The Bunny Game

Presented in beautiful B&W, Adam Rehmeier's The Bunny Game features breathtaking imagery, creative editing and outrageous performances by lead actors Getsic and Renfro as The Bunny and Hog. Very few low budget endeavors that cross my desk these days look this good or feature actors so thoroughly convincing. Though the film features very little dialog, it's not at all difficult to understand what's transpiring so long as you pay close attention.

I was greatly impressed with this film on a technical level and there's no doubt in my mind that Rehmeier will have a bright future in filmmaking. That said, I did have a few issues with the film that I would like to mention, the first being that this film, like Lucifer Valentine's gag-inducing Vomit Gore Trilogy, may have had a story behind it but what you actually see ends up feeling more like an experimental BDSM slave training video for Masters. I think that's why I had such a hard time losing myself within the film. To those unfamiliar with BDSM Master/Slave relationships, much of the "atrocities" you see playing out in The Bunny Game are pretty commonplace activities, including head-shaving and erotic asphyxiation.

If experimental cinema with all of its exaggerated noise, nauseating camera effects, avant garde lighting, rapid-fire edits, slow-motion sequences and monotonous scoring is your forte, I can't help but think this film was made for you because I just can't see the average horror or exploitation fan looking for a few chills deriving much replay value from it. In my opinion it's an impressive piece of Artsploitation certainly worth checking out, if you're into this kind of cinema, but be sure to do so before purchasing.

Despite having little dialogue and no back story, i found myself sympathising with the title character pretty quickly. This could be due to Rodleen Getsic's charisma and style, there's no doubt to the fact that she is excellent in this film. Her performance is aided (at least in part) by the chaotic drug-fueled style in which the director has filmed it, which really bring you into the psyche of the young woman we are following. The first 10 minutes of this film truly are a work of art, simply put.

That being said, this movie has a major downfall. It's just too long. there is not enough content to stretch this into a feature length film. Half of the time you're waiting for something to happen while a scene goes in circles with no real aim. I counted about 10 minutes where the trucker is just playing with the bunny girls unconscious body.

Then there's long drawn out portions where literally nothing happens, the aim was probably to build atmosphere, but all it does is bore. Even at the end we're left with 3 or 4 minutes view of an empty road with static playing on the radio inside the truck.

When you consider all this wasted time and the fact that the film only comes in at 70-something minutes, you'll probably agree this would have worked so much better as a short film. In fact if re-cut to 30 minutes, it coud be quite a poignant, evocative film.

There is definitely a lot of promise for those involved in the making of this film, so i'll be keeping an eye out for Adam Rehmeier's later pictures. And overall i would recommend you give this a watch.

Seriously?? I am getting tired of movies that just go for the shock value. If you have seen one torture-porn movie you have seen all and if this label applies to any movie then to "Bunny Game". The whole "Human Centipede" thing was already hard to grasp. At least it was kind of funny and in the 2nd part had some artsy shots and a disturbing villain.

"Bunny Game" has about 1/10th the plot of HC, also goes for an artsy black and white look but just comes across like the art school project of a disturbed S+M Freak. The plot goes like this: Street Hoker down on luck and high on coke gets abducted by a truck driver and then tortured and degraded for days in the desert until she breaks down.

Thats it!! The whole editing reminds a lot of Michael Hanekes Movies with endless still scenes of nothing happening and hinting to a deeper meaning that simply doesn't exist here. Its broken up by fades to black and some hectic edited collages of impressions to which some of the ugliest Black Metal Punk imaginable is played.

The whole "hooker on a descent to hell" thing reminds a lot of the equally art school style movie "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" but even that movie had more plot and some creative gore to it. "Bunny Games" basically just shocks you with hardcore S+M play and rape and where clearly the "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" Director had a sick fetish for vomiting this one puts his S+M fetish on film in the least entertaining way imaginable. Even the below average playing time seems like an eternity. If you are turned on by branding, shaving, choking and asphyxiation have a go. If you are looking for a decent horror movie or the next "Martyrs" you are way into the wrong alley here.

The whole movie is pretty much trash disguised as art for those who still think that making a movie in black/white is some kind of higher art form. To end on a positive note... the acting of both leads was pretty good although I guess they were doing what they do off-screen anyway.If the branding and blowjob scenes are real the actors sure are just as messed up as the roles they are playing.

Oh, and by the way... if you wonder what the "bunny game" is... its walking through the desert with pig and bunny masks and screaming like lunatics. So have a go next time you are in a desert.

Most people don't just happen upon a film like The Bunny Game—they seek it out, spurred on by on its notoriety, eager to discover if it is as anywhere near as shocking as its reputation suggests; if, like me, you hunted this one down after reading that it had been refused a certificate by the BBFC, then the chances are you've already seen much worse, for plenty of harsher films exist, and will only be disappointed by what you see here.

An early scene of unsimulated oral sex and the realistic use of a branding iron just about qualify as controversial, but other than that there's very little here that really warrants the fuss and attention; it certainly wasn't the sex and violence that made the film hard for me to endure, but rather the manner in which it was all presented. The avant-garde approach and choppy editing make this film look like the product of a pretentious art school student exploiting shock tactics to make a name for himself.

And like most art school films, it's very boring: there are moments that seem to drag on forever with virtually nothing happening at all; other scenes flash by in a whirlwind of epilepsy-inducing imagery and a cacophony of discordant 'music'. When a film that sets out to disturb has me either dropping off to sleep out of disinterest, or wanting to turn off out of sheer irritation, then I have to consider it a complete failure.

Normally I don't do reviews, but in this case I felt obliged to, as all of the earlier reviews seemed biased. Many people seem to like the artsy-fartsy black/white movie stuff, perhaps even more so in the avant-garde horror genre – I'm definitely not one of them, though. For me, this was nothing more than 76 minutes of "Yeah, that's already been done – in color!" and a quite dull experience. It didn't grab my attention anywhere close to what A Serbian Film or Martyrs did. I'm not talking just graphically here, either – I'm talking about the whole feel of the movie, including the music and the storyline. In all honesty, it wasn't even much of a story to begin with. It's just boring all the way from start to end. I'm aware that most other reviews praise The Bunny Game for "taking it to the next level" and being a 10/10 kind of ground- breaking movie, but I honestly just can't understand why and none of the reviews have even bothered trying to explain their reasoning behind such statements, except maybe the fact that the torture and humiliation in this movie is supposed to be real (which I can't and won't even try to deny) but that does not automatically make it a good film – it just makes it closer to being a snuff film. We're heading there...