What a waste of my time!!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Antonio Frau is a cold-blooded killer.Frau has just been released from prison after serving 14 years for killing his girlfriend.He has inherited a run-down former brothel from a late aunt and married Francisca,who he met through a dating service and started writing to while inside.He lures prostitutes,most of them drug addicts,into his hotel at night where he ties them to a table,tortures and rapes them for days then cuts them into pieces using a chainsaw."H6:Diary of a Serial Killer" is occasionally pretty grim,but mostly uninteresting serial killer movie.It is not as extremely intense as my all time favourite Austrian "Angst",but there are some mildly shocking moments including rapes and chainsaw dismemberment.Fernado Acaso is pretty believable as a misogynistic killer and there is a bit of gore.Give it a look.

(Only minor spoilers except as noted).I've enjoyed a lot of Spanish cinema recently; both the actual Spanish cinema of people like Almodovar, and the Latin American cinema of directors like del Toro, whose superb "Devil's Backbone", set in Civil War Spain, was the finest horror film of the last decade. It's no surprise, then, that this film is both well-made, well-acted, and manages to sustain that distinctively different Spanish atmosphere. But it's also as nasty and pointless a film as one could hope not to have to see.What actually is the purpose of all this? We have no real idea what caused the creepy central character to embark on his killing spree, despite the fact that large amounts of narrative voice-over are drawn directly from his own narcissistic journal. In a routinely unpleasant opening sequence, set more than a decade earlier, we see the central character killing his girlfriend in a rage of jealousy and control-freakery ("…if I can't have you nobody can…."). Oddly enough, that is perhaps one of the best sequences in the film, but it has no discernible relation to his subsequent killing spree, which appears completely different in both motivation and execution. What happened to him in jail to cause this change? We have no idea, though we do later discover, as an absurd sort of afterthought, that he obtained a law degree while imprisoned.In Britain, in several of our notorious "serial killer" or "sex killer" cases, the terrible question arises; what about the wife? Did she know, or suspect what was going on? This is a question that this film could have asked, and indeed the wife does begin to emerge as one of the more intriguing characters. But banally, the answer to the question is quite clearly: "No, she didn't". Even when a dramatic opportunity like this is presented on a plate, the film still manages to bungle it. All we actually get, sketched perfunctorily out at the end, is her slightly amoral preparedness to cash in on the proceeds after the event. Compare this to the awful revelatory moment in Ten Rillington Place, where Christie's wife says "you know what I mean…." thereby sealing her own fate and allowing us an appalled glimpse into unimaginable chasms of suppressed knowledge and horror.(Major spoiler in this paragraph). In the meantime, we are supposed to believe that the killer himself is a criminal mastermind who comprehensively outwits the police, thereby securing the briefest of incarcerations in a mental hospital before being released so that he can kill again. How exactly did he achieve this? The plot gets extremely sketchy at this point; something to do with deliberately leaving certain clues for the police; but how this all works or why, or how the subsequent court case actually proceeds, remains a mystery.I actually don't believe serial killers are like this. The Silence of the Lambs may be comic book stuff, but – Lecter aside – it gets its serial killers right. They are deeply disturbed, deeply dysfunctional, deeply inadequate people; not the creepily charming mastermind presented here (closely related to the equally implausible suave killer of The Last Horror Movie, or indeed even Man Bites Dog, though it appears not to have been noticed that that was a satire).This film has little suspense, and bungles what little intrigue the plot might have generated. It has nothing useful to say about the motivations of serial killers, either generally, or in the specific cultural milieu of Spain. This is nothing more than a poorly plotted excuse to show some pretty misogynistic violence to women. And oddly, what makes that violence even more repulsive is a certain prissy failure of nerve even in how it is presented. The soft core character of what is actually shown just makes it seem even more repellently titillatory. Just one explicit shot, properly timed, would have been infinitely more shocking, and would have rendered all the rest completely unnecessary, freeing up more film time to flesh out the gaping holes in plot and characterisation. Instead we just get endless shots of young women vulnerably spreadeagled on a table in their pretty but slightly revealing underwear. Very, very creepy. I'm sorry to be rude; I love horror films, and can tolerate even the most extreme, to the extent even of worrying my partner. But I think anyone who finds this film good, or interesting, even I'd find myself edging away from. The purpose of a horror film is to scare you; this is just lascivious.It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth indeed. I have to give this film more than one star just because it's competently executed, but morally it deserves none at all and should never have been made.

Man, just when you think you've seen all the brutal, messed-up scenes you can, along comes a movie like this to shake you up. What's in the water over there in Spain? Antonio Frau is a recently-paroled killer who served his time but hasn't been very well rehabilitated. He inherits an old brothel from some relative and he decides this is a sign from God to kill hookers...and pretty much anyone else who he deems "unclean". Of course, he doesn't just kill them, he "purifies" them, which consists of a lot of torture and drawn-out pain until finally dropping the chainsaw on them.Admittedly, you don't see all the blood and guts, a lot of it is insinuated, but in a way that's better. It sticks with you, the mental images of what he does.If you liked Hostel or are a big fan of really sick torture scenes, this is a must-see!

Brutal film. I watched it at a press screening and I was as shocked as was the rest of the press! Everybody was dead silent as we left the screening room and the female audience there looked quite rattled. It is hard to comment on the film as it is so different and unclassifiable. And I had to remind myself that it was indeed fiction... Not recommendable for a first date unless she is into bondage... Or if you want to brag about how you can spot a cult film from a first time director...(Judging by the fantastic reviews worldwide)... Also, I think that the film has been selected for the Edimburgh Film Festival this year... - - - - 10/10