In Dard Divorce, Olaf Ittenbach's stab at 'torture porn', the director once again casts his pretty wife Martina in the lead role, despite the fact that she isn't a particularly good actress and her thick German accent often makes her difficult to understand. Not that his nepotism matters too much: she isn't the real star of the film anyway-the gore is! And with more graphic nastiness than all of the Hostels and Saws put together, this is one film that gore-hounds should find entertaining irrespective of how awful the acting is.
Martina plays Nathalie Stein, an alcoholic mother in the middle of divorce proceedings whose husband suddenly goes missing, along with both of her kids, and a couple of briefcases full of cash and cocaine that belong to some very sadistic and unforgiving gangsters. Believing that Nathalie knows more about her husband's whereabouts than she is letting on, the bad guys proceed to torture her in a variety of nasty ways...
Of the five Ittenbach movies that I have seen thus far (the other four being Chain Reaction, Premutos, Beyond the Limits, and The Burning Moon), Dard Divorce is easily the most gruesome. It takes a good twenty minutes or so for the bloodletting to begin, but hang on in there and you'll be treated to some of the most repugnant scenes of violence that I have ever seen. The brutality starts with Nathalie being repeatedly punched in the face, and gradually escalates in ferocity and explicitness. By the time the credits roll, viewers will have witnessed numerous gory stabbings and shootings, a child being sawn in half, eyeball removal, crushed heads, disembowellments, hammer attacks, and much, much more revolting stuff than this addled brain of mine can recall at the moment.
No matter how hard I try to forget, however, one scene refuses to budge from my memory: the truly horrific moment when one of the bad guys gets buck nekkid in order to dismember a corpse in a bath-tub. As if seeing a dead body being mutilated in unflinching detail wasn't stomach churning enough, we have to put up with frequent shots of the sicko's butt and tallywhacker in the process. Yuck! With this movie, Olaf Ittenbach has once again proved beyond doubt that he know what he's doing when it comes to creating impressive gore set-pieces, but that he needs to polish up his writing and direction skills. Oh, and as others have noted, he should also hire someone who knows how to mix sound.
I wouldn't particularly recommend Dard Divorce to your casual horror fan-technically the film is quite poor- but those who love their splatter should have a whale of a time.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
Martina plays Nathalie Stein, an alcoholic mother in the middle of divorce proceedings whose husband suddenly goes missing, along with both of her kids, and a couple of briefcases full of cash and cocaine that belong to some very sadistic and unforgiving gangsters. Believing that Nathalie knows more about her husband's whereabouts than she is letting on, the bad guys proceed to torture her in a variety of nasty ways...
Of the five Ittenbach movies that I have seen thus far (the other four being Chain Reaction, Premutos, Beyond the Limits, and The Burning Moon), Dard Divorce is easily the most gruesome. It takes a good twenty minutes or so for the bloodletting to begin, but hang on in there and you'll be treated to some of the most repugnant scenes of violence that I have ever seen. The brutality starts with Nathalie being repeatedly punched in the face, and gradually escalates in ferocity and explicitness. By the time the credits roll, viewers will have witnessed numerous gory stabbings and shootings, a child being sawn in half, eyeball removal, crushed heads, disembowellments, hammer attacks, and much, much more revolting stuff than this addled brain of mine can recall at the moment.
No matter how hard I try to forget, however, one scene refuses to budge from my memory: the truly horrific moment when one of the bad guys gets buck nekkid in order to dismember a corpse in a bath-tub. As if seeing a dead body being mutilated in unflinching detail wasn't stomach churning enough, we have to put up with frequent shots of the sicko's butt and tallywhacker in the process. Yuck! With this movie, Olaf Ittenbach has once again proved beyond doubt that he know what he's doing when it comes to creating impressive gore set-pieces, but that he needs to polish up his writing and direction skills. Oh, and as others have noted, he should also hire someone who knows how to mix sound.
I wouldn't particularly recommend Dard Divorce to your casual horror fan-technically the film is quite poor- but those who love their splatter should have a whale of a time.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.