Born for Hell

source: Born for Hell

Moviecut—Born for Hell

Die Hinrichtung

Revolting exploitation flick based on the Richard Speck murders. It takes place in Belfast where a seriously deranged Vietnam vet (Mathieu Carriere) breaks into a house where eight nurses are staying. He degrades and/or tortures them and kills them all. That's about it for plot. I have nothing against violence or nudity and this has plenty of both BUT this was going too far. There's nothing interesting, scary or fun about seeing a bunch of innocent young women being tortured and killed. There's no real point to any of this. Halfway through I got the uncomfortable feeling that the filmmakers were enjoying showing this to us. Each torture scene was dragged out to a sickening degree. Also the film was horribly dubbed and badly acted. This is only for people who get off seeing innocent young women killed. A sickening exploitation film. A 1.

Now, this might have been a lot more interesting with actual Irish girls playing the parts of the nurses. As it is, it is supposed the most accurate movie inspired by Richard Speck, the Chicago murderer. In this case, the events are set in Belfast during the height of the conflict there. The rapist murderer is an American returning from Vietnam and waiting to get home. This is no spoiler as the Speck story is well known. It's hard to believe that the girls just sat there and waited for their deaths. They could have done something. Maybe fear overcame them. War, family problems, infidelity; all factors that produce these creatures.

"Born for Hell"/"Naked Massacre" takes place in Belfast,Northern Ireland during civil war and IRA terror.A group of eight young innocent nurses are sharing a house with no men to protect them.Mathieu Carriere is an ex-Vietnam soldier,with a pathological hate for all women.In a night of bloody horror he stalks the nurses,murdering them one by one until all meet their demise at the hands of this madman.The film is truly unsettling with some nasty scenes of misogynistic sexual violence.It is apparently based on actual events(Richard Speck - mass murderer of eight innocent nurses in 1966),what makes it even more disturbing and grim.The acting is very good and it's nice to see Leonora Fani("Giallo a Venezia"-1979)as Jenny.The film is extremely hard to find,so grab the copy and treasure it.Still it's a pretty strong stuff and definitely not for everybody.

I sometimes question the motivations of a director who chooses subject matter such as this as material for a film. There is such a sadistic vent to this that it has kept me thinking for days. This is obviously a retelling of the Richard Speck story where a psychotic ex-Vietnam vet terrorizes and kills a group of nurses in a residential house in Northern Ireland. The movie is pretty well done in that it gets us involved with the women and with their assailant. They are real people with prospects; one is even pregnant. I think that's why this so affected me because when you see those teenage slasher movies you say to yourself that no one could be so stupid. The violence is amplified and unrealistic. This one is so close to home. The business of why people don't defend themselves is an issue, but when you see the connection to terror and to humanity, you see why this could happen. Still, I could never watch this again and I'm not sure it needed telling.