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When I first heard that Salo had been passed uncut in the UK I was like "Oh Wow!" this was shortly followed by the realisation that I never had a clue about any aspect of it. What I knew was that it was one of those films that old men seemed fascinated with. I also knew it was banned but I never knew what it was about.
The film is based on the novel Salo by the Marquis De Sade; any of you familiar with this sick little monkeys work is already aware that we are slipping down a very mucky slope. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini decided to bring the novel a little more up to date by transporting it to Italy during the Second World War.

A group of high ranking officers visit a small town; they take 18 promising youngsters and whisk them away to a fortress in the hills; they are told an experience like no other, and it's an experience indeed. Once getting them into the fortress they are stripped and humiliated; forced into engaging in a staged wedding in which excrement is the main course. Then raped, abused, castrated, murdered, the list goes on.

This may strike you as being incredibly lazy writing for me; but I find it difficult to address a pointless issue. There is no redeeming issue with Salo, there is no point to the piece; no lessons to be learned. It's not a work of art; it's not a piece of creative writing. What Salo is, is a disgusting totally abhorrent piece of film making filth that would sicken the most ardent horror enthusiast to the pit of their stomachs. I once read a review in which the reviewer expressed the need to masturbate during viewing; many of us find things strangely arousing during films; but to express this desire for this film in my mind makes the reviewer a mentally disturbed person.

Each cringeworthy moment on screen during this monstrously dysfunctional piece is played out to extreme detail; where as a normal movie might veer off onto the next scene they will show you a man having red hot wire forced into his penis. You must also bare in mind this tortured group of souls are still children.There is no need to show you the detail this movie does, it serves no purpose and in my honest view Pasolini simply wanted to go down in the history books for something; and he knew full well this would be the movie.

One interesting thing to point out about this movie is that it was immediately banned in Italy and Pasolini soon after was bludgeoned to death before being reversed over in a car several times; apparently for making a lewd homosexual advance to a young man. Many believe however that this was somehow related to the project as in court it transpired that his assailant had been unnerved by the movie.

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