FETUS (2008 dir Brian Paulin)

Morbid Vision Films DVD

In the recent wave of extreme underground horror movies from all over the world, including THE GATEWAY MEAT (2007), PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE (2008) and AMICUS MORTIS (2007), comes Brian Paulin and Morbid Vision Films' answer to the extreme Asian gore flicks and cyberpunk films (like the GUINEA PIG series and the films of Shozin Fukui) of the '80s and '90s. In this case, both genres are combined to give us one of the sickest, goriest, most bizarre, and wicked underground efforts to come along as of recently. Brian Paulin and Morbid Vision, known for indie horror classics like AT DAWN THEY SLEEP (2000), DEAD GIRL ON FILM (2001), and the zombie gorefest BONE SICKNESS (2004), bring us their craziest effort yet with FETUS.

Paulin stars as a man whose wife died while giving birth to their first baby who also died in the process as the result of a botched C-section. Stricken with grief and not knowing what else he can do, he decides bringing his wife and child back is the most important thing in his life. After going into a goth dude's store to buy a book on rituals and contacting the dead, he proceeds to use what he learns in the book as a way to get back at the doctors who were responsible for the death of his wife and his newborn and contact his loved ones through the spirit world. A series of extremely sick, incredibly gory and brutal murders and tortures follow involving decapitations, heads mashed into bloody pulps with hammers, teeth pried out with hammer claws, flesh ripped off of arms, faces peeled off, disembowelments, and a dude who pukes his guts out via a black magic ritual causing his face to burst apart before having his head flattened with a cinderblock.

Also thrown in is a little necrophilia that causes some vomiting and skin to peel off a penis, a girl ripping severed baby heads out of her vagina in a bathtub with a knife and eating them, a fetus's head sawn off with a butcher knife, and more. All this leading up to Paulin's creation of a thing called "The Infant Device" which allows him to tap into the spirit world and see his loved ones. The device is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in a movie as severed fetus heads and a stereo system are used to put it together. This leads to one totally messed up finale involving a disfigured, bloody puppet covered in guts and the birthing of a weird PREDATOR-looking half-man/half-serpent creature. All I'll say is that it's something you need to see to believe.

FETUS is definitely one of Brian Paulin and Morbid Vision's best efforts. While BONE SICKNESS is probably my favorite, this one is a close second. The make-up effects (which Brian handled) are excellent, the music and sound effects are very cool and have a very gothic ring to them, and the movie throws in references to classic German gore flicks with posters for Jorg Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK (1987) and DER TODESKING (1989) seen hanging up in a store. Besides having an Asian gore and cyberpunk vibe, the movie definitely has a German gore film vibe as well. It's got to be one of the goriest movies I've seen since DEAD ALIVE (aka BRAINDEAD - 1992). It was nice to see Brian thank some horror effects maestros, various fellow indie filmmakers, distributors, and horror publication writers in the end credits like Tom Savini, Greg Nicotero, Fred Vogel and Toe Tag Pictures, Ron DeCaro, Stephen Biro and Unearthed Films, Chris Mayo of Severed Cinema, Ryan Nicholson, etc. Overall, FETUS is a must for gore fans and fans of German splatter films and extreme Asian movies.

Morbid Vision's DVD of FETUS presents the movie full screen in Dolby 2.0 stereo and the extras include a commentary with Brian Paulin and associate producer Rich George, a cool behind-the-scenes documentary containing make-up effects footage and outtakes that runs about 42 minutes and a 5 minute second part to the documentary called "Inside the Infant Device" where Brian discusses how the device was created. Also featured are a Morbid Vision web link and a short (approximately 8 minutes) featurette entitled "The Future of Morbid Vision" where Brian discusses his past experiences with distributors on his other movies and what Morbid Vision's plans are for future movies and upcoming DVD releases. Also included in this featurette is a sneak peak at Morbid Vision's new gorefest BLOODPIGS which comes out in 2009. A very nice package overall.

I must note that while Brian was filming FETUS, they actually had some equipment stolen, which delayed the movie by a few months causing them to lose some footage and forcing them to re-shoot some material and add new footage. Brian acknowledges this in the end credits where the people who stole the equipment are referred to as "subhuman feces." I thought that was pretty funny.

Show Brian and Morbid Vision your support and visit them online to get your copy of FETUS. Be sure to check out BONE SICKNESS as well.