Reviewed by: Root Rot
Shock of the Century (2003)
Directed by: Ryan Cavalline
If you’ve ever wanted to know what it looks like when someone is shot in the mouth with an assault rifle then Shock of the Century is your flick!
Plot… Well there isn’t a plot unless you consider gruesome news footage, autopsy teaching films, and a fake as fuck alien autopsy a plot…then there ya go..
Overview…
Pitched as a mondo film Shock of the Century relies on horrific stock news footage to sell the film and less on creativity. Granted some of the footage made me cringe, but I lost interest quickly. Watching the footage of a Lebanese man convicted of car bombing then executed by a firing line was shocking…But it shouldn’t be because he deserved it… Right? If he did or didn’t is a moot point and the fact still remains footage of other people’s misfortunes isn’t a movie.
One may argue that Shock of the Century is the same as Face of Death or any other film that exploits real death scenes. That would be true to some degree, yet most of the footage in Faces of Death was staged making it a true mondo film.
So my question is, why would someone buy a copy of Shock of the Century? I guess the distributor relied on people’s desire to see horrible shit. After all we (me included) sneek a peek at the aftermath of a car accident….Don’t we?
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Well i have to agree man,if you spend time on sites such as live leak and get a ripper it’s easy as hell to put one of these types of things these days,maybe not so easy in 2003,But like i said and i have done it with live leak,watched chinese suicide jumpers,motorcycle accident aftermaths,arms chopped off and broken for stealing or rape,now i like my arms and i have never stole or raped so those guys do deserve it in my eyes,i do have a weird thing though when it comes to faces beng blow off,freaks me out,a recent clip i saw was of a thai police officer that had been ripped literally in half by a truck,he his laying next to his dismembered legs and holding his guts with no emotion or sound all around him are people with camera phones,its sick,it lasts more than 5 long fucking minutes,i lasted about 2 and a half before turning it off and wondering why the fuck these people didn’t just cover the poor guy up,strange strange world of voyueristic curiosity we live in and we always have i guess way back to public exexutions and burning of the witches,i am as guilty as the next internet guy when it comes to gory clips,So i guess today our burning pyers are just a click away.
Jonny T.