{"id":13150,"date":"2026-10-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/?p=13150"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:17:53","slug":"how-far-is-too-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/how-far-is-too-far\/","title":{"rendered":"How Far Is Too Far?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>9 Minute, 22 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

MOVIE REVIEW
\nSlice<\/strong>
\n –  <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Genre: <\/strong>Horror, Anthology
\nYear Released: <\/strong>2025
\nRuntime: <\/strong>1h 15m
\nDirectors: <\/strong>Nick Iway, Dustin Mills, Austin Shell
\nWriters: <\/strong>Nick Iway, Dustin Mills, Austin Shell
\nCast: <\/strong>Timothy J. Cox, Nick Iway, Phill Koch, Dave Parker, Zach Thomas, Hajii Grape, Gabe Rios Hannon
\nWhere to Watch: <\/strong>available now; watch here: www.amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

RAVING REVIEW: <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>I can’t think of a recent movie that’s come with more warnings before I pressed play. I was told people walked out during a festival screening. I was told people got sick. The publicity materials even promote SLICE as having been banned in Canada for being too graphic. By the time I finally watched it, there was almost no way the movie could match the picture already built in my head. To its credit, SLICE certainly tries, and in more than a few moments it succeeds.<\/p>\n

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This 75-minute anthology from directors Nick Iway, Dustin Mills, and Austin Shell tells three loosely connected stories dealing with addiction, masculinity, desperation, fame, and the awful things people will willingly endure when they convince themselves the reward will somehow make the suffering worthwhile. A sobriety meeting provides the entry point, where one unsettling confession opens the door to stories that become increasingly strange, graphic, and at times even difficult to watch. The concept is stronger than the shock campaign suggests.<\/p>\n

Rather than building its horror around monsters, ghosts, or supernatural threats, SLICE keeps returning to people making terrible decisions. These characters are desperate enough for money, success, drugs, acceptance, or some other perceived escape that obvious warning signs become almost irrelevant. The horror comes from watching someone willingly keep going down a road everyone knows they should abandon immediately.<\/p>\n

That idea works well when SLICE connects its limits to addiction. Anyone who has watched someone continually choose something destructive can recognize the basic cycle here, even when the film pushes it into ridiculous and horrific territory. The characters know something is wrong. They frequently understand that continuing will make things worse. They keep going anyway because whatever they think waits at the end has become more important than the damage along the way. That gives the anthology more substance than I expected.<\/p>\n

Extreme horror tends to assume the most upsetting image is automatically the most meaningful. SLICE is more interesting when it resists that impulse and focuses on the decisions that lead to the violence. There’s something uncomfortable about how quickly dignity becomes negotiable once a character convinces himself that the reward will fix everything else. The film keeps circling back to that idea of surrender, and the stories work best when they treat the physical damage as the final result of a much longer emotional collapse. Then the knives come out.<\/p>\n

There’s no point pretending SLICE isn’t built around genital mutilation. It absolutely is, and the practical effects team deserves credit because the movie commits to the material in ways that made me uncomfortable even after years of watching horror. The filmmakers don’t cut away the moment something becomes unpleasant. They want the audience to look, and then they frequently make us keep looking longer than expected. That commitment is probably the movie’s biggest strength.<\/p>\n

Low-budget horror can sometimes become timid when it reaches the moment that actually requires showing something difficult. SLICE does the opposite. Some of the production has a handmade quality (blood traditionally isn’t bright red or watery). The effects are frequently convincing enough that the distinction stops mattering once a scene gets moving. Whatever else I can say about this film, nobody involved appears embarrassed by the kind of movie they decided to make. In fact, that confidence carries the movie through some of its rougher moments.<\/p>\n

You can feel the production's limitations in places, whether through uneven performances, sudden tonal shifts, or scenes that lack the visual polish they need. The filmmakers rarely seem to apologize for those limitations. There’s an attitude here that says they’re going to make the ugliest, strangest version of this material they can with the resources available, and something about that is admirable. The problem is that extreme imagery eventually needs something behind it.<\/p>\n

Anthologies always risk becoming uneven because each new section resets the characters, situation, and momentum. That becomes particularly noticeable here. The three stories share enough thematic material to belong together, but they don’t carry equal dramatic weight. Some ideas feel developed enough to justify their runtime, while others seem built primarily to reach the next disturbing image.<\/p>\n

That leaves SLICE caught between two different goals. It wants to examine addiction, toxic ideas surrounding masculinity, exploitation, and the willingness to trade away pieces of yourself for something you desperately want. At the same time, it clearly wants people leaving the movie talking about what they just saw. Too often, the second goal wins.<\/p>\n

The shock itself also loses power through repetition. The first time the movie reveals just how far it’s willing to go, there’s an immediate physical reaction. Once you understand the specific type of bodily horror that connects these stories, however, anticipation starts replacing surprise. You know another horrible decision is coming. You know roughly which part of the body is going to suffer. The details change, but the underlying mechanism becomes increasingly familiar. That familiarity hurts a movie whose reputation is being built so heavily around people supposedly being unable to handle it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I don’t think repetition destroys the experience. There’s something increasingly bleak about watching different characters arrive at similarly awful destinations for different reasons. One wants one thing, another wants something else, but SLICE keeps finding ways to bring them back to the same point. Someone has convinced himself that a piece of his body, identity, or dignity is expendable if the payoff is big enough. That thematic repetition works better than the visual repetition.<\/p>\n

The performances and presentation also vary in roughness from segment to segment. Some actors completely understand the heightened world they’re occupying, while others struggle to make the dialogue feel natural. The visual approach can similarly shift between something intentionally grimy and something that simply looks limited by the production. Those inconsistencies aren’t fatal for a low-budget independent horror film, but they become more obvious when the storytelling isn’t strong enough to distract from them. The dialogue is another area where the movie can stumble.<\/p>\n

At times, characters sound like people caught in an ugly, desperate situation, and those scenes make the horror feel much more immediate. Other exchanges feel written primarily to explain themes the audience has already understood. SLICE is more effective when it trusts the imagery and situations to communicate what these men are sacrificing rather than spelling out the point.<\/p>\n

The anthology structure does provide one advantage, though. If a particular story isn’t working, SLICE rarely stays with it long enough to lose the audience completely. At only 75 minutes, the movie keeps moving, and another bizarre turn is always waiting around the corner. That short runtime matters because it would be much harder to recommend if it were stretched another half hour.<\/p>\n

The movie is already exhausting by design. There’s only so much physical discomfort and self-destruction you can watch before the impact begins flattening out, and SLICE seems to understand that. It gets in, pushes its concept as far as it can, and gets out before the experience turns into a test of endurance for its own sake. I also appreciate that the filmmakers clearly aren’t chasing broad appeal.<\/p>\n

This is confrontational horror made for a very specific audience, and sanding away the nastier material would probably destroy the reason SLICE exists in the first place. Independent horror has value in being able to go places larger productions won’t touch, especially when practical effects and physical performance carry scenes rather than everything being cleaned up digitally—that willingness to be genuinely unpleasant counts for something.<\/p>\n

The strongest moments in SLICE aren’t necessarily the ones with the most blood. They’re the moments immediately before the violence, when someone could still walk away. That space between realizing something is wrong and choosing to continue anyway is where the film finds its most effective horror. The mutilation is the payoff, but the decision usually sticks. I just wanted the ideas surrounding those effects to hit as hard as the effects themselves.<\/p>\n

That’s where SLICE ultimately lands for me. It’s a complicated middle ground. I admire how unapologetic it is. I respect the practical work, and there are images here that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. The filmmakers also have something legitimate to say about self-destruction and the bargains desperate people make with themselves. The movie just doesn’t always know how to turn those ideas into compelling characters or stories. I came away respecting it more than I expected to.<\/p>\n

SLICE isn’t simply trying to gross people out, even if that’s unquestionably part of the attraction. There’s intention underneath the gore, and enough thought behind the anthology structure to keep it from feeling like a disconnected collection of effects demonstrations. The execution doesn’t always match the ambition, but the ambition is absolutely there.<\/p>\n

The warnings weren’t completely wrong. SLICE is gross, graphic, uncomfortable, and absolutely capable of making someone squirm. I just found myself as interested in what the movie was trying to say about addiction and self-destruction as I was in how the effects were accomplished.<\/p>\n

For extreme horror fans, that combination may be exactly what they’re looking for. For everyone else, this will be a much harder sell. Either way, SLICE commits to what it is, and I’d much rather watch an imperfect horror movie with a point of view than one that plays everything safe.<\/p>\n

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[photo courtesy of CHET TURNER FILMS]<\/em><\/p>\n

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MOVIE REVIEW Slice –      Genre: Horror, Anthology Year Released: 2025 Runtime: 1h 15m Directors: Nick Iway, Dustin Mills, Austin Shell Writers: Nick Iway, Dustin Mills, Austin Shell Cast: Timothy J. Cox, Nick Iway, Phill Koch, Dave Parker, Zach Thomas, Hajii Grape, Gabe Rios Hannon Where to Watch: available now; watch here: www.amazon.com RAVING REVIEW: I can’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/img\/0367\/0367819.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t