Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Sommerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.
This movie contains 54 potentially triggering events.
The main characters visit a leather store which sells several BDSM devices. Later, a strap-on device is shown in a picture and its purpose is described.
Three women are tortured and/or killed in the film, but you do not see the actual acts occur. Only one body is shown on screen. Otherwise, the acts are only discussed by the characters.
The aftermath of a forced rape is shown. A woman is brutally killed during it, and the man forced at gunpoint to rape her is shown recounting the story while extremely traumatized and crying.
Rape is not shown on screen but the after math is. A man is forced at gunpoint to rape a woman with a knife strap-on. She dies in the process but he lives and recounts what happened while hyperventilating. Neither him nor the woman consented to the act and both are rape victims in my eyes.
Several of John Doe's victims suffer body horror during their torture/murder. One victim is force-fed to death. Another is tied to a bed so long he goes insane. He is described as having bitten off his own tongue. His body looks like a corpse and the police who find him think he is dead at first.
A character frequently slices the skin off of his fingertips, causing them to bleed constantly. While he is never shown doing the cutting, the bloody bandages around his fingers are prominent and his actions are discussed.
All of the killer's victims are brutally tortured, whether physically or mentally/emotionally, and although the physical torture is all offscreen, the aftermath is shown and discussed.
Around the start of the movie, a character sniffs inside a bucket and like coughs saying that there’s vomit in there. He doesn’t puke or anything, and the vomit in the bucket is not shown.
If copaganda is defined as illegal police activities being shown positively, then yes. A detective pays to illegally obtain library records. These records allow them a break in the case.
Depending on your take on the killer, and a subject which is argued throughout the film, you could argue he is mentally ill, and is also definitely violent and gruesome.