Josh Friedlander's Reviews > The Filth

I Saw Sin City when I was about 16, and it blew me away. But when I finally saw its long-delayed sequel nine years later, I was disappointed: it just seemed dreary and jumbled. This could be because it's a much worse movie (critical opinion seemed to reflect that), but I also think I was less impressed by the same tricks, the stylish midnight-blue cinematography, and corresponding moral atmosphere, the cesspool of perpetual turpitude.

Like Sin City, this book is not just noir, it's Vantablack, as jaded and nihilistic as possible. And yet that still seems to me like teenage posturing, despite the metafictional/pomo geegaws. As much as it contain heavily adult themes - adult movies, extreme violence, people being attacked by giant sperm - I can't escape the feeling that, in the extremity of its push against moral norms - épater la bourgeoisie! - it is still, essentially, for kids.