Boy Meets Girl (1994) Film Review: Pain is a Terrifying Reality

Years before the Saw and Hostel films were popular, filmmakers all over the world were making revenge and torture films. Boy Meets Girl came out in 1994 and has been referred to as the British equivalent to the French film Man Bites Dog. It is also reminiscent of the Japanese torture genre made infamous by the Guinea Pig series.

 This film is broken into short segments. Where the torture is in line with a man paying for specific sins. This is a stretch, but connections to David Fincher’s Seven can be made in such a case. The camera work is slow and methodical. The man being tortured is not a very good guy, so seeing him being tortured was not really a huge deal to me as a viewer. I am much more disturbed when innocent people are made to suffer for random reasons. There is also a nice slow reveal. I thought it was just going to be 90 minutes of some guy being tortured by some girl. If you stick around for the plot, however, you will realize that there is more going on in this film that you originally expected. It is for the surprising depth of the story that I would give this film a 6/10. The torture wasn’t as graphic as I would have expected from a film that claims to be so controversial. Since I bought it, I will probably watch it again; however, the film is really only one for fans of the genre to see just to say they saw it. If you are one of these twisted fans (I am to a certain extent) you should at least give this one a try.