Ropes, Gore, and Resurrection: Extreme Horror Returns with Kinbaku, BloodMania, eROTik 2 & More

From rope-bound vengeance to necrophilic nightmares, this week’s underground horror lineup doesn’t flinch.

KINBAKU: FLOWER

Dir. Naoyuki Tomomatsu | Japan | 2016

A rarely screened slice of Japanese pink cinema makes its way back into the fold with Kinbaku: Flower, the 2016 film from cult auteur Naoyuki Tomomatsu (Zombie Self-Defense Force). Exploring the ancient erotic art of kinbaku—Japanese rope bondage—the film follows a husband consumed by rage, who enlists a BDSM expert to punish his unfaithful wife and her lover. This is ropework as revenge, and while the film courts eroticism, it’s laced with bitterness, tension, and an undeniable visual intensity. Featuring Yume Aihara and Mai Miori, Kinbaku is an intoxicating tangle of flesh and fury.

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS’ BLOODMANIA

Dirs. H.G. Lewis, Kevin Littlelight, Melanie Reinboldt | USA | 2017

The godfather of gore’s final sendoff is as chaotic and blood-soaked as you’d expect. BloodMania, Lewis’s last film before his death in 2017, is an anthology packed with four segments of splatter lunacy. Serving as both a love letter and a grotesque time capsule, it’s Lewis’ final narration that lingers—a reminder of what indie horror built with a bucket of red paint and a bone saw. Featuring an ensemble cast of genre newcomers, this is must-watch territory for completists.

EROTIK 2

Dir. Slade Wilson (Supervision: Domiziano Cristopharo) | Italy | 2024

With eROTik 2, director Slade Wilson takes over from Domiziano Cristopharo to re-enter the psyche of a Dahmer-inspired necrophile—and things are even sicker this time around. Less a sequel and more a spiritual reawakening, the film expands on its predecessor with grotesque resurrection rituals, extreme body horror, and Capurro’s gristle-slick FX. Angela del Regno returns in a role you won’t forget (or maybe wish you could). eROTik 2 isn’t just a transgression—it’s a dare.

EROS&ARTHANATOS

Dir. Domiziano Cristopharo & Cristo Gil | Spain/Italy | 2024

Part academic deep dive, part horrifying voyeurism, this necrophilia-in-cinema doc brings together filmmakers, scholars, and yes, even real-life murderers (including Nicolas Claux, the “Vampire of Paris”). Eros&ARThanatos is not for casuals—it’s a critical and clinical look at obsession, death, and desire. From Lucker the Necrophagous to Orozco the Embalmer, this doc walks through cinema’s most controversial crypts with a scalpel and a thesis.

MEMORIA

Dir. Günther Brandl | Austria | 2023

From the sick mind behind Necrophile Passion comes Memoria, a stark, black-and-white war horror that fuses mythology with psychological torment. Trapped in a death game with Thanatos himself, a WWI soldier confronts trauma, hallucinations, and cosmic dread in a landscape painted with madness. The seventh entry in the Abomination Collection, this is arthouse horror soaked in blood and existential decay. Brandl directs and stars, proving again that some demons are born from memory.

This week’s lineup is a buffet of boundary-pushers: sex, death, and art collide with defiance. Whether you’re drawn to cultural fetishism (Kinbaku), legacy gore (BloodMania), or the studied sickness of necro cinema (Eros&ARThanatos), this batch doesn’t flinch—and neither should you.