Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this brutal horror/thriller is definitely not for kids, despite the presence of Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia in the lead role. It's full of calculated, ingenious, premeditated murders that are performed as an intellectual and moral exercise, which leads to lots of gory, traumatized corpses. The movie's violent and sexual content are both pervasive and extreme, as well as frequently intertwined (characters use needles in foreplay, have sex at a murder scene, and more). Language, drinking, and drug use are also frequent and excessive.
Sexual
Content
Sex and violence are frequently intermingled. Pathologists use severed heads to discuss whether or not women fake orgasm; fist fighting and acupuncture needles are part of foreplay; a woman slashes her tongue with a scalpel as a prelude to a kiss; repeated onscreen sexual activity includes a sex act at a murder scene; a woman's clothes are cut off with surgical tools. Also bisexual kissing, extensive nudity, characters tour a seedy brothel, naked buttocks and breasts visible, and extensive montages of couples having sex in a variety of positions.
Violence
Several murders, both on-screen and off, including smothering, murder by injection, stabbings, death by surgical procedure, and other startlingly creative (and violent) means of murder. Extensive footage of autopsy and surgical procedures, as well as post-mortem corpses and wounds, organ removal, and brute-force methodologies used to crack chests or remove skulls. Fistfights; assaults with blunt objects; slashings; stabbings. Characters literally make a game of murder as part of the film's plot. Discussion of a child molester's habits, past offenses, and predilections.
Language
Extensive and pervasive, including "f--k," "damn," "hell," "s--t," "bitch," "whore," "c--t," and "p---y."
Social
Behavior
The characters are part of a secret society of medical pathologists who challenge each other to commit untraceable murders; the group gathers around their victims to analyze one another's technique and then holds drug-fueled, sexual gatherings to "celebrate" their work.
Consumerism
Not applicable.
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
Characters drink to excess (both beer and hard liquor); medical marijuana is abused; several characters smoke crystal methamphetamine; "whippits" (nitrous oxide inhalers) are abused.