The Butcher tells the blood-soaked tale of a group of deranged crazies who've taken victims to a remote slaughterhouse. Each hostage is outfitted with a video camera strapped to his or her head. The whole point: to film the brutal deaths of each person, as well as the abusive torture inflicted upon them by said "Butcher," a hulking jackass in a pig mask.
That's your movie. Start with some intro stuff, with the snuff film directors talking about boring, day-to-day matters—you know, as if they weren't about to film the excruciating murders of innocent people; then a lot of screaming, bleeding, and chainsaw-ing; until, finally, we follow the exploits of one hostage who may have a chance at freedom.
Yes, kids, this is straight-up torture porn. There is no other classification for it. All The Butcher concerns itself with is throwing horrifying images of torture at you, the viewer, presumably making you as ill as it made me. I have a fairly robust constitution, but the murderous goings-on depicted in this film were so unrelenting, so brutal, so nihilistic, I was genuinely disturbed.
It's a cheap way to get under the skin, of course. While the premise isn't packed full of good times—mysterious d-bags in a far-off place filming the deaths of real people for fun and profit—it is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of violence thrown onto screen. Add to that the total dearth of a plot, and what you have is a hollow shell filled with gallons and gallons of blood.