bp Smith
When the narrator/director of the film begins with praising a neighborhood peeping tom for "getting away with it" you can pretty much guess what this is all about. Ostensibly an attempt to uncover the world of proto-snuff and other depraved 'underground film making', it becomes a numbing vehicle for it- tarting itself up with intellectual deconstructions and interviews with the participants of these movies and and ultimately revealing itself as another sad exercise of the... form.Bitter, sociopathic white males acting out their inner rage by staging graphically detailed depictions of the murder of one woman after another may be a lot of things, but one thing it will never be is *art*. Gaspar Noe's movies are better-produced versions of the same thing, and just as unworthy of your time. Proceed accordingly.2 Stars for genre fans' ability to harvest anecdotes/background information on these movies and that's about it.
Illyngophobia
I first saw this a year or so ago while browsing the Movie/Free Movie section of Comcast's On Demand. Scrolling through the pages of films, I saw Fred Vogel's name appear in the cast listing and became fascinated quickly. I took a look at the trailer of the strangely titled feature and was engulfed with curiosity. The film had a look of a documentary with directors and actors in films from horror's "underground scene".While we meet different celebs talking about movies like "Peeping Tom", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Henry" to name a few, we meet with a fellow behind a line of videos called S&Man, a voyeur and stalker who films people.I enjoyed this as a filmmaker who would casually look for grand terrors in said "underground scene". I would recommend for anyone who has an interest in film, horror movies and the weird.
scoup
I'm surprised there are not more reviews also. Movie kept my attention and was informative; creepy at times and funny. It's not a masterpiece but I liked it better than "Perfect Host" which bored me at times. If you paid attention, you can see where the ending is going but it is done well and actually scarier than some the the high budget movies being produced.I never knew about the "Chiller" Festival - certainly opens your eyes to different strokes for different folks...Horror movies are such large part of society. There are so many TV shows and police dramas focusing on killing and we are obsessed with it. S&Man delves into the psychology of this, but I do think there was much more they could have discovered or analyzed.
god_of_wine007
A tricky film examining the underground horror film scene, this "documentary" examines the lines between reality and fantasy, the voyeurism of horror and the desensitizing of modern culture. With modern special effects and camera trickery, how do we determine what is really real? In a world where gore and horror films show us the most gruesome deaths, does this cause us to see a real death as looking fake? Could we identify it, or would we pass it off as fake? And with low-budget horror striving for reality, where does the line get drawn? The film interviews horror experts, "scream queens" and several filmmakers, including Eric Rost, creator of voyeuristic stalker/killer films called the "S&Man" series. In this shocking documentary from JT Petty, we delve into these issues with real life examples, but when the documentary makers begin to probe the maker of the S&MAN series deeper, a shocking conclusion will cause you to ask: Did that just really happen?A really great movie and sure to be a cult hit, S&Man (had its Canadian) premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.
AD
