job? Does he get benefits? Does he go home to a wife and complain about how his shoulders ache from slinging limbs into a furnace all day? Is he in a bowling league on weekends? Of course you haven’t wondered these things. That


Y


nameless ogre lurking in the abattoir is a cartoon repre- sentation, like the film’s gun-toting thugs in black leather


jackets; the ruthless, lying prostitutes in fur-trimmed coats; and the grubby gang of preteen street urchins robbing tourists. These aren’t people so much as they are all thorns in Hostel’s treacherous Eastern European landscape, just waiting to snag and cut foreigners. They are presented as “The Other,” a dangerous ethnic group lurking in abandoned factories in out-of-the-way towns across the ocean somewhere, meant to be feared by the American protagonists who dare set foot in their domain. Whether it’s Eli Roth’s Slovakians, Russian ultra-nationalists in a Tom Clancy video game or the gangsters


with vaguely Balkan accents and military haircuts that show up regularly in TV crime dramas, North American media has created a familiar version of Eastern Europeans as the threatening Other. This notion of The Other – a concept that goes back to the writings of 18th-century German philosopher Georg


Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – is also commonly understood as helping to define “The Self.” So, in Hostel, for example, all that nastiness that those Eastern European stereotypes represent helps define the American protagonist – a clean-cut hero who values life enough that he’ll help rescue a stranger from the dungeon – by virtue that he is the opposite of them. There is a very clear moral distinction between us and them, Self and Other (a notion that gets turned on its ear in Hostel II with the focus on the American torture tourists). Things are more complicated in A Serbian Film. Milos, the porn star protagonist, is never threatened by for-


eigners, but rather by other Serbs. Then we learn that a member of his own family is in on hismisery. But, worst of all, through drug-induced coercion, he ends up being the one responsible for the most heinous damage. There is no abstract representation of evil, the gap between The Other and The Self is obliterated during a taboo- smashing assault of pornography, torture, rape, murder, pedo- and necrophilia. This isn’t Jekyll & Hyde or a werewolf story where the protagonist becomes The Other via supernatural means


and isn’t responsible for his crimes. Though a bit comically over-the-top at times, the story here is presented as a reality that Milos must come to terms with and take responsibility for in the end. The trailer for Hostel proclaims, “There is a place where all your sickest fantasies are possible.” The trailer for A Serbian Filmmight as well say, “This is a place where your sickest nightmares are reality.” Beyond this, the torment of realizing that there is no division between hero and monster is one thing, but to


have such a caustic story told as a very intentional metaphor for real-world atrocities – war crimes both com- mitted by and against Serbia – results in something more dangerous. (Suddenly that dungeon master in Hostel seems like Fred Flintstone with a butcher knife.) If this issue of Rue Morgue is any indication, the horror genre itself is becoming dangerous again. We’ve re-


ceived angry letters about the violence in the I Spit on Your Grave remake; there’s a column about vampire novels being challenged for their content; the Gore-met writes about a makeup/effects artist going on trial for the gory serial killer art on his website; our film festival coverage includes the Korean serial killer movie I Saw the Devil, which was heavily censored in its own country; and the slasher movie Hatchet II (reviewed on p.38) was pulled from theatres after being released unrated (though I’ve read that this is due to its poor box office performance rather than its bloody content). But none of those works force us into the position that we’re placed in by A Serbian Film. I can’t imagine what


the experience of watching it is like from a Serbian standpoint (which is why we asked a Serbian to write the cover story). But, through the journey of Milos, even an outsider to the culture can feel a genuine pain and anger here, as the film forces us to contemplate real-life horrors from a new, unfamiliar perspective. We become the dungeon master, cramming our own arm into the meat grinder and turning the crank with a harrowing force.


ou know the dungeon master character in Hostel – that hulking brute in a butcher’s apron with the hunched back who disposes of bodies in the filthy bowels of the torture dungeon? Yeah, him. Ever wonder what his life is like? Did he apply for that


STAFF


Publisher Rodrigo Gudiño


Managing editor Monica S. Kuebler


art director Gary Pullin


office Manager Jessa Sobczuk


Marketing/advertising Manager


Jody Infurnari PH: 905-985-0430 FX: 905-985-4195 E: jody@rue-morgue.com


editor-in-chief dave alexander


associate editor trevor tuminski


graPhic designer Justin Erickson


coPy editor Liisa ladouceur


financial controller Marco Pecota


intern andrew sutherland


CONTRIBUTORS


BRAD ABRAHAM STUART F. ANDREWS A.S. BERMAN JOHN W. BOWEN TODD BROWN JAMES BURRELL PEDRO CABEZUELO PAUL CORUPE DANI FILTH HANNAH GARCES-SLOANE THE GORE-MET BRYAN HARTZHEIM MARK R. HASAN ALYX KENDLE


LAST CHANCE LANCE ANDREW LEE AARON VON LUPTON TOM MES DEJAN OGNJANOVIC GEORGE PACHECO JESS PEACOCK SEAN PLUMMER STACIE PONDER JAMES ROSE BRIAN J. SHOWERS APRIL SNELLINGS ERIC VEILLETTE


RUE MORGUE #106 would not have been possible without the valuable assistance of Mitch Davis, Mladen Djordjevic, Colin Geddes, Mary-Beth Hollyer, Miroslav Lakobrija, Al McMullan, Nikola Pantelic from Contra Film and the Sharktopus.


This issue of Rue Morgue is dedicated to Kevin McCarthy. R.I.P.


Cover: A serbiAn film Design by Justin Erickson.


Rue Morgue Magazine is published monthly (with the exception of Febru- ary) and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photos, art or other materials. Freelance submissions accompanied by S.A.S.E. will be seriously considered and, if necessary, returned.


We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the Canada Magazine Fund, toward our editorial costs. RUE MORGUE Magazine #106 ISSN 1481 – 1103 Agreement No. 40033764 Entire contents copyright MARRS MEDIA INC. 2010. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN CANADA.


dave@rue-morgue.com RM6


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