TOUGH
TOUGH
“…20 minutes of “fuck you” piss taking fucked up shit very relevant to the trends of today’s horror industry and its bullshit accolades…”
“…Disturbingly satirical with images that will disgust many “hardened viewers…”
The year is 2011 – and Downunder Australia’s Bernie n’ Butch Von Claude (The Von Claude Brother’s) decided to make a statement against the ever popular trend of violence depicted in the Indie Film Industry. Images of violence and snuff, found footage and torture porn.
You can hear Bernie and Butch screaming at you that its been done to death, for fans to wake up and really see what TOUGH is…
Not an “image” or a “trend”…
That’s for sure.
“Play it if you Dare”. The menu states…
Inviting, ironic…you know damn well you have to push “play”…time to harden up.
“The Dude” lives in a dishevelled garage – brick walls, concrete floor, plastic covered entrance way. Dirty. Dishevelled and yet images of grandeur as his Champion Body Builder framed picture adorns his prized collections of dead animals and pornographic pictures.
He defecates in full “ass cam” glory and pisses in a bucket in the corner of his room….
How times have changed and yet with his 70’s afro wig, “hard as” skull rings and “Tuff” tattoo adorning his fingers as he watches such movies as “Australia Animal Orgy, Faecal Fuckers with screen images of pushing “things” into vagina’s that simply don’t belong, whilst dancing to “Violence”….
This guy must be “Tough”??…
Even when the effects of too many steroids are fully known…balding, minute penis…
And no girlfriend – “Fuck you, I hope you find Hell you cunt”….
Yet he still manages to…
Cum.
Watch him try to relive his past as he drinks and smokes (the Director wanting us to go back in time to when “horror” was real), with pathetic results as the butt ends accumulate, the “reps” lacking, the weights decreased….
yet the homage to De Niro in the mirror was well relived.
Now that was Tough.
More is less and yet we are shown so much as mocking irony and statements abound.
Violence of a very different kind…a real kind…a champions demise…real life of decay of the mind and body and depression in all its ugly forms….
Feeble grasps at normality.
A loaded gun to the mouth, to the head and it could all be over…
Just like that.
But then the true irony is shown…
And that’s a real truth…
That TOUGH can sometimes be far less than what it depicts on the outside….
It’s what’s inside that really counts.
Time to get back to reality, forget the trends, shake off the accolades…
Let’s get to what is real…
Let’s get TOUGH.
It was difficult to comprehend that I managed to do that in under 20 minutes.
Are you Tough just because you watch it, eat it, feel it…
Shit it?
“Play if you Dare….”
The statement is there in black and white as a hint…
“Fuck Your Festivals…This is the most disturbing Film in Australia’s History…Because we say it is!”
Self-belief…tough in itself and I happen to agree.
I know the Brothers were particular as to who saw this entry to review. They need the word spread honestly with eyes open, subtleties exposed for its full worth. I feel privileged to have been offered the opportunity and hope I have done the movie and them justice….
And that the trend has been “bucked”…
“He had it all,,…& he lost it all”
“Scratchy” Pete
Feb 2014
