Violent Shit II: Hold My Hand Mother. (1992) – Andreas Schnaas.

Savage sequel to Teutonic terror titan Schnaas's immortal S.O.V splat-pile Violent Shit delivers an equally indefensible largess of scintillatingly lo-fi body-rupturing carnality. An investigative journalist takes an interest in a series of vicious killings, whose profane MO is disturbingly similar to those committed in the 70s by a notorious cannibal killer. This altogether brief interlude of non-Ultra violence is certainly not emblematic of Violent Shit II's generous, and prodigiously plasma-packed perfidy. If luridly limb-lopping lunacy be your cup of meaty malarkey, then drink up hearty, as Schnaas's Violent Shit II: Hold My Hand Mother is a gallon drunk of audacious gore! ALL slashers owe EVERYTING to Mario Bava, whereas Andreas Schnaas flicks are solely indebted to his own blissfully errant mind! I appreciated the fact that the lumbering sadist Karl proved to be a dutiful son, providing highly nutritious, farm fresh body flesh delicacies, taking especial care to extract the vitamin-rich brain juice for his darling mutti!

While Violent Shit II takes a rather cavalier approach to its profound dearth of plot, it compensates most zealously with a tremendously exhilarating cornucopia of carnage! If you conjoined Riki-Oh and Violent Shit II, you might very well have the very best that bloody genre cinema can provide. Gratuitous gore ingloriously captured on standard VHS, for me, has an immediacy, a sordid intimacy, the glossier features pointedly lack. Much like the scratchy 16mm capture of war's gross inhumanities, D.I.Y splatter is more satisfyingly voyeuristic. Once violence is overtly stylised it loses much of its impact. Like punk, bands with only a rudimentary grasp of music theory still wrote hugely impactful songs, far more relatable than the virtuosic noodling of 'real musicians'. Horror is certainly no different, I'll take D.I.Y cheapnis schlock over Hollywood's burnished, repackaged silage any fucking day.