Salò

Four degenerate and very powerful officials in Fascist Italy abduct a handful of teenage boys and girls, holding them prisoner in a remote castle, and subjecting them to all forms of unspeakable abuse, from rape to torture to forced scatological consumption before taking the final, odious step. Nauseating, despicable, and shocking even by today's standards, Pier Paolo Pasolini's notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom is also dull and boorish although its biggest impropriety may be the fact that the filmmaker believed he was creating a scathing indictment on fascism, corruption, and depravity, a flawed notion that many of the film's champions have adopted. Thanks to its deserved nefarious reputation and content, Salo has the car crash affect where feel you have to look and, after doing so, you find yourself unable to avert your eyes. In hindsight, I wish I would have trusted my initial instincts and avoided this exploitative refuse. zero stars out of ****