A Serbian Film (2010) Review

Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film is a must see for anybody who loves horror. And action.

The film is so fast, imaginative and unpredictable one feels as if they’re watching The Transporter.
A Serbian Film is about a retired porn star who seems happily married to a beautiful woman and they have a boy. He is lured in (just like the guys in Hostel) to making enough money to make a clean break from the business and never have to worry about making his family happy by making a Serbian porn (snuff) film made for people in rich countries.

A Serbian Film is a hypnotic 104 minutes of uncensored, non-stop shocks (or surprises, depending on your perception) horror show of a film. The porn film’s insane director (Sergej Trifunovic) is brilliant, funny and one of the most diabolical characters in film history. He pushes, forces and does anything he can to get the film’s protagonist to act as he wants him to act. A Serbian Film would undoubtedly be too cruel to watch without the film’s unpredictable satirical humour and action.

Should you watch this film given all the bad press? Sure, but be warned that it features material including brutal rape, snuff, pedophilia and necrophilia that would make the Marquis de Sade (if he could watch the film from where he is now) jump in horror at the sight of it.

There is not a single dull second in A Serbian Film and I remember, just after I first saw the film, I then saw a South Park Serbian Film Reaction on YouTube which made me realise that the film had fast become infamous.
Yes, every shocking thing you’ve heard about this film is true. If you’re into witty brutal horror films such as Eli Roth’s Hostel see A Serbian Film. You may throw up during or after but you won’t be disappointed.

The film does live up to its controversial reputation and although it’s not as disturbing as Pasolini’s Salo or Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible (or Tim Roth’s The War Zone, for that matter) it is a breed apart from many of the mainstream horrors that we watch.
With A Serbian Film you can never tell what to expect next. You may think you know with what kind of film you’re dealing with but believe me, you don’t.

In the UK the censors cut 9 minutes out of A Serbian Film upon release and that’s bad. When you don’t show the violence, or worse – censor it then that’s truly obscene. A film is an illusion, nothing more. A Serbian Film is a fresh mischievous intelligent horror show that takes us into dark forbidden places most people (and films) dare not explore, let alone think about them.
We should first see A Serbian Film before we refuse and censor it.

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