GUINEA PIG ON DVD!!

Well, it's been over a year since Sardu's has been open for business, so I figured I'd start things off anew with a review of the GUINEA PIG boxed set...

For those who are into gore and extreme horror films, this one is kind of notorious. It's a set of Japanese horror films meant to shock and offend. The films had been available on bootleg tapes and the like, but it wasn't until recently that the series was released in a DVD box set by Unearthed Films. Finally, a definitive version! Needless to say, with the reputation these films have, I had to check them out.

My reaction was pretty mixed. So let's take the films on one at a time:

THE DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT- this was the film that started it all. Alternately known as GUINEA PIG 1 and THE DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT. There's not much plot to it. A woman is kidnapped and worked over by a bunch of guys who start out by slapping her go on to removing her fingernails, and it just gets worse from there. In between "sessions" she's hung from a tree in a mesh bag, somewhere near the highway. Rumor has it (or is it just hype?) that there was a time when this film was under investigation for being a snuff film. But it's not. They even made a "MAKING OF" video to prove it wasn't real. For what it is - a shock film - it's effective enough. But don't come looking for this stuff if you want a story. It's just scene after scene of torture. Something to watch with the guys during some binge drinking.

FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD - easily the best title of the bunch - the second film in the series chronologically (the movies aren't in chronological order on the disks), is a variation on DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT. This time a woman is kidnapped by some strange guy who wears a samurai outfit. She wakes up tied to a bed in some kind of basement. Predictable violence ensues, ending in some dismembering with a samurai sword. When I was in college, we'd watch stuff like as kind of an endurance contest (y'know, stuff like FACES OF DEATH), but now it seems like old hat. These first two flicks are made on video and there's a kind of cinema verite feel to them (probably why the snuff film rumors got started). Once again, effective for what it is, but not much in the way of storytelling.

MERMAID IN A MANHOLE- Around this time, the series changed. I guess they realized they were repeating themselves. Unfortunately, the Guinea Pig flicks are better when they avoid actual storylines. Because while this one is probably the best of the more "commercial" GP films (for lack of a better word), it's far inferior to the first two. This is the point where we trade shock for gross-out. And shock seems to be a helluva lot more powerful. In MERMAID, a painter who is going through a dry spell goes down into the sewers where he used to hang out as a child (weird kid!) to be alone and search for inspiration. While down there, he finds a mermaid! She's hurt, so he brings her back to his studio apartment, where she promptly begins to get worse and worse as her body begins to rot away. He tries his best to comfort her, but ends up having an epiphany. Her presence has broken his dry spell! And he finds that his painting is even better when he starts adding the multi-colored pus spewing from her wounds to enliven his pallette! The end, when she dies and the authorities find out what's been going on, is one of the twist endings that you've seen a hundred times. But for a little while, the gross-out elements work, and I've always had a thing for mermaids.

ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME- Another weird one with an actual storyline. This one involves a dwarf scientist who is trying to find a cure for his (normal-sized) sister's illness. We never really find out what her illness is. To find a cure, though, he needs to experiment on human cadavers, so he buys one on the internet. Some sinister guy on the other end laughs when the purchase is made, and emails the dwarf that he can't tell anyone where he got it. We are then treated to some dissection scenes (a throwback to the first two Guinea Pig films) where limbs and eyes are removed for shock effect. The autopsy doesn't really help in the dwarf's research, but he sure seems to have a lot of fun taking that woman's corpse apart. The story then switches to a blackmail scheme as the corpse's seller tells the dwarf that she was a murder victim and seeks to extract some hush money. The little guy then exacts some bloody revenge which includes the blackmailer's head being severed and kept alive (a'la RE-ANIMATOR) and the blackmailer's female assistant/fellow grifter adding to the dwarf's pool of experiment subjects. But where are the androids? There's one point where our vertically-challenged scientist makes some weird comment about how we're all androids wandering about our lives or some shit. And that's as close to an android as we get. No Notre Dame, either. So the title more of less is just someone fucking with us. That said, ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME is okay. At least it's got an evil dwarf in it. It's not great, but it keeps you interested at least.

HE NEVER DIES- Easily the worst movie of the series, and the point where the Guinea Pig flicks change from horror, to outright comedy. A wage-earning loser who gets no respect at work goes home and tries to kill himself. But - surprise! - he can't die! It doesn't matter if he cuts off his hand and then goes on to mutilate himself more, he just keeps living. As he says at one point "I am the Immortal!" He calls a buddy over to see his newfound gifts. This one isn't funny and even though it tries to be gross, just looks stupid.

DEVIL DOCTOR WOMAN- the last of the series, stays in the vain of HE NEVER DIES and goes for complete gross-out comedy. This time an evil woman with crazy hair and a doctor's coat tells us she is the "Devil Doctor Woman" and then goes on to show us various "patients" who she then "cures" mostly by mutilating them in some way that involves lots of gore. This one has a few funny moments and the Devil Woman is suitably wacky. It's nothing great, just scene after scene trying to gross us out (it didn't do much for me), and going for lame jokes in the process. It's better than HE NEVER DIES, but not much.

Also on the box set are a couple of documentataries that show us behind the scenes on these movies. The point of these is to 1) show us that the first two movies were just actors and nobody got hurt, and 2) to show us a "greatest hits" montage of blood and gore scenes. If you've actually watched the movies before going to the greatest hits, then you really don't need to sit through it all again, and the documentaries are pretty much filler.

So that's the GUINEA PIG BOX SET in a nutshell. Is it worth shelling out $50 or whatever to see what all the hubbub is about concerning these movies? Nope. I felt kinda cheated at the end. Gimme American "shock" classics like the original TEXAS CHAINSAW or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT(or even BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, which actually does have some really funny moments) any day of the week. The first two GUINEA PIG movies at least work on a shock level, but the lack of story makes them kind of disposable (how many times can you actually watch them?) and the more "humorous" gross-out movies are pretty forgettable. If you're curious, then by all means rent them. They're crisp and clear on DVD. But don't believe the hype and the rumors. These movies are not the grossest films ever made.

  ¶ 5:19 PM