GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR

The film begins with the disclaimer: "This documentary is about a website that engaged in the commercialisation of bondage and sado-masochistic imagery and performances. It in no way represents bondage and sado-masochism as practiced by many adults in their private lives".

Then we see the opening page of the site in question, the now defunct Insex.com, where their own disclaimer - warning that their site contained "graphic sexual horror" - provides the title for this troubling but engrossing expose.

Over silent images of a bizarre Super-8 torture-short shot in 1980 and entitled "Worm", Insex's creator Brent Scott (referred to by the site's models as PD) explains how unexpected attention into his early home movies from the cops made him realise that what he was doing was so much more than mere porn.

Then we meet the man himself. He explains how his experiences as a soldier during the Vietnam war fashioned his liking for violent kinkiness. From there, a few more of his home movies help out visually while he tells us via narration how he progressed to making videos in his attic in the early 1990s where he would bind and gag women before stimulating them to orgasm (being a married man, he kept his cock in his pants - that would've constituted cheating ...).

Inevitably, all of this led to Brent developing Insex in the late 1990s. As he says, the take-up for membership at a cost of $60 a month was very quick indeed - "It was as if people had been waiting for something like this".

Then we meet a handful of the girls who worked as models on the site in its last couple of years (it was shut down by the Department of Home Security, who claimed violent pornography was being peddled online to fund terrorism [!]).

As you can probably imagine, the girls concerned all have a fairly alternative look. None of your girl-next-door types here! For the most part, the girls seem intelligent, erudite and healthy - no evidence of drug dependency (although older model 101 seems somewhat troubled to this day). These aren't dumb women - and most of them actually applied to appear on the site. Am I the only one at this point who's thinking that this has shades of VIDEODROME ...?

It's a fascinating story that's being told: a bondage site that offered violent scenarios where willing women would be subjected to sado-masochistic practices while members dictated, online, what happened next.

What's impressive about co-directors Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon's film is that it never judges what's being shown or said onscreen. It's a wholly objective account of a worrying but undeniably fascinating subject matter. I expected to be appalled by what I saw, angered perhaps. But there is a theatricality and professionalism to what is being presented in the Insex clips that Bell and Lorentzon record, that at least validates the fact that these girls are not being seriously harmed for the most part - this is a performance. At least, not against their will - which is a feeble argument, but crucial to the message that comes through here.

Of course, it's still uncomfortable viewing. In-between the many enlightening interviews with members, fans, rivals, models and Brent himself, we get to see some truly disturbing clips from the site's vaults: one girl freaks out when placed in a cage and lowered into water; whippings result in genuine welts and squeals; another clip shows how one girl almost dies in a pressurised water chamber that wasn't as safe as its makers had claimed ...

The film is filled with full-frontal female nudity and a fair bit of exposed labia too (a little of which is optically blurred, presumably because of the source of the documentary's footage), but there is no hardcore porn - no actual sex. What you do get though are plenty of short, shocking scenes of women sobbing, looking genuinely hurt or fearful at times. Interspersed between this cringe-inducing footage are some marvellous interviews that between them help to question not only the notoriety that inevitably attaches itself to a site like Insex, but also the very notions of pornography, censorship and the responsibility given to adults to decide what they will consent to. Not only as a performer, but as a member - or indeed, even as a viewer of this documentary.

Synapse's disc is, as is par for the course with their output, excellent.

The film itself is presented uncut and uncensored in a highly attractive 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and has been enhanced for 16x9 TV sets. The picture quality is great, offering extremely sharp images and strong colours even when upscaled. Blacks are strong, depth is keen and the whole thing is as perfect as you'd imagine such a modern production to be - especially when given the Don May Jr treatment.

English 2.0 audio is fine throughout. Dialogue is consistently clear and there are no unwelcome noises on the soundtrack. Some of the screams are jarring in their sudden loudness, but that just adds to the overall edginess that you're certain to be feeling during playback.

An animated main menu opens to gentle strains of opera, while a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with four deleted scenes, totalling roughly 10 minutes. These include alternative openings and endings, plus one girl's unexpected reaction to the fulfilment of her "foot torture" fantasy, and the introduction of pretty young '62' to the fold.

"More from the models" proffers seven further short conversations with the girls of Insex, which I assume could be called outtakes. The gist of these clips is that these girls, as witnessed in the main feature, are not stupid: they're exploiting the situation just as much as anyone else is.

The original theatrical trailer is 87 seconds long. It starts off innocuously but soon builds towards some shocking, albeit brief, tasters of what lies ahead.

An eight-minute interview with Bell rounds off the extra features. She sits in a pretty-looking environment, sounding almost disappointed when she stresses that she was pleased people didn't hate the film. She also points out one particularly awkward moment during shooting where PD got miffed with a model who didn't want to go through with something - a clip (also in the film) is provided to illustrate the distasteful moment - but equates this to any profession where your boss asks you to do something you'd rather not, and then tempts you to do it with the promise of more money. She makes a valid point, I suppose.

Inside the DVD's keepcase you'll find an inlay card with a clearer photograph of the girl on the cover (it transpires that grimace is there because she's having her nipple pulled) and a nice comic-style write-up on the history of Insex by Rick Trembles.

Brent believes that certain scenarios involving intense pain can cause a state of euphoria in women, which leads to orgasm. "That's the money shot" claims Brent. At this point in the film, we're shown a clip of one girl who's had pins forced through her nipples and hot pepper cream poured over her very sore-looking vagina. She screams so much that the police call into the huge building being used at the time.

I'm not so sure that I can subscribe to Brent's view. Although it does sound uncannily like the premise behind MARTYRS - which, of course, is fictional.

Regardless, GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR is an excellent, intelligent and well-rounded documentary on an insane subject matter. There is also no doubt that Insex was a dubious, fucked up site (I'd never heard of it) where ugly middle-aged men got to hurt women. True, the women apparently got paid up to $4,000.00 for each appearance - but, even so, it all seems too disconcerting to accept for me.

I'm not judging the site, sites like it, or their members. Neither are Bell or Lorentzon. They've let the participants speak for themselves: they are open, candid. As a result, it's impossible to warm to Brent - but equally difficult to feel for the girls who will endure his abuse just to get a paycheck. One case in point: one girl tells of how she involuntarily took a baton up her anus, saying "I feel like I was raped" ... but then reasons that she couldn't have been, because - despite sobbing at the time - she kept herself from saying the 'safety word'. Fucking hell.

GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR will stay with you after watching it. It's a powerful, award-winning documentary and comes gingerly recommended, for those who think they can survive it. Synapse's disc is region-free and definitive.

Review by Stu Willis