Macabre…ish Horror Review: Taxidermia

I finally watched this after having it lying around for a few years. Let me first say, the cover is crazy.

Second, this is beautifully shot, really nice, creative transitions and the choice of telling this story as a generational triptych was a great choice! This all takes place within one Hungarian family, beginning in WW2 and ending in the present.

It begins with the pervert, Morosgoványi. He is a creep and spends most days at the outpost peeping on people and pleasuring himself. His end comes when he's executed by his boss, Öreg, after a night with pig remains when it is found out that he has impregnated his bosses wife.

Then the speed eater (who was born with a tail), Kálmán. He is the progeny of the affair and Öreg raises him as his own and Kalmán becomes a speed eating champion. He meets and has a child, with another speed eater, Aczél Gizi and that child, Lajoska, becomes quite the opposite of his girthy parents and becomes a taxidermist, he is known as Lajos.

Eventually Lajos becomes the sole caretaker of his grossly obese dad, Kálmán, who has started eating his food, still in the wrapper and has a bizarre obsession with fattening up his three cats, their diet consisting of mostly butter. When Lajos and his dad have a falling out, he returns and finds the cats have been eating his dad and his final act is to immortalize them all, including himself.

This movie is not scary or bloody but it is very disturbing. And while it is not bloody, it is full of almost all other human fluids and solids. Lots of vomit, urine etc. There's not a lot of nudity but there's a lot of peen and there is one instance of pretty graphic sex. 

After this was over, we felt bleak and in need of some serious palate cleansers. The director did a masterful job, this movie is not for the weak or the casual horror viewer. This movie is not in English but it did have English subtitles. 

[This review is also on my letterbox]