Review of Camp 14: Total Control Zone (2012) by Scott M — 16 Apr 2013

I never thought I could underestimate the depravity and barbarism of Communism, but evidently I have. If there is any question that North Korea is the most evil country on earth, this documentary will answer it.

Shin Dong Huyk was born in the prison camp after his mother was awarded to his father for working hard, and up until the point where he burned himself slithering over a dead body on an electrical fence he saw and suffered a great deal.

First memory? A public execution. First job? Pushing carts in a coal mine at the age of six. Most tender moment ever experienced? From a cell mate who swabbed the infected burns on his back; burns he got while being strung up with wire and having a fire built under his back during seven months of torture at the age of fourteen.

Absolutely horrific. There are interviews with a former guard and interrogator as well, and in some ways they are even more chilling. The guard tells how some of them would beat women to death after impregnating them via rape.

Another calmly tells about one of his favorite games, telling a group of prisoners that unless one of them was beaten to death by the others with their bare hands, all of them would be killed. I have seen some pretty powerful documentaries involving political prisoners and their torturers before, but none like this.

The animated sequences are also well done.