exploited and abused by the state. I guess I can see that, but it isn’t really that apparent. What is clear is that this film has crossed a line in filmmaking. I am sure it will be surpassed soon, of course, as these types of films generally don’t stay on top for long, but for now, all of you deranged freaks, perverts and necrophiliacs, Serbian Film is the picture for you.