The Seasoning House is one of those filthy, seedy films that really pushes the boundaries of violence in cinema. As a hardened lover of extreme cinema, I can, for a fact, say that this was a gruelling cinematic experience. But I loved it. It destroyed me…just like extreme cinema should do.
The film starts off in the Balkans. We get to see some Militia slaughter and a lot of innocent civilians. It’s horrible to say, but the ones who died, they’re the ones who got off lightly. A deaf girl called Angel witnesses her mother being shot and killed, an order given by Goran, the high-ranking Militia boss. Angel is then kidnapped and forced to work in a seedy brothel under the very strict rules of Viktor and his bunch of disgusting, slimy cronies. The brothel is a poorly lit house with boarded-up windows, no light, and no way out. It is full of kidnapped girls, all tied to a bed and drugged. Angel has the impossible task of shooting these girls with heroin and then applying make-up to make them look pretty for the “clients.”
Lots of very hard-core and definitely not easy-to-watch sexual content. However, it’s almost impossible to take your eyes away, as everything is just so raw, so seedy yet so, well done.
Now, if you’re strong enough to make it through the first half of the film, then what we get in the second half completely genre-flips the story into a bloody as Hell revenge movie. This happens with Goran arrives at the brothel with his evil gang of militia, and now Angel wants revenge for the pointless murder of her mother.
Okay, the FX here is as good as it gets. I mean, I was really fuckin’ impressed. So much so, that I stopped to do a bit of research on the director and FX department. Turns out the director, Paul Hyett was the special FX guru behind The Descent, and countless other epic titles. There were high standards in place long before this film was made and it shows with The Seasoning House
The Seasoning House makes you feel sleazy, sympathetic and uncomfortable. It then rips your heart out and beats it across your face. A highly recommended extreme horror experience but I couldn’t say this more: “APPROACH WITH CAUTION, WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK”
As always, thanks for reading.
