13 reviews
better than part 1
So much is said about the All Night Long trilogy that I started searching them. I found the trilogy at a sell out at a video library, just payed 6 euro's for it. Was I lucky. After watching part one 1 I wasn't really into the movie, it let me down for some parts. But was I happy that I kept watching and plugged part 2 into the player. This one is so much better. Again, not a typical J-horror. This time it's a gang of gays that go for rape and murder. And this time it really happens on screen. It's all about gore and sexual depravity. A girl is kept captive just for pleasure and is treated like a dog. A bit like the movie Salo. For the easy offended there are homosexual love acts on screen but also a girl being raped full nude by the gang and another must make love to herself in a bath while everybody is watching. But it is the last 15 minutes that the gore comes alive. I've watched the strong uncut version, 76 minutes in stead of the usual 68 minutes. Not for everybody but for the freaks out there.
Extreme animality inside human nature
Japanese documentary film maker turned film director/writer Katsuya Matsumura's All Night Long series is one of the most depressing and darkest explorations on the brutest sides of humanity ever commited on film, with brain too. The first film, All Night Long (1992) was released theatrically in Japan, but this sequel, All Night Long 2: Atrocity (1995) and as far as I know the third one, All Night Long 3: The Final Atrocity (1996) were denied a theatrical release as the films were considered too strong and "unacceptable" and so they were released only on video, amid some heavy resistance. It is easy to see why but still the films are not without a real importance.
A nerdy school boy is spending his summer break from school mostly with his computer and chat friends and also a small girl figure doll he likes to paint and take care of. He is also bullied by a bunch of sadistic slightly elders that are led by a homosexual sadist who starts to interest in the boy and thus starts to seduce him. Naturally the boy doesn't feel the same way and as the leader of the gang is determined to get what he wants, it all leads to some incredible scenes of human degradation and genuinely off-putting violence and acts of abuse.
Like the first film, this is about the animality behind human nature and how seemingly normal and balanced people share the exact same instincts and potential to violence as the "bad already" people, in this case the thugs, do. Violence and instincts for it belong to the human nature. That is a thing that should be fought against as those rotten sides of our nature should be kept passive on the background no matter what happens. But we know how the world is like and how man kills man everyday in the name of some "righteous war or revenge" and so on. It is great how Matsumura has included images of real life terrors and war atrocities in this film making the film so much more universal and larger as it all really is there, not only in the little apartment the film takes place in, but everywhere around us. And extreme films like this are there to explain and ask us why. Why do people want to revenge and cause more violence? If more people would dare to watch films like this and also accept and admit their content and message, maybe some would see the light and change towards a better man, helping the world become a better place.
The film has also some clever small details, like the little hamster the homosexual villain likes to play with (and also kill them, naturally). That small and peaceful little creature is also splattered in blood once the carnage begins, once the humans have turned into worse than animals and peaceful nature. Some would blame the film for its depiction of sexual minorities (gays), but that is not possible as the film also has a normal homosexual male who is not dangerous or sadistic at all, unlike his boyfriend. Another clever detail is the video camera that records something the nerd does, and how it shows the slow turning of his character into something he has not been, straight to his face. And after that, everything indeed turns into hell.
The film is mostly without music which makes the imagery all the more nightmarish and disturbing whereas the first film still got a (rather creepy) music soundtrack in it. The violence once it bursts out (or once the film begins) is so cruel, sadistic and sick it is not necessary to go into details but if Pier Paolo Pasolini's masterful Saló o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975) felt too strong or gratuitous (which it definitely is not) then there's not a chance All Night Long 2: Atrocity would be possible to be sit through. Still Matsumura, like Pasolini, doesn't go into unnecessary details and close ups, camera just witnesses what men do to each other, on mental and physical level, and the both levels are horrible, including sexual degradation, abusion, forced drugs, rape and calculated sadism in the name of revenge.
The film has also a very wry bit of black humor at the end which underlines finally the development of the protagonist boy. He just became that way, and seems to end up like the one in the first part of the series. In my opinion, the massacre that happens at the second part of this film has some things that should have been done differently, like how the boy so fast turns into the devil himself (and turning also against the "innocent") and how one tormented couple is able to make love in the other room, something that fights against what has just been shown! Also, the film would have been even more noteworthy if it had included one pure character that would have left some hope for the light, and this same "error" is present in the third part of the series: the sequels work better if they're imagined to be connected with the first film which had the angel-like character to show how the animals still could and should live together.
All Night Long 2: Atrocity is perhaps the most extreme in the series, being equally disturbing and off-putting with part three, All Night Long 3: The Final Atrocity. The first film is perhaps the "easiest" to watch even though it has one of the most vicious acts of murder ever filmed at the beginning but it also has a slightly larger environment as it includes a high school milieu and other elements of society surrounding us, thus making the film even more believable for those who are not so ready to accept what the sequels so extremely suggest and prove, in their smaller environments, both taking mostly place in one single room or apartment. In my opinion, maybe that's why the first film is the most noteworthy in the series but the other two, especially this first sequel, are as well significant pieces of honest and that's why ugly cinema telling about us, none other than us. 7/10
A nerdy school boy is spending his summer break from school mostly with his computer and chat friends and also a small girl figure doll he likes to paint and take care of. He is also bullied by a bunch of sadistic slightly elders that are led by a homosexual sadist who starts to interest in the boy and thus starts to seduce him. Naturally the boy doesn't feel the same way and as the leader of the gang is determined to get what he wants, it all leads to some incredible scenes of human degradation and genuinely off-putting violence and acts of abuse.
Like the first film, this is about the animality behind human nature and how seemingly normal and balanced people share the exact same instincts and potential to violence as the "bad already" people, in this case the thugs, do. Violence and instincts for it belong to the human nature. That is a thing that should be fought against as those rotten sides of our nature should be kept passive on the background no matter what happens. But we know how the world is like and how man kills man everyday in the name of some "righteous war or revenge" and so on. It is great how Matsumura has included images of real life terrors and war atrocities in this film making the film so much more universal and larger as it all really is there, not only in the little apartment the film takes place in, but everywhere around us. And extreme films like this are there to explain and ask us why. Why do people want to revenge and cause more violence? If more people would dare to watch films like this and also accept and admit their content and message, maybe some would see the light and change towards a better man, helping the world become a better place.
The film has also some clever small details, like the little hamster the homosexual villain likes to play with (and also kill them, naturally). That small and peaceful little creature is also splattered in blood once the carnage begins, once the humans have turned into worse than animals and peaceful nature. Some would blame the film for its depiction of sexual minorities (gays), but that is not possible as the film also has a normal homosexual male who is not dangerous or sadistic at all, unlike his boyfriend. Another clever detail is the video camera that records something the nerd does, and how it shows the slow turning of his character into something he has not been, straight to his face. And after that, everything indeed turns into hell.
The film is mostly without music which makes the imagery all the more nightmarish and disturbing whereas the first film still got a (rather creepy) music soundtrack in it. The violence once it bursts out (or once the film begins) is so cruel, sadistic and sick it is not necessary to go into details but if Pier Paolo Pasolini's masterful Saló o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975) felt too strong or gratuitous (which it definitely is not) then there's not a chance All Night Long 2: Atrocity would be possible to be sit through. Still Matsumura, like Pasolini, doesn't go into unnecessary details and close ups, camera just witnesses what men do to each other, on mental and physical level, and the both levels are horrible, including sexual degradation, abusion, forced drugs, rape and calculated sadism in the name of revenge.
The film has also a very wry bit of black humor at the end which underlines finally the development of the protagonist boy. He just became that way, and seems to end up like the one in the first part of the series. In my opinion, the massacre that happens at the second part of this film has some things that should have been done differently, like how the boy so fast turns into the devil himself (and turning also against the "innocent") and how one tormented couple is able to make love in the other room, something that fights against what has just been shown! Also, the film would have been even more noteworthy if it had included one pure character that would have left some hope for the light, and this same "error" is present in the third part of the series: the sequels work better if they're imagined to be connected with the first film which had the angel-like character to show how the animals still could and should live together.
All Night Long 2: Atrocity is perhaps the most extreme in the series, being equally disturbing and off-putting with part three, All Night Long 3: The Final Atrocity. The first film is perhaps the "easiest" to watch even though it has one of the most vicious acts of murder ever filmed at the beginning but it also has a slightly larger environment as it includes a high school milieu and other elements of society surrounding us, thus making the film even more believable for those who are not so ready to accept what the sequels so extremely suggest and prove, in their smaller environments, both taking mostly place in one single room or apartment. In my opinion, maybe that's why the first film is the most noteworthy in the series but the other two, especially this first sequel, are as well significant pieces of honest and that's why ugly cinema telling about us, none other than us. 7/10
Call me jaded, but I expected more...
Internet nerd Shun'ichi Noda (Masashi Endô) owes a large sum of money to a violent gang of teenage thugs led by a sadistic homosexual with romantic designs on the poor debtor. Shun'ichi sees a possible way out of his awkward predicament when a stranger on an on-line message board offers to help him, but after arranging a real-world meeting he discovers that, along with two other equally gullible suckers, he has been the victim of a practical joke.
All is not lost, however, and Shun'ichi strikes up a friendship with his fellow victims, who listen to his tale of woe and think that they might be able to raise the cash. The guys go back to Shun'ichi's home to chill out, and are later joined by girl-friend Sayaka (Ryôka Yuzuki). Unfortunately for Shun'ichi, his persecutors also turn up, abduct him and his new friends, and subject them all to a sickening ordeal that pushes the poor chap over the edge.
I'd read that All Night Long 2: Atrocity was an even more harrowing viewing experience than its predecessor, but while it's certainly not Disney, being as downbeat and nihilistic as possible in tone, the film is surprisingly short on protracted scenes of explicit nastiness, its atrocities frequently and rather frustratingly left to the imagination, the camera cutting to the aftermath rather than showing the nitty-gritty.
The most notable examples of this are a bedroom assault on pretty Sayaka that makes a mess of the sheets but which leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks, and the torture of one poor character by a knife-wielding sadist that results in loads of nasty wounds, none of which are shown being inflicted. Given the film's reputation as a brutal shocker, and knowing just how far Japanese cinema is willing to go when it comes to gory torture, I have to admit that I found this approach rather disappointing.
Matters improve briefly when the victims start to fight back against their tormentors, the violence becoming a bit more in your face, with some gnarly baseball bat, samurai sword and blowtorch action leaving a room strewn with bodies and drenched with blood; sadly, the film returns to its original, less explicit approach for its finale, in which Shun'ichi, his mind twisted by what he has seen, goes on to kill his friends (and a rodent for good measure) while the camera lingers elsewhere.
Oh well, maybe All Night Long 3 will do the trick...
All is not lost, however, and Shun'ichi strikes up a friendship with his fellow victims, who listen to his tale of woe and think that they might be able to raise the cash. The guys go back to Shun'ichi's home to chill out, and are later joined by girl-friend Sayaka (Ryôka Yuzuki). Unfortunately for Shun'ichi, his persecutors also turn up, abduct him and his new friends, and subject them all to a sickening ordeal that pushes the poor chap over the edge.
I'd read that All Night Long 2: Atrocity was an even more harrowing viewing experience than its predecessor, but while it's certainly not Disney, being as downbeat and nihilistic as possible in tone, the film is surprisingly short on protracted scenes of explicit nastiness, its atrocities frequently and rather frustratingly left to the imagination, the camera cutting to the aftermath rather than showing the nitty-gritty.
The most notable examples of this are a bedroom assault on pretty Sayaka that makes a mess of the sheets but which leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks, and the torture of one poor character by a knife-wielding sadist that results in loads of nasty wounds, none of which are shown being inflicted. Given the film's reputation as a brutal shocker, and knowing just how far Japanese cinema is willing to go when it comes to gory torture, I have to admit that I found this approach rather disappointing.
Matters improve briefly when the victims start to fight back against their tormentors, the violence becoming a bit more in your face, with some gnarly baseball bat, samurai sword and blowtorch action leaving a room strewn with bodies and drenched with blood; sadly, the film returns to its original, less explicit approach for its finale, in which Shun'ichi, his mind twisted by what he has seen, goes on to kill his friends (and a rodent for good measure) while the camera lingers elsewhere.
Oh well, maybe All Night Long 3 will do the trick...
- BA_Harrison
- Jan 31, 2013
- Permalink
A Sadean study of victims and predators
The second part of the ALL NIGHT LONG trilogy is a truly Sadean film. Every character is subjected to appalling humiliation and torture, inflicted for the gratification of the torturers. The only comparable Western picture is SALO O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA. But where Pier Paolo Pasolini's movie is a political allegory, writer-director Katsuya Matsumura focuses on his characters. He's interested in what drives them, why some are predators and others victims, and how certain victims ultimately become predators.
A gang's protection racket victimizes a high-school student with whom the gang leader becomes obsessed. The leader makes every effort to seduce the
student. When his advances are rebuffed, the leader tries to force the student into acts of degradation and violence. The student's friends are also captured and brutalized. The leader's efforts are finally successful: the student becomes every bit as savage as his tormentors.
ALL NIGHT LONG 2 is exceptionally graphic, with explicit and realistic depictions of every outrage, but what makes the movie so disturbing is the believability of the characters. All of the cast delivers powerful and convincing performances, although many of them (like most of the technical crew) didn't allow their real names to be used in the credits.
Certainly not for all audiences, OORU NAITO RONGU 2: SANJI is nonetheless seriously-intentioned, and amongst the most effective studies ever of the darkest recesses of humanity.
A gang's protection racket victimizes a high-school student with whom the gang leader becomes obsessed. The leader makes every effort to seduce the
student. When his advances are rebuffed, the leader tries to force the student into acts of degradation and violence. The student's friends are also captured and brutalized. The leader's efforts are finally successful: the student becomes every bit as savage as his tormentors.
ALL NIGHT LONG 2 is exceptionally graphic, with explicit and realistic depictions of every outrage, but what makes the movie so disturbing is the believability of the characters. All of the cast delivers powerful and convincing performances, although many of them (like most of the technical crew) didn't allow their real names to be used in the credits.
Certainly not for all audiences, OORU NAITO RONGU 2: SANJI is nonetheless seriously-intentioned, and amongst the most effective studies ever of the darkest recesses of humanity.
A TRUE HORROR FILM & A Positive Surprise
I haven't seen any other movies from this series nor from this director. First,I was really positively surprised; The movie is (contrary to my predictions)actually very well made and serious.The story is quite intelligent,the themes and events in the plot are actually very similar to Caspar Noe's "Irreversible"(2002). I think Atrocity is better and deeper of these two. I don't think this film is similar to "Salo" like some other reviewer said; This is more like an moral story, unlike Pasolini/deSade,who both seemed to worship the sadism and sexual "immorality" they portrayed in their work (both also tried to make it their life philosophy). The acting is good overally, although the other bad guys(than the leader of the gang)are real bad(actors); they could be in "Toxic Avenger 2" or something. The effects are really nasty. The movie is hard to watch at some points,but I think it's worth the "suffering". Some reviewers said that this movie gives a pessimistic view of the mankind. I don't totally agree with that; After all,this movie is only about some real sick individuals,and it doesn't show very much other world or the environment where they live.These kind of really sick people surely do exist,fortunately most of us don't have to deal with them in our lives. The main character is "good",although the ending is a lil' bit surprising. This film makes you feel sick, but it also shows/reminds you how sick the world can be in some places, to some people. I don't know much about the Japanese society,but I'm sure these kind of people exist,at least in some biggest&sickest cities or societies in the world.The moral story seems to be (at least till the ending...) similar to stories like "Taxi driver"&"Sin city"; In an evil world, you must "fight evil with evil"... Interesting film, recommended to interested, but not for everybody!
Unsettling material is ruined by tons of goofy leering and "evil" cackling
- S_Craig_Zahler
- Oct 21, 2012
- Permalink
The dark corners of a troubled mind
- gunslinger861
- May 3, 2011
- Permalink
Extremely disturbing and nihilistic film.
Katsuya Matsumura's "All Night Long 2",known also as "Atrocity" is perhaps the most extreme in the series.The film appears to have been shot on video(like the "Guinea Pig" films).The main protagonist of the film is a young Japanese boy called Shinichi,but this time the other main character is an evil,misogynistic and homosexual sadist!The maniac and his gang of sadistic hoodlums have been harassing Shinichi.Shinichi makes some internet friends who he hopes will help him to escape the gang's attentions,but things don't work out quite that way.As in "All Night Long"(1992),the film ends in a sadistically explicit bloodbath!Some reviewers compare "All Night Long 2" to Pasolini's "Salo"(1975)and I think that such comparisons are pretty close and realistic.Still "All Night Long 2" is much more brutal and disturbing than "Salo"-the violence seen in it is extremely graphic and sadistic.The utter degradation of a young Japanese girl is especially hard to stomach.She is tortured,abused and reduced to an animal state.Anyway this film is extremely dark and nihilistic,but if you're a fan of Japanese extreme horror give this one a look.10 out of 10.
- HumanoidOfFlesh
- Aug 3, 2003
- Permalink
The second of the twisted trilogy.
All Night Long 2 (1995) is the second film of the dark and depraved All Night Long trilogy. If you thought the first film was nasty and it couldn't get any sicker, well it has. This time the movie was shot on video giving it an even more feel of realism, it's like watching a snuff film (if those things really existed). Gutter level horror film making at it's best.
A young Japanese student is having a hard time making friends. But he finds one on the internet. But he finds out that the person is not what he seems to be. The poor kid is tormented by the gang of homicidal nut cases and drive him up the wall. Can the kid protect himself and fend of the gang of sadistic sickos or will he fall into the same hole of depravity that the rest of them have fallen into?
Why are these films made? Who knows but if shocking the hell out of the viewers and being as twisted and insane as you want to be is the golden rule then it has succeeded on all levels. The trilogy ends with a film that is so insane I had a hard time finishing it.
Rated X and it shows.
Recommended for fans of the genre. Others need not apply.
A young Japanese student is having a hard time making friends. But he finds one on the internet. But he finds out that the person is not what he seems to be. The poor kid is tormented by the gang of homicidal nut cases and drive him up the wall. Can the kid protect himself and fend of the gang of sadistic sickos or will he fall into the same hole of depravity that the rest of them have fallen into?
Why are these films made? Who knows but if shocking the hell out of the viewers and being as twisted and insane as you want to be is the golden rule then it has succeeded on all levels. The trilogy ends with a film that is so insane I had a hard time finishing it.
Rated X and it shows.
Recommended for fans of the genre. Others need not apply.
- Captain_Couth
- Feb 18, 2005
- Permalink
Beware! This one is rough.
I've seen the movie in its original Japanese Version so some details of the Story maybe haven't got through to me. But, and this warning is real honest, All night long 2 is far the meanest movie I have seen to date. A Japanese Student is bullied by a group under the leading of an homosexual and misogynistic Psycho, who is sort of in love with him. The Student is forced to a dinner with the leader of the gang. For entertainment the Gangleader tortures an eventually kills a young girl, held captive in his apartment. Via Internet the terrorized student gets help from chatmates but the gang shows up for a very intense showdown. The "Atrocity" is more on the psychological side. No one in this flick is without it. The Theme of sexual abuse and murder for fun and pure entertainment is strong stuff and its never been displayed in this intelligent and evil kind before.
Human Beings Are Garbage! - Part 2
ATROCITY- the second installment in the ALL NIGHT LONG trilogy is better on every level than the previous installment. It has the same basic premise of an outcast/nerd thrown into a situation beyond his control - but ATROCITY takes it to the next level. A nerdy high-schooler is bullied by a gang of small-time hoods. The gay leader of the gang takes a "special" interest in the poor dork, and shows him how much fun it can be to be the aggressor for a change. The gang keeps bullying the kid and some new-found friends until he can no longer take it, and flips the f**k out. The requisite murder and mayhem ensue... ATROCITY is gorier, grittier and more "shocking" than Part 1 of the trilogy. It can still be a little slow moving at times, but not nearly as much as Part 1. Once it gets going, the red stuff really flies and by the end it's pretty much an all-out bloodbath. If you bought the set and were disappointed with Part 1 - don't give up yet, ATROCITY and THE FINAL CHAPTER (part 3) are better and definitely worth a look. ATROCITY is probably the bloodiest of the 3, but THE FINAL CHAPTER is the most whacked-out, and definitely keeps up in the gore race. Recommended 8/10
Pornographic violence
This film is extremely similar to a hardcore porn: scanty set decoration (80 % of "Atrocity" takes place in a lonely appartement...) and a thin plot. And as a porn movie jumps from one sex scene to the next this flick does the same with gore. Nevertheless the second installment of the gruesome "All Night long"-series is quite worth watching, because the characters are all well-developed and if you like extreme cinema and you´ve nerves of steel will surely have fun with it. Similar to "I Spit on your Grave" there´s no music brought on to make the shocking scenes of brutal rape and killing even more disturbing! If you´re into mainstream horror: stay far far away!!! However, if you like extreme sickos: check this out as soon as possible!!!
- DJ Inferno
- Jun 21, 2002
- Permalink
A thinking man's 'Guinea Pig'.