Sadi-Scream Vol.1 – Vol.5 (2007)

It was a couple of years ago, I found a website whilst at work and downloaded a handful of hardgore graphic Japanese films, much to the horror of the guy I was working with at the time. I took them home on a flash drive, shoved them in my laptop, then forgot about them.

The other day I was rummaging around in files and folders, there they were labelled “Review Sick Shit.” I had to smile to myself at the apt description I gave them at the time.

There are five volumes in the Sadi-Scream series. All of them are generally identical in that there’s a flimsy story (bit difficult for me to suss all details out, mind you, there’s no subs or dubs), which results in a young female getting tortured sexually or dismembered, usually semi or fully nude. For this fact, that the reviews will be short, I decided to combine two this time, then three clustered all in next.

The Japanese are in a room all by themselves when it comes to painfully realistic movies in this genre. For instance, Women’s Flesh: My Red Guts (see review here) and Tumbling Doll of Flesh (see review here) are truly infamous amongst circles of the cheerfully depraved, whilst the Guinea Pig and the All Night Long series build a more cinematic, but still glistening moist experience. Be warned those who are merely curious, for beyond lies extreme bile.

Thanks to another review I found on the web for Sadi-Scream Volume 1, I have a bit of a synopsis for what is happening. Our main girl is called, Rumi, and she’s a journalist. For the first ten-minutes she talks on the phone. Then a colleague shows her a photo of a serious looking fella. This guy is a garbage man who could possibly be disposing of dead bodies on the side. Ah-ha. Rumi needs to look further into this. He passes her some slinky bikini wear which she frowns over, as did I, since I had no idea why.

Oh, that’s why, to look seductive and a bit teasing so the garbage man will be taken in by her. She interviews him whilst dressed in a short tight skirt, etcetera. Personally, I reckon she looked nicer before – she’d’ve hooked me. Anyhow, it transpires that Rumi is easily made to conduct the interview just sat in her skimpy bikini. It could happen, I suppose. Maybe he has a reputation for opening up to nubile girls dressed in bikinis, I have no idea. Something she says arouses his suspicion, for he’s stood before her, slapping her face, then searching inside her for any equipment whilst she nervously closes her eyes. The fact that her two colleagues are listening in and watching on a hidden camera yet offer Rumi no assistance is maybe explained but as it is, I don’t know.

They’re finally are discovered by some older bloke in an offensive shirt. Rumi is lead out and told to dress whilst this older man gives her a spanking in front of the gathered men. Greatly lost in translation is why her two colleagues simply stand nervously like two caught schoolboys and allow their friend to be humiliated, or at least try to help her and them escape. Neither of the bad guys have weapons, so it’s a big fat WTF from me.

They’re taken to an old factory in nowhere-land, then tied up. In the corner there’s blood-soaked mannequin torsos which I suppose are meant to be body parts. The camera lingers on a terrified and sobbing Rumi more than anything who’s dressed only in a t-shirt, boots, and panties. She’s slapped a couple of times, then to even up a bit, one of the lads gets a slap to.

In walks a huge leather wearing gimp masked brute carrying an axe. Similar to Darth Maul at the end of Solo who flicked on his lightsabre just to show off, this guy swings and hacks his axe into the pile of body parts just to prove a point, then lobs a severed foot over to the group. This understandably freaks the captives out. Most of his focus is on Rumi. I guess these lads don’t get many girls tied up they can do anything they like to, so you can sort of forgive them this. They tire of the two guys, so colleague 1 has his head chopped off, a brilliantly fake dummy cranium rolls along the floor – this is so much fun. Rumi passes out, waking up tied to a table whilst axe gimp slowly slices her stomach open.

From this moment on, Sadi-Scream Vol. 01 delivers all the torture porn it promises on the tin. The first 40-minutes has given the furious and frantic master-strokers a lot of bare skin and Rumi crying, now it’s onto the pudding. She’s groped, has her nipples tortured, cut some more, and her lady parts diddled with (the man’s hand vanishing amongst a Japanese censored crotch pixel nest), then they get serious with her.

On a very low budget, the makers have tried to create a real look, but have kept a knowing wink to the audience with the fake body parts. This is like Bloodsucking Freaks, with a splattering of H.G. Lewis. The lady who plays Rumi screams, cries, gibbers, and bleeds, then is fucked. She does it all very well. The music score is suitably menacing until the climaxing pop song over the credits which horrified me! The little quite unique twist seems to be. Rumi begins to enjoy the sexual violence because at the end she’s happily writhing about, aside from trying to hold her guts in place.

Sadi-Scream Vol. 02 is something totally different. Casting aside the pornographic aspect, it sets itself up as a Fisherprice my first Saw movie. I couldn’t find any reviews anywhere for this family friendly flick, but I doubt it matters, the whole thing appears simple enough.

A bloody and battered young girl is panting and sobbing in a room filled with Hellraiser chains. She has a standard Jigsaw trap around her head. A TV flickers on. A masked man speaks to her in sinister tones – well, like a mong to be honest, thus begins flashbacks as to why and how she got there. She appears to be a cop, or ex-army mercenary, that bit I gathered. We watch her endure a bunch tests, like walking on broken glass bare foot, being stabbed by nails, and more. She comes across a guy she pointed a gun at within an earlier flashback. I dunno why he’s there, but they must work together for a while. Oh yeah, there’s a random masked psychotic nutter chucked into the formula for the banter.

Frustrating, and quite surreal trying to review this, I want to know the plot, because they’re taking it all a lot more seriously and have built some impressive set ups throughout. The lighting is moody and raises up the sense of doom better than the Saw flicks ever did past the first three. If you’ve seen the Saws then it’ll come as no shock how she has to escape.

The pictures I’ve screenshotted will probably seem like I’ve chosen them from a personal fantasy aspect, but I swear both these films have wall to wall young female flesh constantly, so wherever I chose a picture, it was going to be the same moments later. This Sadi-Scream series exists to torment young females, that’s it, no more and no less. The slant being, as I said, Vol. 01 has the girl beginning to enjoy her sufferings, and Vol. 02 has the girl as a very strong survivor. This would maybe slightly devalue any debates or arguments about a woman hating tone to this duo. The ladies aren’t just here to be toys. Well, Rumi spends a lot of time being that until she changes, and besides, volume II absolutely throws out any rhyme or reason to be seen as a sadistic porn. The tone changes dramatically for the last three, especially Vol. 04 and Vol. 05 which are perhaps the cruellest and totally brutal of all. There are beatings and tortures galore upon near nude women again. Chapter 4 includes the longest ‘topless girl being punched over and over in the stomach‘ scene I think in existence!

I enjoyed this bumpy, slippery ride even though I didn’t expect to so much and it’s because there’s a true appealing cheesiness to them. The cast perform well, and probably there were a lot of laughs between scenes. The Sadi-Scream series has loads of gore, none of it fantastically staged, but take it as a throwback to the 42^nd Street style mutants which roamed the screens.

SADI-SCREAM VOL I

AKA: Sadi-Screem, Sadi-sukurimu
Directed by: Masayoshi Shiki
Produced by: Johnny Kokura
Edited by: Tsukumo Kawakami
Music by: Toshio Kobayakawa
Cast: Eri Sakuragi
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Colour: Colour
Year: 2007

Runtime: 1h 12min

SADI-SCREAM VOL II

AKA: Sadi-Screem: vol 02, Dead Alive, Sadi-sukurimo: Vol 02 – soriddo shichueshon: erochikku surira
Directed by: Toru Sakata
Produced by: Johnny Kokura
Edited by: Tsukumo Kawakami
Music by: Toshio Kobayakawa
Cast: Rina Himekawa, Yuya Yoshino, Eri Sakuraji
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Colour: Colour
Year: 2007
Runtime: 1h 12min