The Mutilation Man (1998 Video) User Reviews

hard to sit through but gory

[trashgang · 5/10 · 21 May 2014]

Andrew Copp, the director isn't unknown to me. This is his first attempt to make a movie. the first which means, no budget. Copp is known for his brutality used in his flicks. Here having almost no money he used stock footage of some nasty scene's to shock people from Vietnam, most I have seen earlier (brutal executions).

Be advised that the quality is very low because it was shot on super 8 and 16mm. There's a lot of gore for the geeks out there but I must warn you due the stock footage that this isn't for the weak of heart or people who are easily offended.

Some might say this is an art flick like Begotten (1990) because what you see is sometimes hard to understand. Yhe mutilation man himself is walking around naked full frontal so some might have trouble with the nudity. And the score doesn't make it easier to watch this sick flick.

Andrew Copp went further into other disturbing flicks. This is the most weird one. It's not for everybody but gorehounds should love this. But it's hard to sit through due the low quality and not actually having a story...child abuse looks the main theme to be.

Gore 3/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 1,5/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

Confusing; Content Without Context

[imdb-com-640 · 1/10 · 23 December 2006]

This is a good example of how NOT to make a film.

There is very little meaningful dialog, no context for the events, and constant cuts between seemingly unrelated scenes. The result is a confused, clueless viewer; the plot is absolutely impossible to follow and the ideas presented are meaningless without listening to the director's commentary.

This movie has a lot to do with human atrocity and tries to show how wrong it is, with an emphasis on child abuse. It includes some stock footage of real, horrible acts of violence, including war time executions. Although it works in the context of the movie, I feel that the ideas behind the movie could have been presented without resorting to such extreme content. This film is absolutely NOT for the weak stomached or the easily offended, and should not under any circumstances be shown to minors.

The climax is anti-climactic compared to the content of the rest of the movie. If you're not listening to the commentary while it happens you will probably miss it.

The director's commentary was a one-shot, "sit the guy down and let him talk, no cuts" type of commentary. While this isn't necessarily bad, the director ends up rambling a lot and often spends minutes at a time complaining about his college, filming conditions, co producers, bad film, and a dozen other things. The constant negativity detracts from what otherwise is an essential tool for understanding the movie.

The movie was shot many years ago on 16mm and Super8 film over a period of four years on an extremely low budget. Because of this, the video and audio quality is poor. That alone does not make it a bad movie, but it does make a bad movie worse.

art?? 'piece of crap' suits better...

[jonny-pfeiff · 1/10 · 6 January 2005]

First of all: I love good Splattermovies and am not afraid to get in touch with art, but this zero-budget-flick is none of it! The picture-quality is so damned low, the soundtrack the most annoying one I ever (!!!!)heard, and as for the FX... well the super-low quality makes some of them look not as bad as they would in a real movie (what this junk here isn't). No concept, a wafer-thin storyline, primitive acting and rare dialog - I think I counted about 10 sentences in the whole movie, each one repeated about 20 times... same for a lot of film-sequences (may be an indication for which kind of audience this crap was made!!!) The story seems to be that a young boy had to watch his father rape and kill his mother, got psychological damaged and as an adult goes touring, performing a show of self-mutilation. So far, so good... But for these pseudo-art-idiot-directors, this plot is just a line to put cheap produced shock scenes in a row which neither have a message nor make any sense (freshly taken-out bowels are thrown on a naked, bound woman in an earth-hole... why?? and why is that the only time you see both woman and thrower in the whole bloody "movie")??? Disturbing? Yes!! Sick? Yes!! Necessary? No! Artistically? NO!!!!! Everyone mistaking this cheap gore-show for art should as soon as possible visit his psychiatrist or should watch Pink Floyd's "The Wall" to see how a similar topic can be worked out in an artful way... I hope this was your first and last (!!!!!!!!) movie, Andrew Cobb... !!!! And all you gore-heads out there, remember: Not everything that looks cheap and makes obviously no sense at all is automatically "Art"...

so bad it's...well bad

[movieman_kev · 1/10 · 8 October 2003]

An Avent-garde nightmarish, extremely low-budget "film" that has delusions of grandeur. Hard to sit through. I get the message that child abuse is wrong. Wow big revelation. I had no clue it was wrong before viewing this. Yes that's sarcasm. DON'T watch this "film" if you're offended by nudity of either the male or female gender. DON'T watch it if you're the least bit squeamish. DON'T watch it if you care about acting. On second thought just DON'T watch it period.

My grade: D-

DVD Extras:making the movie , the premiere,interview with Kristie Bowersock, deleted scenes, movie stills, Director's commentary, 2 versions of the teaser trailer, music video by The Azoic, & a classroom video experiment

The Mutilation Man: movie masochism.

[BA_Harrison · 1/10 · 20 September 2008]

Apparently, The Mutilation Man is about a guy who wanders the land performing shows of self-mutilation as a way of coping with his abusive childhood. I use the word 'apparently' because without listening to a director Andy Copp's commentary (which I didn't have available to me) or reading up on the film prior to watching, viewers won't have a clue what it is about.

Gorehounds and fans of extreme movies may be lured into watching The Mutilation Man with the promise of some harsh scenes of splatter and unsettling real-life footage, but unless they're also fond of pretentious, headache-inducing, experimental art-house cinema, they'll find this one a real chore to sit through.

82 minutes of ugly imagery accompanied by dis-chordant sound, terrible music and incomprehensible dialogue, this mind-numbingly awful drivel is the perfect way to test one's sanity: if you've still got all your marbles, you'll switch this rubbish off and watch something decent instead (I watched the whole thing, but am well aware that I'm completely barking!).

bad bad bad

[virlyn2 · 1/10 · 22 January 2008]

I bought this movie for 1 euro, not knowing what it was all about. I thought "hmmm, a movie named mutilation man must be if not very funny at least filled with gore". It wasn't funny alright. It was disturbing. Very disturbing. And I don't mind disturbing movies but this one just didn't mean anything, except that child abuse is not a good thing to do. hmmm... The quality of the images were terrible. The acting...there was no acting. Just some fcked-up fcker mutilating himself for over 90 minutes. This is probably material for sicko's jurking off on extreme gore.

Don't watch this. It's not worth your time. Its just awful. I wish i never bought this.

They should mutilate the guy who made this

Very dark and disturbing film with plenty of explicit gore.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 17 May 2006]

"The Mutilation Man" tells the story of a tormented young man named Ivan who travels a barren wasteland performing gruesome shows of self-mutilation before an adoring crowd.He is doing this in the desperate attempt to make sense of his past at the hands of his abusive and murderous alcoholic father.We later learn that his dad not only abused him,but also murdered his mother while Ivan was a kid.Andrew Copp's "The Mutialtion Man" is an utterly nihilistic and disturbing piece of experimental horror.The script deals with the themes of abuse and self-loathing and is truly thought-provoking.Still Copp's debut is pretty difficult to sit through as it features lots of extreme gore including genital mutilation and even cannibalism.Real death footage is also rather unsettling.However if you are a fan of surrealistic horror films give it a look.7 out of 10.

Sick, mind numbing and wrong.

[ismaithliomim · 1/10 · 4 January 2009]

This piece of filth is virtually impossible to follow. The sound is crap the picture quality goes from bad to worse to good to bad again! Things happen for no apparent reason characters appear and disappear. Was the director suffering from a massive brain injury during its production?

Poor film making aside, the story is vile just sick evil sh*t If you like rape, murder and self harm this is right up your alley. And if simulated scenes of murder are not enough you can enjoy clips of actual people being executed. I watched almost all of it but had to turn off after I seen someones brains blown out. Never before have I seen a film that left me feeling so ashamed and dirty.

Very Disturbing

[deadly4u75-1 · 10/10 · 21 January 2004]

I have been watching indie films for some time now and none of them has ever impacted my life as much as Andy Copp's The Mutilation Man. It is one film that, as of this moment, I could only sit through once. Mind you, I thought it was a brilliant flick, but none the less a very disturbing one.

I have to say that this is one flick that shouldn't be missed. I highly recommend it.

Decent "Experimental" Style Gore Film...

[EVOL666 · 7/10 · 26 May 2006]

With THE MUTILATION MAN, director Andrew Copp brings the audience a dark and surreal tale of a man coping with the scars of physical and emotional abuse, and an all around screwed up up-bringing. Not a great film in terms of technicality (or really in any specific areas...), but somehow the form transcends it's budget and other limitations to become a stronger "whole" than the sum of it's "parts"...

Ivan treks around a sort of "post-apocalyptic" wasteland, putting on shows of self-mutilation for small crowds. Through strange and gritty flash-back sequences, the audience begins to understand that Ivan was abused by his father, and often witnessed the abuse of his mother as well. Basically, Li'l Ivan's home-life sucked. It seems that he uses the self-mutilation not only as a way to make a living, but also as a means to cope with his internal demons and feelings of self-loathing...

THE MUTILATION MAN is a very dark and surreal film overall. There is no straight narrative, and almost no dialogue - instead relying on strange ambient noises, music, and sounds. Sometimes the audio direction is quite powerful, other times annoying. This film isn't quite the super-gory blood-bath that others make it out to be - but it does have more gory elements than your typical horror film, and although the FX budget is obviously pretty low (as I'm sure the budget for everything in the film is...) the gore FX are pretty well done. Jim Van Bebber as the "dad" is believable and threatening (for a film of this nature). Overall - I recommend THE MUTILATION MAN for those that dig dark, nihilistic, "experimental" films - for a better example of a film that I would place in the same general category, try SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY...7/10 for THE MUTILATION MAN

Got to see this

[pig_71 · 9/10 · 16 June 2003]

This is a truly great piece of filmmaking. Yes, it lives up to the title. The lead charater gets seriously messed up, and yes the movie is extremely graphic in terms of gore. But unlike most italian gore, the movie has a message and not just simply exploitation, although it is a gore lovers dream.