We gotta start by asking the question: What is it with Miike and stainless steel torture spikes. I mean, we’ve all watched hundreds of horror films with classical anti-heroes like Jason and Freddy and Jigsaw, I‘ve never come across a film maker with such a preoccupation with impaling living, pleading for mercy, central characters with 12-inch long pieces of steel. We just don‘t have such a concept in the west. Yet, here‘s a film maker whom one could imagine carries his own set around like Graham Kerr (the galloping gourmet of our youths) might carry a set of decorative carving knives in his tweed jacket pocket.