I Cut Your Flesh is a documentary lensed as an almost surrealistic horror of sorts about a woman named Sox who participates in extreme blood and needle play. And just from reading that sentence, you’ll know if you’re part of the audience for this film. If you still haven’t been able to figure it out, this film contains various unsimulated scenes of consensual bodily mutilation, and I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the gate that this is a very uncomfortable watch, partly due to the camerawork and how raw and closeup it all is.
For the most part this is a rather good documentary on the subject, but it does have many faults, mainly the fact that it seems more interested in showing the spectacle of the real mutilations above everything else. I was genuinely interested in what Sox had to say about her lifestyle and sadly we don’t get enough of that. We never get a full understanding or insight into why she does this, one can presume it’s a fetish but none of these activities are inherently sexual outside of the fact Sox is usually fully nude during them. We also never get a full backstory as to how she got into this community and other things of that nature which would’ve been interesting to hear. What we do get is interesting and despite the rather horror-themed nature of the tone, Sox is shown to be a rather normal person and not the type of nutjob you’d expect.
In regards to the technical side of things, this is probably one of SamHel’s better films in general. The cinematography and style is especially strong here and the film is oddly pleasing to look at and even echoes an old school 1970s raw filmmaking, the only difference is that this is filmed on digital and not film. The pacing is also better than usual for a SamHel film even though it does drag every once and awhile, but I never found myself really getting bored with this one overall.
Not for most people, but an interesting watch for sure. One of Sam’s better films overall.
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