Year: 1989
Duration: 1:26:05
Directed by: M. Dixon Causey
Actors: Paula Wilson, George Montgomery, Zodia
Language: English (with Japanese subs)
Country: USA
Also known as: True Gore II
Description:
Don’t be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire
of Madness) (1989)–M Dixon Causey’s follow-up to the eponymous first entry–has
virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of
faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you’d find in a SOV horror collection like
Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even
more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a
send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults,
Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the
80s/90s.
The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey
was parodying the shockumentary form; the ‘intestines’ stuffed into the mouth of
the rotting corpse during the necromancy ritual, for instance, are clearly-visible
sausage links, with no effort being made to disguise this (quite the opposite). Even
the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take
themselves, crediting a ‘researcher’ for a film that clearly had none, and a ‘visual
archivist’ being listed in place of a cameraman.
The scene-by-scene breakdown: guy being decapitated (the decapitated head then
introduces the segments…and yet the same guy–Casey himself–mysteriously also
appears in quite a few of the segments as well), removal of the brain, bovine/fowl
abattoir, monkey surgery, guy slitting his wrists, guy shot in the head in a
drive-by, chick being tortured with an iron and cigarettes before having her wrists
slit, stomach surgery, easy ways to die: guns – drugs – war, cadaver examination,
‘interview with a ‘victim of satanic ritual’, ‘satanic crimes’, ‘satanic
necrophiliac incest’, ‘death of a satanic hooker’, ‘interview with a satanist’,
‘necromancy: the art of talking to the dead’ ritual.
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