ReGOREgitated Sacrifice

Ever heard of the Vomit Gore trilogy? It's a series of extreme films directed by Lucifer Valentine (a birth name, I'm sure) about an anorexic runaway who turns to drugs and eventually commits suicide. That pithy plot summary covers the entire trilogy. The narrative is as far from linear as you can be without tossing up a blank screen for 90 minutes. Speaking of "tossing up," Valentine's gimmick is that his actors puke on camera. He thinks that he has created a new subgenre called vomit gore, and no, I'm not kidding.

These are some of the most disgusting films that you can find, so why did I want to watch one of them? Morbid curiosity. But I'm not curious enough to sit through all three films. I chose to review the one with the worst reputation, if only to see if it's as shocking as people say it is. In truth, it's no worse than A Serbian Film or August Underground: Mordum. It's certainly objectionable, but it's nothing that your average gorehound can't handle. The excessive retching did make me a bit queasy. Hey, I didn't bat an eyelash during the 4-hour ordeal that was Philosophy of a Knife, so I'll be holding onto my hardcore credentials, thank you very much.

ReGOREgitated Sacrifice is 66 minutes (there is no doubt in my mind that Valentine would stretch it out to 666 minutes if he could) of sex, violence and vomiting. Aside from the obvious, is there any reason to view this flick? It seems to have a fanbase, but I'm saying no. It's vacuous, pretentious and a little too ambitious for its own good. You'll never be able to follow the visual metaphors. Valentine caches his "message" in senseless bloodletting and abstract dialogue. This is basically performance art masquerading as a splatter film. According to a making-of documentary on the DVD, ReGOREgitated Sacrifice deals with the death of Kurt Cobain. Really? Really???

In my opinion, Lucifer Valentine is a twat (read one of his interviews). For what it's worth, I dug Ameara LaVey's performance as the sickly Angela. She injected her scenes with genuine emotion. I never thought that I would say this, but ReGOREgitated Sacrifice might have benefited from a more conventional story structure. As it stands, convincing special effects were wasted on an aimless, self-indulgent fluff piece. I'll pass on the other two "vomit gore" pictures. In case you're wondering, their titles are Slaughtered Vomit Dolls and Slow Torture Puke Chamber. You can't accuse Mr. Valentine of false advertising, now can you?