The Profane Exhibit has been a long time coming. Its production dates back to at least 2011 when the project was first proposed, and it took a period of years for the definitive finished product to take shape; in fact, it marks a posthumous release for four of its participants as noted in the end credits. This anthology has a lot of big names attached, at least as far as extreme horror cinema is concerned, including provocateurs such as Marian Dora, Yoshihiro Nishimura, and even Uwe Boll, and over the course of nine short films and a wraparound feature, The Profane Exhibit treats its viewers to an excessive amount of gore, human suffering, and rape – with the occasional vomit and piss mixed in here and there. For extreme horror, this sounds par for the course – but like most anthology films, the results often vary, in this case between “middling” to “not great.”
Let’s start with the obvious out of the gate – The Profane Exhibit as a whole (and most of its contributors as well) is here to shock with its edginess. There’s certainly a time and place for the visceral, and pushing boundaries in horror is something that can result in a rewarding experience provided it has something worthwhile to say. Too often, though, extreme cinema gets caught up in its own stench, looking to be transgressive and disturbing without fully realizing a point. The Profane Exhibit often suffers from this, quite possibly due to the fact that its short-form storytelling doesn’t allow for fleshing out the concepts too far before the film moves on to the next half-baked idea. That’s not always a bad thing, because these types of tales don’t necessarily improve with character study alone, and there’s also only so much of this carnality viewers can revel in before it all sort of blends together into a mushy pile of entrails.
Much of The Profane Exhibit falls into this pit of despair, opting for the same tried-and-true shock elements. Boll’s offering in particular tends to be the pinnacle of how not to pull off this approach; it relies on over-the-top rape and emotional trauma (both with its subject matter and seeing Clint Howard in the buff) and then comes to a rote conclusion that one never knows what’s happening over at the Jones’ house. There’s merits to pushing against the grain, but such a soft-serve theme feels reductive. Not only that, but as a whole The Profane Exhibit offers up at least three different rape-related subplots, to the point where what once should be “extreme” just becomes another fatiguing display of the same.
That’s not to say that all of The Profane Exhibit misses. There are definitely some interesting spectacles at play, particularly in terms of the gore effects. Sergio Stivaletti’s short “Tophet Quorum” features excellent nauseating body modifications, while Michael Todd Schneider’s “Manna” at least sees some brutality visited on a dude. And “Sins of the Fathers” from Nacho Vigalondo may be the best short on this release, an interesting exploration of familial childhood trauma and the act of vengeance that acts as the one of the more creative and poignant moments in the anthology.
But overall, most of The Profane Exhibit feels like lazy storytelling couched in brutality. That’s particularly evident with the wraparound story that frames the shorts, which is quite literally just a bunch of segments of cutting up meat. That’s not even mentioning the belated Ruggero Deodato taking the piss with the shortest segment on here, “The Bridge,” which is over nearly before the viewer even realizes we’re onto the next tale. While gorehounds and fans of extreme horror may find some things here that whet their appetite for bloodshed and toeing the line, it’s hard to recommend The Profane Exhibit; the bloated runtime and overall weak stories don’t come together nearly as well as its name talent might suggest, and there’s very little within that could be recommended on its filmic merits or ideas alone.
Blu-ray
Unearthed Films’ release of The Profane Exhibit marks the first time it’s actually been available for home video consumption. Like the stories comprising it, the video quality of each short is also a mixed bag. Obviously a lot of the film features grungy, gritty, dirty locales and vibes, and so the rougher look of the release actually plays into that quite well. For the most part, overall detail is good but not pristine, with some shorts suffering from an interlaced look. Black levels are fair but do suffer from some loss of detail. The bitrate levels are fairly consistent, though, with minimal compression artifacts. Again, this type of film isn’t really one to thrive on clean visuals – in fact, there’s a good amount of intentional “roughing” to some of these shorts – and this HD offering is certainly a serviceable display for those looking to finally see the film.
Audio is presented with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo soundtrack, which sounds fairly strong throughout and offers a good mix of dialogue and soundtrack volume. English subtitles, as well as Spanish and subtitles for foreign language shorts, are also included.
For extras, this disc collects a number of what looks to be variously assembled featurettes throughout the years. An audio commentary featuring producer Amanda Manuel along with director Michael Todd Schneider and Ultra Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger is available either along with the film or as a standard definition video watching the participants. There are also four separate interviews conducted by journalist Tiffany Blem with some of the collaborators; Amanda Manuel, Michael Todd Schneider, Uwe Boll, and Jeremy Kasten all give remote interviews, totaling about an hour. There’s also a featurette about the making of Marian Dora’s short film featuring interviews with cast and crew titled “Ten Years Later.” A behind-the-scenes featurette is included for both the short “Manna” and “Tophet Quorum,” along with a Q&A conducted at the film’s world premiere and then an additional interview with Amanda Manuel and Michael Todd Schneider at the same premiere. Finally, a production gallery and trailer are also included as supplements. This release also comes with matching slipcover.
Extra Features
- NEW Audio Commentary by Director Michael Todd Schneider and Producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger (both with the film, or a video version; 480i; 1:57;37)
- NEW Tiffany Blem Interviews Jeremy Kasten (720p; 20:48)
- NEW Tiffany Blem Interviews Uwe Boll (720p; 12:01)
- NEW Tiffany Blem Interviews Amanda Manuel (720p; 10:52)
- NEW Tiffany Blem Interviews Michael Todd Schneider (720p; 13:01)
- NEW A Mini Documentary ‘Ten Years Later’ by Marian Dora (1080p; 14:58)
- Awakening Manna (1080p; 23:51)
- Sergio Stivaletti’s Tophet Quorum (720p; 14:25)
- World Premiere Q&A (720p; 34:28)
- World Premiere Interview (720p; 13:29)
- Production Gallery (no chapter breaks; 12:03)
- Trailer (1080p; 1:51)
Verdict
While there are some occasionally interesting subversions in The Profane Exhibit, it’s a rough watch as a whole – mostly in story quality, not as much in its extremism. However, Unearthed Films has assembled a nice number of extras for fans of this subgenre of horror looking to finally own this for home video; recommended for those people only, since for most others this anthology will likely be a painful experience.
