After many viewings, the Untold Story is still one of my favorite films. It is an unclassifiable amalgam of comedy, horror and gritty true crime drama filled with cynical social commentary and a slightly sympathetic heart for all involved (or none involved, depending on your POV). Spoof-like vignettes depicting the incompetence, idiocy and sexism of the police force are contrasted with their sickeningly gleeful and disturbingly detached brutality (the film's less gory yet more upsetting moments) toward their supposedly inhuman quarry. The acts of remorseless murder, rape, mutilation and cannibalism practiced by the disgruntled, joyless protagonist are offset by the trauma he is later forced to undergo. At the start of the film, sympathy for this character is non-existent. It is then generated by the abuse he himself undergoes at the hands of equally (yet differently) soul-less torturers, and is then dismantled once again when the extent of his "atrocities" are finally and unflinchingly depicted. I was more unsettled by this film than by "Henry:P.O.A.S.K," a film to which this has often been compared. The presence of slapstick comedy beside gritty child murder only served to heighten the upsetting effect of the film, making it feel "dirtier" with its lack of respect/reverence for the severity of the crimes committed. It presents a well-rounded picture of humanity, one that is at once blackly comic, cruelly indifferent, wholly sympathetic and, at its heart, completely tragic. I recommend this film to anyone that has a strong stomach, a black sense of humor (without one the antics of the police and killer would be completely offensive and tasteless in their context) and the desire to be unexpectedly touched with sympathy for a movie about a "monster."
