FREAK FILMS: BEGOTTEN

Spilling from the stocking of strangeness for your holiday enjoyment is 1991's Begotten. Begotten is a 78-minute creation myth nightmare directed by E. Elias Merhige, who nine years later made Shadow of the Vampire. The movie is shot on ultra-grainy black-and-white film that was reportedly developed in Merhige's own bathtub. The film is not easy to explain or watch. We open with a shrouded figure, credited as "God killing himself", cutting open his stomach with a straight razor for 15 minutes. Most of you little elves will have turned this movie off long before this scene reaches its climax, with the dead God giving birth to "Mother Earth". "Mother Earth" then manually masturbates the dead God, and rubs the result into her crotch; a crotch that can only be described as afro-like. She grows a potbelly, and spits out a full-grown, spastic "Son of the Earth" who is carried around by a group of aboriginal wise men for the next 30 minutes for no apparent reason. (What, no frankincense? No myrrh?) "Son of the Earth" pukes up meat and shakes like Joe Cocker sitting on a washing machine, until the wise men decide to bash his brains out and rape "Mother Earth". Is this movie pretentious and gory? Yes. Is it long and boring? Absolutely! Up until Merhige did Shadow of the Vampire, I actually believed that he hadn't made another film because he was in jail for making a snuff film. This flick was voted one of the ten best films by Time magazine in ‘91 and has been compared to Lynch's Eraserhead. I can't say it's that good, but just imagine the sugarplums in your kid's head when they watch this gem before going to bed on Christmas Eve.