A Ruptured Christmas Special

Well, it’s that time of the year again, a time for peace on earth and good will to all. No doubt you have been bombarded with reviews for an endless stream of Christmas films, and you probably expected me to review some kind of festive feature as part of this special. Well I say bollocks to that. This blog stands as a middle finger to good taste, and an alter at which sickness and gore is worshiped. So I have decided to review a film that goes against all the sickeningly sweet rubbish that gets churned out this time of year. A film that is about as mean spirited, unpleasant and downright nasty as it is possible to be. I am of course referring to Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood.

           

Country of origin- Japan     
Year of release- 1985 
Director- Hideshi Hino
Stars- Hiroshi Tamura, Kirara Yûgao

The film begins with some text explaining that the following film is a reconstruction of a real murder, this is of cause nonsense but it certainly helps give the film a very dark and grimy feel. This is assisted by the shot-on-video cinematography, which makes the whole film feel sleazy and downright disgusting. The film then cuts to a woman getting off a train and beginning to walk home at night. Soon she begins to notice that she is being followed by an unknown figure in a car. Not long after this the car begins to speed up, the woman tries to run away, but the car cuts in front of her, and the driver gets out. As the driver beings chasing the woman, the scene switches to point of view cinematography from the drivers perspective. This is actually pretty alarming, as this scene looks fairly realistic, and you get a strong sense of impending horror. Inevitably the unknown driver catches the woman and uses chloroform to render her unconscious.  

The woman wakes up tied to a bed in a basement, she attempts to call for help but she has been gagged. We then see a tall thin man walk into the room with a samurai helmet on his head and traditional Japanese face paint on. He begins to examine a table covered with blades, saws and chisels. He then opens up a cage in the corner of the room, and pulls out a live chicken. He carries it over to the bed where the woman is tied up, and then chops its head off while telling the woman on the bed that this is to be her fate. Naturally the woman begins to violently struggle, which leads to the samurai injecting her with some kind of drug that will stop her from struggling, but keep her fully conscious. He then begins the agonisingly slow process of gradually dismembering the woman on the bed.                                  

 

This film is without a doubt the most well known and most ‘controversial’ edition in the brilliant Guinea Pig series. It is in fact the film that when viewed by Charlie Sheen made him believe that he had just watched an actual snuff film. But I can imagine that when you have more coke in you than a vending machine a lot of things look a snuff film. The biggest draw this film has is the extreme gore, which is the product of the brilliant Nobuaki Koga who creates squirm inducing scenes that will stay with you for a little while afterwards. Although this film doesn’t really have a story or plot, it is still very engrossing, purely because the film is so well executed and is one of the finest examples of the ‘fake snuff’ subgenera. So I would highly recommend getting the family around this Christmas, and watching what I consider to be the most un-festive film I have ever seen. It may not be for everyone, but I am going to give this one 8/10.