Really impressed with Wake of Death. Amazing how a straight to video Van Damme movie can still be better than most of the crap in theatres today. The torture scene has to be one of the most brutal ever. Sin City and Resevoir Dogs comes to mind, but the drill scene seems to blow those away.
shareYepp... when i saw the tortue scene i was just thinking: Man i would talk so fast, if i am bound to a chair... they would not even have to show me their tools... I am weak *g*
But the movie has it's drawbacks. I gave it a 7 though, a bonuspoint for Van Damme, and a nice try at a Film. Earned a 6 in my opinion.
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I saw this and then a little while later people where talking about the scene in hostel and having seen this I think that this is so much worse. Just a pity it will never be seen by as many people and eli roth will be talked about for pushing things.
shareIsn't the drill-torture scene in this film basically *ALL* "off-screen?"
Not if you see it uncut
There are just some short scenes, where you can see the drill enter the body, but you can see it...
Let me hear you make decisions, without your television
The torture scene made me really cringe, truly horrible
I think the acting and everything makes up for it and the lighting. Really good, adds a lot to the film.
share"The torture scene made me really cringe, truly horrible"
Being of half Sicilian descent I felt I could relate strongly to it. I think rather than drill him through the eye at the end, it would have been much better to have drilled through the top of the spine. Then he would become paralysed and suffocate to death. You could even start at the base of the spine and work your way up one vertebra at a time. Another thought would be to use a circle cutter which is a small cylindrical saw attachment with a drill bit at it's centre. You could drill that through the side of the skull and destroy his brain while he could still feel it. Interesting stuff the old drill torture.
I think it is one of the most brutal I've seen. But then again, I don't choose to watch any of the recent "torture porn" horror flicks. Up until I'd seen Wake of Death, the most brutal torture scene I'd seen in an action flick was from mid-eighties Charles Bronson vehicle The Evil That Men Do, which starts off with a guy having his genitals electrocuted. But that one was over fairly quickly and actually had a lot to do with the story and theme--the one in WoD just goes on and on, and on and seems kind of pointless. And even though it's not graphic in the sense that we don't see the drill rending flesh, the torturee's screams of pain and the way the torturer's scream with taunting glee is just freaking brutal to take.
So, it's "effective" in a way, I guess--but only effective in the same way that filming the gutting of a live kitten would be. The way the filmmaker's wallow in degradation in that sequence turned me off to the film as a whole. I just can't feel good about watching it. Which is sad, because Van Damme is good in it.
Story-wise, it would have been just as effective to hear the first scream and then cut to the next scene. The way it is, though, is like pornography and it makes me feel really freaking dirty and bad to watch it. Makes me sick.
^ I feel the same way im afraid!
other than that its a good film!