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Devil's Experiment/Unabridged Agony exists primarily as a provocation, not as entertainment.
Therefore all reactions to it - shock, disdain or apathy - are valid and a result of the experience (one could say this about all films, but zero-budget mock-snuff productions made in Japan the 1980s have a reputation and notoriety allowed to seperate them from everything else).
As word-of-mouth spreads and films like these are hauled up from the underground with shiny DVD re-issues, it is only a matter of time before hushed whispers about the danger of viewing them become scorn and rejection.
But art like The Blair Witch Project capitalised on the public need for horrific "real/found" footage to exist, and even when general scepticism turned to conempt there is still a deep interest in such films where the front is so boldly manipulative it is hard not to be seduced by curiousity.
In conclusion, films which pretend to be "real" divide us into believers and non-believers, and divide the latter through testing the viewer's strength in handling the weight of disbelief.
Personally, the "not-real" Devil's Experiment is a very grim but nontheless compelling 45 minutes, with its initially unsensational approach to the mock-snuff concept (too many efforts since try too hard and are compromised by over-acting), juxtaposed with some nicely bad-taste ideas (such as the maggots and the meat-chucking) and ending in a grand guignol eye-piercing that was one of the first examples of exteme Asian cinema to make an impact on today's hardcore fans.
As The Flower, The Flesh & The Blood is another film to upset the "what's the point of it?" crowd, consider the impressive visual effects (though the impact of some are unfortunately spoiled through ridiculous sound effects) which put bigger budget Hollywood horrors to shame.
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