In theaters WHIPPED. Written and directed by Peter M. Cohen. 85 minutes. Rated R.

Just when you think movies can’t get any worse, along comes a film like “Whipped,” which takes misogyny to a whole new low.

The film is obscene for the sake of being obscene, raunchy and cruel for the sake of being raunchy and cruel. It’s no comedy. It’s one of the meanest, ugliest bits of trash to come to theaters in a while and I hated it for what it is – a movie that feels it’s being cute in its obvious hatred of women, when in fact it only exposes Peter Cohen, its writer, producer and director, as a man who should be slapped by every woman on Earth.

The characters in this film seem as if they crawled out of a petri dish and started a new species, one that hauls itself around by its knuckles and grunts like foul-mouthed pigs. It’s not often that one’s jaw drops while seeing a movie, but in this film, it’s part of the ongoing experience, a badge of honor Cohen sports with immature glee.

In the film, three urban Neanderthals (played by Brian Van Holt, Zorie Barber and Jonathan Abrahams) meet for breakfast each Sunday to discuss their sexual exploits, which are so dirty and brazenly peppered with their clear loathing of women, they could never be printed in a family paper – let alone in a quality publication such as “Hustler.”

The men are joined by Eric (Judah Domke), a vile piece of work who’s ostracized from the group because he did the wrong thing and actually got married, something none of these three could ever fathom until they meet Mia (Amanda Peet), a woman who seemingly has it all because, as this film and these men see it, she serves a woman’s purpose in being “great in bed.”

Initially, none of the men know they’re sleeping with the same woman, but Mia certainly knows. She’s carrying on an affair with three men – which, naturally, allows the film to brand her as “loose” and as a “tramp.”

The film’s turning point – and I doubt I’m giving anything away here – comes when the men learn they’re not only sleeping with Mia, but falling in love with her.

As their friendships dissolve, Mia’s power grows – until the film ultimately exposes her to be worse than they are.

What’s left for Hollywood to do after producing movies like this? Snuff films? After just 30 minutes of “Whipped,” you either want to hose down the screen with Lysol or dip yourself in bleach.

It’s that offensive, that rotten, and it easily standsas the worst film in many years.

Grade: BOMB

On video

AMERICAN PSYCHO. Directed by Mary Harron. Written by Harron and Guinevere Turner, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. 100 minutes. Rated R.

Violence as an extended metaphor for something deeper is hardly new, so it’s to Mary Harron’s great credit that she makes it seem new, fresh and exciting in “American Psycho,” her feminist take on Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial, 1991 best-selling novel.

Mirroring the film’s serial-killing psychopath, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale in a breakout performance), Harron proves she’s just as adept with a knife. As the film’s co-screenwriter, she has successfully trimmed off much of the novel’s underlying fat, streamlining Ellis’ rampant use of brand names and over-the-top bloodletting while staying true to the novel’s satirical concept: the greed of the 1980s as realized by an ax-wielding, head-severing, junior master of the universe.

Mixing horror with sharp humor, wit with graphic violence, Harron mines the truth out of what can politely be described as an imperfect man living in wildly imperfect times. Her film is important; it forces us to reconsider the 1980s while also asking us to look hard at its soulless characters and find ourselves in them.

That takes guts, which, when Harron isn’t spilling them on the floor, “American Psycho” has in spades.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30″ and” NEWS CENTER at 11.”