guinea pig - noun
1 : a small stout-bodied short-eared tailless domesticated rodent (Cavia porcellus) of South American origin often kept as a pet and widely used in biological research —called also cavy
2 : a subject of research, experimentation, or testing
That is the definition of guinea pig from Merriam-Webster. A very simple definition as well that describes exactly what a guinea pig is. It either means a cute furry little animal that people have for pets (I miss my darling Harrison *sadface*), or somebody being used for any form of research. And probably since the definition was first coined and made official, I'm willing to bet nobody ever thought it would ever mean something else. However, as time has now told, the term guinea pig has taken on a new meaning. It still means an animal and test subject, but it is also a phrase of controversy, a term that can send people straight for the hills in terror. I am of course speaking about the infamous and cult Japanese film series known as Guinea Pig.
The Guinea Pig (Za Ginipiggu) series originally started as a way to showcase special effects, in an effort to push the limits of what Japan could do with them. But as the series progressed, it become one of the most notorious series of films ever put on celluloid, both in it's home country in Japan, and around the world. One can wonder if the creator of the series Satoru Ogura knew that his little crazy films would become as famous (and infamous) as they did, and inspire a whole genre of films that came after it. I suppose we'll never know unless we ask him.
Being that we are currently in the month of Hell-O-Ween, I figured we could use one good special article detailing a series of films. And while certainly there's a lot of series out there to choose from, I decided to go with Guinea Pig. Why? Besides the fact I'm a huge Japanophile, and thus big fan of J-Horror, I figured that since this is an underground blog of sorts, we should inaugurate our Hell-O-Ween with an overview of an underground horror series. And that is what I will do. This article will stand as a complete overview of every film within the series, and how much impact the films created.
Now do know this means I will not be reviewing these. It doesn't mean I'll never review them (you can actually read my reviews of He Never Dies and Flower of Flesh Blood respectfully right now if you choose), but for the purposes of this article, I will not review them fully, and only simply analyze them. Each film will be looked out and analyzed, to give you all a good view into what these films are about and what they are as a whole. And as I stated a little while ago, I will also discuss the impact they had within the film world.
Now obviously, if you have not noticed the banner at the beginning of this article, this piece will contain images of strong graphic content. And while I am by no means one to censor a person, I do advise that you only read on if you are 18 or older, or if under 18, do so with caution. And so with my little warning out of the way, I do believe I should get started. So sit tight, and enjoy the ride.
Guinea Pig started in a bit of transition period in the realm of Japanese horror. For many years, J-Horror consisted mostly of stories relating to old folktales, and kaidan, a term used to describe ghost and horror stories, and comes from the Edo period. These type of films dominated the horror market (Japan wise) in the 1960's, and for part of the 1970's, with some of those films being considered masterpieces of the genre, and of Japanese cinema as a whole. It was during this transition period when the availability of home video was getting huge, and along with it the Pinku (the Japanese term for softcore porn films) industry slowly started to thrive again. And with the development of the home video business, many filmmakers soon learned that you could make a movie, put straight onto video, and release it without a theatrical release. This process known as Direct-To-Video and in Japan as coined by Toei, V-Cinema became used for films that didn't have the comeuppance to make it in the theaters, or were to graphic to be in a theater.
So with these advances, Japanese horror in the 1980's slowly started to morph from ghost tales into more realistic and overseas forms of horror. And with that, splatter films started to become pretty big. These films weren't necessarily slashers, but did feature a lot of gore. And it was these films that became Japan's calling card for quite a while. To the point to where the Japanese back in the 80's and 90's had the splatter gore movie down to a scientific formula. And this melting part was about to produce it's first big success.
Satoru Ogura was your typical horror fanboy. Ogura-san had seemingly begun to lost faith within his beloved genre of films. So he decided to do what most horror fanboys do in this situation, make a movie to combat the loss of faith and get people talking about horror again. And that's what Ogura did. But like many of us fanboys, he optioned to make something very graphic and gruesome. Pseudo snuff movies if you will. So in 1985, after teaming up with horror manga writer and artist Hideshi Hino, Ogura released his beast onto the world. He released the first Guinea Pig movie.
Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (or just simply Guinea Pig or Devil's Experiment) was released in 1985. Directed by Ogura-san himself, and shot entirely on video, Devil's Experiment tells the tale...scratch that, there is no tale. Devil's Experiment has no story, it has nothing but the bare bones of one. And those bones aren't in the best of shape and are falling apart. The film is about a woman who is kidnapped by three men. They tie her up, and proceed to torture her. The end. That's what the movie is, three men torturing a woman. The only scrap of story is that the film progresses in it's degrees of torture. Starting with simple verbal harassment and kicking and slapping, the film slowly chugs along going from burning, pelting of maggots and meat, noise torture, spinning in a chair, and finally the coup de grâce finale, involving possibly the most repellent act of violence towards a certain facial body part ever on film.
While schoolgirls where getting devirginized via tentacles, and Pinku girls were being being subjected to quite the bit of depravity, Devil's Experiment was horrifying audiences. Whether it be through it's sheer violence, which helped by the fact that our characters remain nameless throughout the film, with no motive ever being given, the movie was terrifying people. And even with that terror, the extreme content helped make the film become a big hit, even if it was only being sold in underground porno shops. The film's impact, even though in HD still can be felt today. Movies may have come along which out gore it, but the uneasy feeling that Devil's Experiment has can't be reproduced. You'll sit disgusted as you watch the victim being pelted with meat, and I'm sure even the most hardened gore hound may find himself squirming during the end sequence. Regardless of how the public felt, Ogura had himself a cult underground hit, which us sick fuckers ate up.
But this is a series, and thus a second film is inevitable. Supposedly according many a rumor, back in the early eighties, a manga artist received quite the parcel. The supposed parcel contained an 8mm film, a 19 page letter, and several photographs which showed and explained the torture, dismemberment, and eventual murder of a girl. This parcel was given to horror manga artists, and Ogura pal Hideshi Hino. And while it is unknown if Hino actually received said package, he eventually came up with the idea that would become the manga that would become Guinea Pig's, and Japan's gore scene calling card.
Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu 2 - Chiniku no Hana) is the most infamous of the series, and can be considered one of the most infamous movies of all of Japan's cinematic history. Released in 1985, and directed by Hideshi Hino, Flower is considered by many to be one of the most gruesome and most atrocious movies ever made. It was this pedigree that originally sparked my interest in the films, a statement that isn't uncommon as most people hear about the series through this entry in the series. And it's also the entry which started all the controversy, but more on that later.
Whereas Devil's Experiment had somewhat of a story (simple as it was), Flower of Flesh Blood features virtually a story that can be summed up in a single sentence as far as a synopsis goes. A man dressed up in a samurai outfit kidnaps a girl at night, takes her to his home, and dismembers her piece by piece. There's your story, and thus your movie. 42 minutes of pure unadulterated ultraviolence. Just like it's predecessor, the characters in the film (the samurai and the girl) remain nameless with no back story to their character, the only motive presented being that the samurai wants to see her beauty, opting to do so in the way he finds most beautiful.
Flower of Flesh and Blood is also the movie which warrants a lot of the hatred and repulsion of the series. And one look at any screenshot from the movie is enough to understand. The film is as I said in the last paragraph, pure violence. The violence while over the top (I doubt anybody could survive having both arms chopped off considering the amount of blood that would produce) is pure brutality. This enhanced by the film relying on close up POV shots to hide effects and to show of the gore some more. Hell, the film is so violent that when Unearthed Films (the company that released the Guinea Pig series on DVD in America) released the film, they had to make an alternate cover, because the one they wanted to use would not have been appropriate for stores to show on their shelves (the image to your right is the gore cover, the one down to your left is the clean cover).
However, this is also an argument that most fans use to say that the film is the purest form of horror. And in all fairness, it's easy to think that. Neither character has no name, and while we know some information about the man, we know virtually nothing about the girl. She's nothing more then a proxy for his search of beauty, and can easily be anybody from anywhere. Coupled with the amount of violence being committed solely on her (although there is a scene with a chicken...), and the fact that it was shot on video, it adds to the affect of making the viewer believe they're watching a genuine snuff film, and thus adds a sense of realism to it. We watch horror movies because they act as shock absorbents for the ugliness of the real world. We can see somebody being killed in a film and sit well knowing that it isn't real, it's just a movie. It's a net that let's us enjoy watching a film in which terrible things happen. But Flower of Flesh and Blood has no net. There's nothing to watch but the violent acts happening to a nameless victim. If you watch something like Saw, you know even if taken out of context it's still a movie. If you take Flower out of context, it's easy to understand why people could get upset and believe they're watching a snuff film. But even though it is unapologetic brutal and to a certain degree realistic, it's still nothing more then a movie and make believe, and should be viewed with that in mind.
Regardless of the content and controversy, the tape actually topped the VHS charts in Japan, making it in the top ten of all things. This is no strange feat for a horror film, as they do so almost everywhere. But considering what Flower of Flesh and Blood is, it's a bit surprising when you first hear about it. With the success of the first two films, Guinea Pig chugged along. However, Sai Enterprise which originally produced the films sold the rights over to the juggernaut of sleaze home video Japanese Home Video (JHV), which took over the production duties in 1988. Whether due to the new distributors, or the controversy going on at the time, the films started to change their content. The violence was still a major part of the films, but the style per say changed. They went from the brutal pseudo snuff movies, into different genres with each new entry, as well as boasting actual stories. But this change also brought upon a lot of the craziness of the later films.
Certainly one of the weirder entries in the series, Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies (A.K.A. Za Ginipiggu 3 - Senritsu! Shinanai otoko) marked the beginning change in the series. Released in 1986 and directed by Masayuki Kazumi, He Never Dies kept the violence of the last two films, but combined it with comedy strange enough. And boy, is it hilariously amazing.
Considering I already reviewed the film fairly in depth, I won't linger too long on it. The story is about an office worker named Hideshi, who in trying to kill himself finds out that he can not die no matter what happens to him. Whether it be the loss of a hand, having a protractor and axe stuck in his head, having his entrails completely pulled from his body, or even being decapitated, he won't die. The film is like Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh and Blood in the sense that it's all about gory violence. But where those two films used violence to paint a very harsh and ugly picture, He Never Dies uses it
for comedic effect. The best way to describe the movie, is if Tom and Jerry became humans, were immortal, and had a contest to see who could do more damage to each other. The film is completely weird and strange, but it pulls it off with quite a bit of charm, making it one of the funniest movies you can probably see.
But even with the weirdness, the movie did pretty well enough to garner a fourth installment. But this is when things get a little tricky. The fourth film in the series is widely said and accepted as Mermaid In A Manhole. However, a Sai VHS tape which numbered the entries state that Devil Woman Doctor is the fourth entry. This has caused a lot of confusion on which one comes next. Even with Sai's tape of Doctor bearing the number four, many people still consider Mermaid number four. This presents a bit of a dilemma since I'm talking about the films in order of how they were released. So to make things a bit easier, I'll go in order of the widely accepted order.
Guinea Pig 4: Mermaid In A Manhole (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu - Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo) marked the return of Hideshi Hino to the series. The film was released in 1988, and like the others, was shot on video. Like Flower of Flesh and Blood, Mermaid is based upon one of Hino's manga works. It's willing to note that while the manga version of Flower of Flesh and Blood is available as an extra on the Unearthed DVD release of it, the manga for Mermaid In A Manhole seems to be lost in time, or on the internet, as I can't seem to find anything from it. Not the magazine it appeared in, not a screencap of a page, nothing. But, I digress.
The story is about an artist who returns to an old river that has been turned into a sewer. While walking around, he not only finds his dead cat, but a mermaid who use to sing to him when he was a child. However she's picked up a disease from the sewer, and is beginning to rot away. He takes her home, and in between taking care of her and her turning to mush, he paints her, using the pus from her wounds...eww.
This was the first film in the series to slightly turn away from gore. Don't get me wrong, it's plenty filled with gore, but not in the sense that the first three films featured it. They featured it in blood and gruesome acts of violence, Mermaid In A Manhole features it in sores, infection, and paint. In fact, there's actually a pretty good scene that involves some worms. And obviously like He Never Dies, this one isn't meant to be taken seriously and as anything realistic. The story, while flawed is fairly entertaining, enough to keep you watching throughout the run time. But it does have it's faults. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and is indeed one of the grosser entries in the series, making it hard to watch at certain points. Not because of blood and guts, but because of have gross and skin crawling some of the scenes are.
In 1988, another Guinea Pig installment was released. At this point, the series was fully underway it's change in content, and for the most part, it was working. But the second release of 1988 would be the first film in which the cracks were starting to show, and that the series was starting to go downhill.
Known in the west as Guinea Pig 5: Android of Notre Dame, and known in Japan as Za Ginnipiggu 5 - Notorudamu no Andoroido, the film would become the black sheep of the series for reasons which we shall get to shortly. Directed by Kazuhito Kuramoto, the film has also caused a bit of confusion on placement within the series. This time because the title screen actually says "The Guinea Pig 2." Why this is I don't really know, and I haven't really read or seen any information which explains it. The only guess is maybe when JHV got a hold of the series, they figured they'd call this one number two, but who knows in all reality.
At this point in the series, the films were getting more fantasy based. And Android is that, pure fantasy with a dash of confusion. So bare with me hear as I explain the plot. The plot is about a midget scientist (yes, I said midget) named Karazawa. Karazawa's sister is ill and dying, and like any good brother, he doesn't want her to die. So with him being a scientist and all, he begins to conduct experiments on frogs and mice in an attempt to find a cure for his sister's illness. But his experiments in the end turn out to not reveal anything about possibly healing her. Karazawa decides that he needs to practice on something to help simulate what he'll be dealing with with his sister. In other words, he needs a human corpse.
Eventually, the good scientist gets his hands on a corpse who a man named Kato sells to him. However as the story progresses, Kato begins to force money from Karazawa for different things he may need for his experiment, threatening to unleash a virus on his computer if he doesn't pay up. Karazawa then brings him into his laboratory, and turns Kato into his new guinea pig to experiment on. Did you understand all of that? If not you're not alone. For even if I explained the whole movie and not give a somewhat simple synopsis, you'd still be confused.
I said at the start of this evaluation that Android of Notre Dame is the black sheep of the family of Guinea Pig movies. And it isn't hard to see why. It's story is terrible, to the point to where you could consider it unbearable. Mermaid In A Manhole and He Never Dies feature lackluster plots as well, but they are in the end entertaining. Android of Note Dame is not entertaining one bit. It's plot is convoluted and too one-dimensional. The only somewhat entertaining things about it is that there's a character that resembles Pinheard from the Hellraiser series, and that it stars Tomorowo Taguchi, star of the masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man. But not even they save the film. Combined with very bad acting and bad gore, it is as most fans will assure you, the worst entry in the series.
Combined with all of the controversy the series was now stirring up in 1990, as well as the lackluster Android of Notre Dame, it should come as no real surprise that the final film was released in 1990. At this point, we had two hardcore splatter films, a splatter comedy, a somewhat gory arthouse film, and a science fiction/fantasy film. The franchise was all over the map now, which makes one think what the final film in the series is. Well...it's something.
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu - Peter no Akuma no Join-san) ranks up there as one of the oddest movies out there. Directed by Hajime Tabe and starring Japan's most famous transvestite Peter (whose real name is Shinnosuke Ikehata), Devil Woman Doctor would be the last entry in the series. And to be honest, it's probably a good thing.
The story of the movie is really, really bizarre as it jumps all over the place. It's divided into segments that only last a couple of minutes, similar to the Ju-On series. But where as Ju-On does this to weave the story together, Devil Woman Doctor just goes all over the damn place with them. Because of the constant changing, it makes it a hard movie to get into. The main plot of the movie is that the good doctor (played by Peter) helps people with strange cases. These range from a family whose heads explode when they're upset, to a girl with a serious heart condition which could make her heart explode if she receives a small shock. She/he being the good doctor she/he is treats them in only a way you could see in the Guinea Pig series. And it just goes on, and on, and on, and bloody goddamn on. I'll just stop there as far as story is concerned.
As far as the gore factor is concerned, DWD brings the goods. The gore starts when the doctor slices open a doll and blood splatters out, and the gore scenes just get wackier and wackier. So for the gorehounds out there, you'll get your fill. But that's all you'll get from this movie.
Devil Woman Doctor is a disappointment. The main reason for this is because through all of the gore, it's nothing more then camp. It's the one entry in the series that while could gross you out from all of the gore scenes, it should in no way scare you. This is also not helped that it is painfully aware that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Some of the props and effects are done pretty badly in a couple of scenes, which definitely adds to the wacky feel of the film. And while the movie oozes crazy disappointment, it does also ooze fun. You can tell that the crew had fun making the film, and it shows in spades.
And the film is fun and entertaining. It's the type of movie you pop into the DVD or VHS player if you want a night of fun, violent, campiness. So we should commend the crew and filmmakers for making an enjoyable movie. But the badness of the film is still though. You wind up wishing that it was scary and disgusting like He Never Dies. But in the end it isn't. It's the guilty pleasure of the group and is in no way shape or form the worst of the bunch. It just isn't the best.
The series was finally put to rest in 1991. Having lasted six years, and thus six films, Guinea Pig cemented itself in Japan as a series of extremes. It was extreme in it's violence, in it's comedy, and in it's weirdness. Through all of this, it become a hit series that people either enjoyed or despised. The series was so popular that it actually was given a best of, which showed of some of the best (and thus violent) moments of the entire series.
So it's safe to say that even through all of the hatred, it was well liked. However, as time and history will tell you, Guinea Pig not only cemented it's legacy as one of Japan's best, most known, and violent series, it is also arguably it's most controversial series. And it's time we gave that controversy a look see.
For a while, the controversy the series had was because of Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh Blood. The controversy stemming from the graphic content of the films, and how they were being mistaken for actual snuff movies (a controversy that the Cinema Snob parodies very greatly in his review of Devil's Experiment). This being the type of controversy any graphicly violent film could receive. However, the floodgates opened with one series of negativity in Japan's history, which all was caused by one man.
On July 23rd, 1989, Japanese police arrested 27 year old Tsutomu Miyazaki for attempting to insert a camera's zoom lens into the vagina of a grade-school aged girl. Upon arrest, the police conducted a search of his home, in which they discovered a video collection of 5,763 video tapes, as well as video and pictures of four girls who had been brutally murdered. With the video and pictures, the police were able to convict as being the man who had perpetrated the murders, and Miyazaki was soon dubbed "The Otaku Murderer."
One of the tapes the police found within Miyazaki's collection was Mermaid In A Manhole, and during his trial, it was speculated that he copied the murder from Flower of Flesh and Blood on one of his victims. Because of the tape and accusation of copying one of the films, the series became infamous almost immediately. In the end, it was proven that Miyazaki didn't copy Flower of Flesh and Blood, it was all the media playing it up. He was executed in 2008.
While Miyazaki helped spark the international infamy of the films, their true rise to infamy came in 1991. This time, it wasn't because of a murder, but because of a party. It was at this party where Charlie Sheen got his hands on, and watched both Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh and Blood. Fully convinced that what he had seen were actual snuff films, Sheen contacted the MMPA. The MMPA contacted the FBI when they were informed that the movies we're already being looked into both by them, and the Japanese government.
Due to both the backlash from the Miyazaki murders, and the new found investigation by the FBI and Japanese government, the filmmakers were brought into court to prove that they movies were just that, movies, works of fiction. Because of this, they opted to release a making of tape that showed how they made the effects from Devil's Experiment through He Never Dies. The making of is a very good feature, and provides a lot of details on how the effects were made and pulled off. It's essentially become every gorehounds go to guide for making effects, and I consider it my personal video bible for making gore effects.
However, the film's fate of being infamous was already sealed. Even today, they're have been cases reported of people being jailed for trying to even import the films. It is also been rumored that because of all the controversy, Japan has made it illegal to make any film with Guinea Pig in the title. Whether that is true or not nobody knows, but considering there hasn't been any Japanese film that even has Guinea Pig in it's title, even if it isn't a horror film, it's quite the coincidence. In fact, by the end of the 1990's Japanese splatter films disappeared for the most part with only a couple popping up ever now and then. Thus being replaced with more atmospheric films about the supernatural such as Ringu, Kairo, Ju-On, and so on. While this wasn't done on purpose, it does make you wonder if Japan is trying to say "Yeah, the 1980's and early 1990's didn't happen as far as horror movies are concerned."
Regardless of the controversy, Guinea Pig pioneered the way for all Japanese splatter films that followed. Most films within the genre that followed the initial releases of the first two installments borrowed and used it's features: shot on video or edited to have that look/feel, extreme acts of violence towards women, weird plots or no plot points, and an undertone of sex. There was originality with films such as both the Evil Dead Trap and Entrails Of A series, but for the most part, most splatter films from Japan followed Guinea Pig's formula. Some have even surpassed the ultraviolence of Flower of Flesh and Blood, the most known and notorious being Niku Daruma (A.K.A Tumbling Doll of Flesh, A.K.A. Psycho: The Snuff Reels).
Some films have also been touted as being part of the actual series. The most known being Lucky Sky Diamond (1990). The movie is about a doctor and his female assistant who have kidnapped a young woman, and perform experiments upon her brain, with the film ending in a typical bloody chase. While the film is very reminiscent of the Guinea Pig films, it isn't part of the series, it highly likely being type casted into the series due to it's content and story. It was however directed by the prolific anime screenwriter Izo Hasshimoto, who penned the triumphant masterpiece Akira, and later went on to direct Evil Dead Trap 2. As a whole, the film as it's initials will inform you is like an acid trip. The story is a bit confusing (helped in no part by no known subs of the film), and the acting isn't all that great. What Lucky Sky Diamond does have going for it though is the atmosphere of hallucinatory grotesquerie which works brilliantly here.The film is decent enough, and is worth checking out since it is easily available on Youtube.
Aside from inspiring films within it's own country, the series has obviously had an international impact on horror as a whole. While it is constantly being disputed what film can hold the title of the first gore/splatter film, you can argue that Guinea Pig kick started the whole "torture porn" genre, and paved the way for films like Saw, Hostel, and The Human Centipede. The impact these simple cheap films had on the cinema world can clearly be heard and seen with enough looking, even to the point that this humble reviewer is (along with a remake of another Japanese film) working on making his own entry in the series.
All six film's have now been put onto DVD, cleaned up to be in HD. Now in HD, the series no longer holds it's evil feel that it held tightly back in the day of third generation bootleg tapes. You can easily see every bit of latex and effects when watching them. And while this does lessen the effect that they hold, they still hold up as great pieces of horror and special effects as a whole. And for those who want to experience the original feel of the films, but don't have the money to spend on an actual tape, Unearthed Films' DVD of Flower of Flesh and Blood (which is also packaged with the making of documentary) has a very fun Easter egg which lets you watch the film in "Snuff Vision," an old edited and dubbed source of the movie. To activate the Easter egg, pick Flower of Flesh and Blood on the main menu. Once you do so, go over to the leaf on the Flower menu and press down. This will cause a splatter of blood to appear. Hit enter, and you'll be watching the film in "Snuff Vision."
The Guinea Pig series originally started as a way to showcase how far Japanese special effects could go, and to try and bring the Japanese horror genre back to life. And they did just that, and ended up impacting the whole genre, and genres to come. But Guinea Pig also did something that some of the greatest movies make us the viewers do: it made us think. It presents us with questions about how far are we willing to our line go, how long can we withstand before our personal limits kick in, and what is and isn't acceptable within a film as yourself, and as a member of society?
As I noted when talking about Flower of Flesh and Blood, the films act almost as a way to show us the nastiest side of life, and of us being human beings. It shows us how degraded and deviant a person can be, and much pain a single person can withstand before giving in. The first two films showcase this to perfect, letting us glimpse into a window of real life that some of us can have never thought about. The latter films still showcase the same message, but move into more of a fantasy world, showing us how far somebody's imagination can go. By the time you watch all six films in a row, you'll have been dragged through the dirt lack a sack of potatoes, being dirtied and beaten up. Your mind will have been assaulted with images of a grim, grisly, and beyond nihilistic world.
But that's the beauty within the films. Even though we watch some of the most horrendous acts one can commit, we're doing so in the format of a movie. When the movie ends, and the credits roll, you come out of the world of film, in this, a grim world of film. But you can turn off the DVD or VHS player knowing that what you just watched was nothing more then fiction, and you can happily know that while it does show off the ugliest side of the human race, that you yourself are not a part of it.
In a documentary about The Last House on the Left, Wes Craven says that films at times need to blink to let the viewer know it's okay. He follows that up by saying Last House does not blink one bit, and that is why it has stood in the test of time. The Guinea Pig series work in the same way. They force you the viewer to sit and watch the film no matter how disgusted you are. But you carry on watching, not blinking. Last House showed that at the time of it's release how violence in film can be realistic in the sense of leaving the viewer with the thought of "I do not want to commit violence after watching that." Guinea Pig does the exact same thing while swimming in a sea of movies that are also totally about violence. It reassures us that we could never, and hopefully never do anything depicted within the movies. Whether it be experiment on corpses, painting with bodily fluids, harming one's self brutally, and obvious commit heinous acts of violence, we are at the end of the credits sure that we could never do that. And it pulls this off by being unapologeticly brutal and realistic.
That is the beauty of the Guinea Pig series. This is why they continue to be enjoyed and somewhat well received. This is the blossomed flower within the J-Horror genre.
*Images courtesy of Snowblood Apple , Guinea Pig Films, Unearthed Films, The Movies Made Me Do It, Mondo-Digital, and Google*
*Information on the films provided by:
*AUTHORS NOTE: I recently read an interview with Hideshi Hino, which confirms that Devil Woman Doctor is indeed the fourth entry in the series.*
Guinea Pig started in a bit of transition period in the realm of Japanese horror. For many years, J-Horror consisted mostly of stories relating to old folktales, and kaidan, a term used to describe ghost and horror stories, and comes from the Edo period. These type of films dominated the horror market (Japan wise) in the 1960's, and for part of the 1970's, with some of those films being considered masterpieces of the genre, and of Japanese cinema as a whole. It was during this transition period when the availability of home video was getting huge, and along with it the Pinku (the Japanese term for softcore porn films) industry slowly started to thrive again. And with the development of the home video business, many filmmakers soon learned that you could make a movie, put straight onto video, and release it without a theatrical release. This process known as Direct-To-Video and in Japan as coined by Toei, V-Cinema became used for films that didn't have the comeuppance to make it in the theaters, or were to graphic to be in a theater.
So with these advances, Japanese horror in the 1980's slowly started to morph from ghost tales into more realistic and overseas forms of horror. And with that, splatter films started to become pretty big. These films weren't necessarily slashers, but did feature a lot of gore. And it was these films that became Japan's calling card for quite a while. To the point to where the Japanese back in the 80's and 90's had the splatter gore movie down to a scientific formula. And this melting part was about to produce it's first big success.
Satoru Ogura was your typical horror fanboy. Ogura-san had seemingly begun to lost faith within his beloved genre of films. So he decided to do what most horror fanboys do in this situation, make a movie to combat the loss of faith and get people talking about horror again. And that's what Ogura did. But like many of us fanboys, he optioned to make something very graphic and gruesome. Pseudo snuff movies if you will. So in 1985, after teaming up with horror manga writer and artist Hideshi Hino, Ogura released his beast onto the world. He released the first Guinea Pig movie.
Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (or just simply Guinea Pig or Devil's Experiment) was released in 1985. Directed by Ogura-san himself, and shot entirely on video, Devil's Experiment tells the tale...scratch that, there is no tale. Devil's Experiment has no story, it has nothing but the bare bones of one. And those bones aren't in the best of shape and are falling apart. The film is about a woman who is kidnapped by three men. They tie her up, and proceed to torture her. The end. That's what the movie is, three men torturing a woman. The only scrap of story is that the film progresses in it's degrees of torture. Starting with simple verbal harassment and kicking and slapping, the film slowly chugs along going from burning, pelting of maggots and meat, noise torture, spinning in a chair, and finally the coup de grâce finale, involving possibly the most repellent act of violence towards a certain facial body part ever on film.
While schoolgirls where getting devirginized via tentacles, and Pinku girls were being being subjected to quite the bit of depravity, Devil's Experiment was horrifying audiences. Whether it be through it's sheer violence, which helped by the fact that our characters remain nameless throughout the film, with no motive ever being given, the movie was terrifying people. And even with that terror, the extreme content helped make the film become a big hit, even if it was only being sold in underground porno shops. The film's impact, even though in HD still can be felt today. Movies may have come along which out gore it, but the uneasy feeling that Devil's Experiment has can't be reproduced. You'll sit disgusted as you watch the victim being pelted with meat, and I'm sure even the most hardened gore hound may find himself squirming during the end sequence. Regardless of how the public felt, Ogura had himself a cult underground hit, which us sick fuckers ate up.
But this is a series, and thus a second film is inevitable. Supposedly according many a rumor, back in the early eighties, a manga artist received quite the parcel. The supposed parcel contained an 8mm film, a 19 page letter, and several photographs which showed and explained the torture, dismemberment, and eventual murder of a girl. This parcel was given to horror manga artists, and Ogura pal Hideshi Hino. And while it is unknown if Hino actually received said package, he eventually came up with the idea that would become the manga that would become Guinea Pig's, and Japan's gore scene calling card.
Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu 2 - Chiniku no Hana) is the most infamous of the series, and can be considered one of the most infamous movies of all of Japan's cinematic history. Released in 1985, and directed by Hideshi Hino, Flower is considered by many to be one of the most gruesome and most atrocious movies ever made. It was this pedigree that originally sparked my interest in the films, a statement that isn't uncommon as most people hear about the series through this entry in the series. And it's also the entry which started all the controversy, but more on that later.
Whereas Devil's Experiment had somewhat of a story (simple as it was), Flower of Flesh Blood features virtually a story that can be summed up in a single sentence as far as a synopsis goes. A man dressed up in a samurai outfit kidnaps a girl at night, takes her to his home, and dismembers her piece by piece. There's your story, and thus your movie. 42 minutes of pure unadulterated ultraviolence. Just like it's predecessor, the characters in the film (the samurai and the girl) remain nameless with no back story to their character, the only motive presented being that the samurai wants to see her beauty, opting to do so in the way he finds most beautiful.
Flower of Flesh and Blood is also the movie which warrants a lot of the hatred and repulsion of the series. And one look at any screenshot from the movie is enough to understand. The film is as I said in the last paragraph, pure violence. The violence while over the top (I doubt anybody could survive having both arms chopped off considering the amount of blood that would produce) is pure brutality. This enhanced by the film relying on close up POV shots to hide effects and to show of the gore some more. Hell, the film is so violent that when Unearthed Films (the company that released the Guinea Pig series on DVD in America) released the film, they had to make an alternate cover, because the one they wanted to use would not have been appropriate for stores to show on their shelves (the image to your right is the gore cover, the one down to your left is the clean cover).
However, this is also an argument that most fans use to say that the film is the purest form of horror. And in all fairness, it's easy to think that. Neither character has no name, and while we know some information about the man, we know virtually nothing about the girl. She's nothing more then a proxy for his search of beauty, and can easily be anybody from anywhere. Coupled with the amount of violence being committed solely on her (although there is a scene with a chicken...), and the fact that it was shot on video, it adds to the affect of making the viewer believe they're watching a genuine snuff film, and thus adds a sense of realism to it. We watch horror movies because they act as shock absorbents for the ugliness of the real world. We can see somebody being killed in a film and sit well knowing that it isn't real, it's just a movie. It's a net that let's us enjoy watching a film in which terrible things happen. But Flower of Flesh and Blood has no net. There's nothing to watch but the violent acts happening to a nameless victim. If you watch something like Saw, you know even if taken out of context it's still a movie. If you take Flower out of context, it's easy to understand why people could get upset and believe they're watching a snuff film. But even though it is unapologetic brutal and to a certain degree realistic, it's still nothing more then a movie and make believe, and should be viewed with that in mind.
Certainly one of the weirder entries in the series, Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies (A.K.A. Za Ginipiggu 3 - Senritsu! Shinanai otoko) marked the beginning change in the series. Released in 1986 and directed by Masayuki Kazumi, He Never Dies kept the violence of the last two films, but combined it with comedy strange enough. And boy, is it hilariously amazing.
Considering I already reviewed the film fairly in depth, I won't linger too long on it. The story is about an office worker named Hideshi, who in trying to kill himself finds out that he can not die no matter what happens to him. Whether it be the loss of a hand, having a protractor and axe stuck in his head, having his entrails completely pulled from his body, or even being decapitated, he won't die. The film is like Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh and Blood in the sense that it's all about gory violence. But where those two films used violence to paint a very harsh and ugly picture, He Never Dies uses itfor comedic effect. The best way to describe the movie, is if Tom and Jerry became humans, were immortal, and had a contest to see who could do more damage to each other. The film is completely weird and strange, but it pulls it off with quite a bit of charm, making it one of the funniest movies you can probably see.
Guinea Pig 4: Mermaid In A Manhole (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu - Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo) marked the return of Hideshi Hino to the series. The film was released in 1988, and like the others, was shot on video. Like Flower of Flesh and Blood, Mermaid is based upon one of Hino's manga works. It's willing to note that while the manga version of Flower of Flesh and Blood is available as an extra on the Unearthed DVD release of it, the manga for Mermaid In A Manhole seems to be lost in time, or on the internet, as I can't seem to find anything from it. Not the magazine it appeared in, not a screencap of a page, nothing. But, I digress.
The story is about an artist who returns to an old river that has been turned into a sewer. While walking around, he not only finds his dead cat, but a mermaid who use to sing to him when he was a child. However she's picked up a disease from the sewer, and is beginning to rot away. He takes her home, and in between taking care of her and her turning to mush, he paints her, using the pus from her wounds...eww.
This was the first film in the series to slightly turn away from gore. Don't get me wrong, it's plenty filled with gore, but not in the sense that the first three films featured it. They featured it in blood and gruesome acts of violence, Mermaid In A Manhole features it in sores, infection, and paint. In fact, there's actually a pretty good scene that involves some worms. And obviously like He Never Dies, this one isn't meant to be taken seriously and as anything realistic. The story, while flawed is fairly entertaining, enough to keep you watching throughout the run time. But it does have it's faults. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and is indeed one of the grosser entries in the series, making it hard to watch at certain points. Not because of blood and guts, but because of have gross and skin crawling some of the scenes are.
But regardless of that, it's still a pretty good flick and is considered to be one of the big three of the series (I don't think I need to say what the other two are now do I?). However like the first two installment, Mermaid In A Manhole would become the subject of controversy. But this time, it wouldn't necessarily be for content, but for where it was discovered.
In 1988, another Guinea Pig installment was released. At this point, the series was fully underway it's change in content, and for the most part, it was working. But the second release of 1988 would be the first film in which the cracks were starting to show, and that the series was starting to go downhill.
Known in the west as Guinea Pig 5: Android of Notre Dame, and known in Japan as Za Ginnipiggu 5 - Notorudamu no Andoroido, the film would become the black sheep of the series for reasons which we shall get to shortly. Directed by Kazuhito Kuramoto, the film has also caused a bit of confusion on placement within the series. This time because the title screen actually says "The Guinea Pig 2." Why this is I don't really know, and I haven't really read or seen any information which explains it. The only guess is maybe when JHV got a hold of the series, they figured they'd call this one number two, but who knows in all reality.
At this point in the series, the films were getting more fantasy based. And Android is that, pure fantasy with a dash of confusion. So bare with me hear as I explain the plot. The plot is about a midget scientist (yes, I said midget) named Karazawa. Karazawa's sister is ill and dying, and like any good brother, he doesn't want her to die. So with him being a scientist and all, he begins to conduct experiments on frogs and mice in an attempt to find a cure for his sister's illness. But his experiments in the end turn out to not reveal anything about possibly healing her. Karazawa decides that he needs to practice on something to help simulate what he'll be dealing with with his sister. In other words, he needs a human corpse.
Eventually, the good scientist gets his hands on a corpse who a man named Kato sells to him. However as the story progresses, Kato begins to force money from Karazawa for different things he may need for his experiment, threatening to unleash a virus on his computer if he doesn't pay up. Karazawa then brings him into his laboratory, and turns Kato into his new guinea pig to experiment on. Did you understand all of that? If not you're not alone. For even if I explained the whole movie and not give a somewhat simple synopsis, you'd still be confused.
I said at the start of this evaluation that Android of Notre Dame is the black sheep of the family of Guinea Pig movies. And it isn't hard to see why. It's story is terrible, to the point to where you could consider it unbearable. Mermaid In A Manhole and He Never Dies feature lackluster plots as well, but they are in the end entertaining. Android of Note Dame is not entertaining one bit. It's plot is convoluted and too one-dimensional. The only somewhat entertaining things about it is that there's a character that resembles Pinheard from the Hellraiser series, and that it stars Tomorowo Taguchi, star of the masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man. But not even they save the film. Combined with very bad acting and bad gore, it is as most fans will assure you, the worst entry in the series.
Combined with all of the controversy the series was now stirring up in 1990, as well as the lackluster Android of Notre Dame, it should come as no real surprise that the final film was released in 1990. At this point, we had two hardcore splatter films, a splatter comedy, a somewhat gory arthouse film, and a science fiction/fantasy film. The franchise was all over the map now, which makes one think what the final film in the series is. Well...it's something.
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor (A.K.A. Za Ginnipiggu - Peter no Akuma no Join-san) ranks up there as one of the oddest movies out there. Directed by Hajime Tabe and starring Japan's most famous transvestite Peter (whose real name is Shinnosuke Ikehata), Devil Woman Doctor would be the last entry in the series. And to be honest, it's probably a good thing.
The story of the movie is really, really bizarre as it jumps all over the place. It's divided into segments that only last a couple of minutes, similar to the Ju-On series. But where as Ju-On does this to weave the story together, Devil Woman Doctor just goes all over the damn place with them. Because of the constant changing, it makes it a hard movie to get into. The main plot of the movie is that the good doctor (played by Peter) helps people with strange cases. These range from a family whose heads explode when they're upset, to a girl with a serious heart condition which could make her heart explode if she receives a small shock. She/he being the good doctor she/he is treats them in only a way you could see in the Guinea Pig series. And it just goes on, and on, and on, and bloody goddamn on. I'll just stop there as far as story is concerned.
As far as the gore factor is concerned, DWD brings the goods. The gore starts when the doctor slices open a doll and blood splatters out, and the gore scenes just get wackier and wackier. So for the gorehounds out there, you'll get your fill. But that's all you'll get from this movie.
Devil Woman Doctor is a disappointment. The main reason for this is because through all of the gore, it's nothing more then camp. It's the one entry in the series that while could gross you out from all of the gore scenes, it should in no way scare you. This is also not helped that it is painfully aware that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Some of the props and effects are done pretty badly in a couple of scenes, which definitely adds to the wacky feel of the film. And while the movie oozes crazy disappointment, it does also ooze fun. You can tell that the crew had fun making the film, and it shows in spades.
The series was finally put to rest in 1991. Having lasted six years, and thus six films, Guinea Pig cemented itself in Japan as a series of extremes. It was extreme in it's violence, in it's comedy, and in it's weirdness. Through all of this, it become a hit series that people either enjoyed or despised. The series was so popular that it actually was given a best of, which showed of some of the best (and thus violent) moments of the entire series.
For a while, the controversy the series had was because of Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh Blood. The controversy stemming from the graphic content of the films, and how they were being mistaken for actual snuff movies (a controversy that the Cinema Snob parodies very greatly in his review of Devil's Experiment). This being the type of controversy any graphicly violent film could receive. However, the floodgates opened with one series of negativity in Japan's history, which all was caused by one man.
On July 23rd, 1989, Japanese police arrested 27 year old Tsutomu Miyazaki for attempting to insert a camera's zoom lens into the vagina of a grade-school aged girl. Upon arrest, the police conducted a search of his home, in which they discovered a video collection of 5,763 video tapes, as well as video and pictures of four girls who had been brutally murdered. With the video and pictures, the police were able to convict as being the man who had perpetrated the murders, and Miyazaki was soon dubbed "The Otaku Murderer."
One of the tapes the police found within Miyazaki's collection was Mermaid In A Manhole, and during his trial, it was speculated that he copied the murder from Flower of Flesh and Blood on one of his victims. Because of the tape and accusation of copying one of the films, the series became infamous almost immediately. In the end, it was proven that Miyazaki didn't copy Flower of Flesh and Blood, it was all the media playing it up. He was executed in 2008.
While Miyazaki helped spark the international infamy of the films, their true rise to infamy came in 1991. This time, it wasn't because of a murder, but because of a party. It was at this party where Charlie Sheen got his hands on, and watched both Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh and Blood. Fully convinced that what he had seen were actual snuff films, Sheen contacted the MMPA. The MMPA contacted the FBI when they were informed that the movies we're already being looked into both by them, and the Japanese government.
Due to both the backlash from the Miyazaki murders, and the new found investigation by the FBI and Japanese government, the filmmakers were brought into court to prove that they movies were just that, movies, works of fiction. Because of this, they opted to release a making of tape that showed how they made the effects from Devil's Experiment through He Never Dies. The making of is a very good feature, and provides a lot of details on how the effects were made and pulled off. It's essentially become every gorehounds go to guide for making effects, and I consider it my personal video bible for making gore effects.
However, the film's fate of being infamous was already sealed. Even today, they're have been cases reported of people being jailed for trying to even import the films. It is also been rumored that because of all the controversy, Japan has made it illegal to make any film with Guinea Pig in the title. Whether that is true or not nobody knows, but considering there hasn't been any Japanese film that even has Guinea Pig in it's title, even if it isn't a horror film, it's quite the coincidence. In fact, by the end of the 1990's Japanese splatter films disappeared for the most part with only a couple popping up ever now and then. Thus being replaced with more atmospheric films about the supernatural such as Ringu, Kairo, Ju-On, and so on. While this wasn't done on purpose, it does make you wonder if Japan is trying to say "Yeah, the 1980's and early 1990's didn't happen as far as horror movies are concerned."
Regardless of the controversy, Guinea Pig pioneered the way for all Japanese splatter films that followed. Most films within the genre that followed the initial releases of the first two installments borrowed and used it's features: shot on video or edited to have that look/feel, extreme acts of violence towards women, weird plots or no plot points, and an undertone of sex. There was originality with films such as both the Evil Dead Trap and Entrails Of A series, but for the most part, most splatter films from Japan followed Guinea Pig's formula. Some have even surpassed the ultraviolence of Flower of Flesh and Blood, the most known and notorious being Niku Daruma (A.K.A Tumbling Doll of Flesh, A.K.A. Psycho: The Snuff Reels).
Some films have also been touted as being part of the actual series. The most known being Lucky Sky Diamond (1990). The movie is about a doctor and his female assistant who have kidnapped a young woman, and perform experiments upon her brain, with the film ending in a typical bloody chase. While the film is very reminiscent of the Guinea Pig films, it isn't part of the series, it highly likely being type casted into the series due to it's content and story. It was however directed by the prolific anime screenwriter Izo Hasshimoto, who penned the triumphant masterpiece Akira, and later went on to direct Evil Dead Trap 2. As a whole, the film as it's initials will inform you is like an acid trip. The story is a bit confusing (helped in no part by no known subs of the film), and the acting isn't all that great. What Lucky Sky Diamond does have going for it though is the atmosphere of hallucinatory grotesquerie which works brilliantly here.The film is decent enough, and is worth checking out since it is easily available on Youtube.Aside from inspiring films within it's own country, the series has obviously had an international impact on horror as a whole. While it is constantly being disputed what film can hold the title of the first gore/splatter film, you can argue that Guinea Pig kick started the whole "torture porn" genre, and paved the way for films like Saw, Hostel, and The Human Centipede. The impact these simple cheap films had on the cinema world can clearly be heard and seen with enough looking, even to the point that this humble reviewer is (along with a remake of another Japanese film) working on making his own entry in the series.
All six film's have now been put onto DVD, cleaned up to be in HD. Now in HD, the series no longer holds it's evil feel that it held tightly back in the day of third generation bootleg tapes. You can easily see every bit of latex and effects when watching them. And while this does lessen the effect that they hold, they still hold up as great pieces of horror and special effects as a whole. And for those who want to experience the original feel of the films, but don't have the money to spend on an actual tape, Unearthed Films' DVD of Flower of Flesh and Blood (which is also packaged with the making of documentary) has a very fun Easter egg which lets you watch the film in "Snuff Vision," an old edited and dubbed source of the movie. To activate the Easter egg, pick Flower of Flesh and Blood on the main menu. Once you do so, go over to the leaf on the Flower menu and press down. This will cause a splatter of blood to appear. Hit enter, and you'll be watching the film in "Snuff Vision."
The Guinea Pig series originally started as a way to showcase how far Japanese special effects could go, and to try and bring the Japanese horror genre back to life. And they did just that, and ended up impacting the whole genre, and genres to come. But Guinea Pig also did something that some of the greatest movies make us the viewers do: it made us think. It presents us with questions about how far are we willing to our line go, how long can we withstand before our personal limits kick in, and what is and isn't acceptable within a film as yourself, and as a member of society?
As I noted when talking about Flower of Flesh and Blood, the films act almost as a way to show us the nastiest side of life, and of us being human beings. It shows us how degraded and deviant a person can be, and much pain a single person can withstand before giving in. The first two films showcase this to perfect, letting us glimpse into a window of real life that some of us can have never thought about. The latter films still showcase the same message, but move into more of a fantasy world, showing us how far somebody's imagination can go. By the time you watch all six films in a row, you'll have been dragged through the dirt lack a sack of potatoes, being dirtied and beaten up. Your mind will have been assaulted with images of a grim, grisly, and beyond nihilistic world.
But that's the beauty within the films. Even though we watch some of the most horrendous acts one can commit, we're doing so in the format of a movie. When the movie ends, and the credits roll, you come out of the world of film, in this, a grim world of film. But you can turn off the DVD or VHS player knowing that what you just watched was nothing more then fiction, and you can happily know that while it does show off the ugliest side of the human race, that you yourself are not a part of it.
In a documentary about The Last House on the Left, Wes Craven says that films at times need to blink to let the viewer know it's okay. He follows that up by saying Last House does not blink one bit, and that is why it has stood in the test of time. The Guinea Pig series work in the same way. They force you the viewer to sit and watch the film no matter how disgusted you are. But you carry on watching, not blinking. Last House showed that at the time of it's release how violence in film can be realistic in the sense of leaving the viewer with the thought of "I do not want to commit violence after watching that." Guinea Pig does the exact same thing while swimming in a sea of movies that are also totally about violence. It reassures us that we could never, and hopefully never do anything depicted within the movies. Whether it be experiment on corpses, painting with bodily fluids, harming one's self brutally, and obvious commit heinous acts of violence, we are at the end of the credits sure that we could never do that. And it pulls this off by being unapologeticly brutal and realistic.
That is the beauty of the Guinea Pig series. This is why they continue to be enjoyed and somewhat well received. This is the blossomed flower within the J-Horror genre.
*Images courtesy of Snowblood Apple , Guinea Pig Films, Unearthed Films, The Movies Made Me Do It, Mondo-Digital, and Google*
*Information on the films provided by:
- Snowblood Apple
- Mondo-Digital
- Mondo Exploito
- Servered Cinema
- HorrorExtreme
- Wikipedia
- Flowers From Hell by Jim Harper
*AUTHORS NOTE: I recently read an interview with Hideshi Hino, which confirms that Devil Woman Doctor is indeed the fourth entry in the series.*
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