Customer Reviews

Guinea Pig Flower of Flesh and Blood/Making of Guinea Pig Double Feature

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I think nearly every horror movie fan is aware of the notorious "Guinea Pig" series by now. If you like horror films or gory curiosities and aren't aware of this explosive series of Japanese movies, you ought to rush out right now and see a few of them. Made throughout the 1980s and 1990s, "Guinea Pig" pushes envelopes few people in this country would ever conceive possible. After viewing one of these repugnant films, a natural impulse is one of extreme revulsion. Why would anyone create such soul shattering images? It's important to remember that Japanese audiences possess a different attitude about horror films. As far as I can tell, in Japanese cinema anything and everything is fair game. A typical jaunt through the wilderness of Asian horror cinema (in which Japan plays a significant role) typically reveals graphic scenes of dismemberment, torture, and other no-no nasty behavior that rarely, if ever, appears in American films. Some films containing such stomach churning themes do occasionally rear their heads on this side of the pond, but these films rarely play to a wide audience. In Japan, the "Guinea Pig" franchise was a spectacular hit.

I haven't seen all of the films in this series, but out of the two installments I have watched, "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" easily wins the prize for outright sleaze and nastiness. It's difficult to imagine any film approaching (or descending to) the levels seen in this mind blasting forty-minute movie. Even Pier Paolo Pasolini's sickening homage to the evils of fascism, "Salo," fails to invoke the visceral sensations that "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" wallows in. This movie is a sledgehammer blow to the head and stomach with its unrelenting scenes of carnage and depravity. They ought to sell copies of this wrapped in a barf bag.

Manga artist Hideshi Hino directed this nightmarish look into the activities of a sadistic serial killer. That we know this guy is a serial killer and that he likes to stalk his prey before committing a brutal murder constitutes the plot in its entirety. There simply isn't much more here than a short stalking scene at the beginning of the story followed by a thirty-minute dismemberment filmed in nauseatingly sadistic detail. That's right, folks: "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" exists to show the viewer what it might be like to watch a snuff film.

Forget about character development. Two characters exist in this movie: the poor young woman picked up by the killer, and the killer himself. At least they made the murderer look like a complete psycho, as the guy wears a samurai helmet, a full body leather apron, and some sort of black caps on several of his teeth. This gentleman does not fit the bill of a role model in any way, shape, or form. He's a degenerate who likes to wax philosophic between removing arms and legs, blurting out weird lines about how his next activity will imitate blooming flowers and the like. At the end of the movie, he sings a melancholy song about sending people to the underworld. He also shines a different colored light on his victim at various times, although why he does this makes little sense. The majority of the film takes place in some seedy basement splashed with blood and filled with numerous tools of pain. Then you watch this guy commit his atrocities and that's it. There is nothing more to "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" than close up shots of bloody mayhem.

The DVD contains many interesting extras. There are several trailers from the other installments in the "Guinea Pig" series, one for the zombie film "Junk," several text interviews with director Hideshi Hino, an overview of the controversy involving Charlie Sheen (who supposedly saw this film and believed it was a real snuff film), a behind the scenes look at the special effects involved in the series, and a reproduction of a manga comic book with loose ties to the film written and illustrated by Hino. The documentary on the special effects provides some comfort after watching the gruesome movie, showing that it is all nothing more than a well made horror film. Still, I'm uncomfortable with the knowledge that "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" made such a big splash with Japanese audiences. Remember, this is the same country that committed the atrocities in Manchuria during the late 1930s, and there are still people living in Japan today who were intimately involved in mass murder and mass torture throughout Asia during World War II.

I think this entry in the "Guinea Pig" series ultimately fails to deliver the goods. As a gorehound, I appreciated the awesome special effects displayed in the movie, but the movie never rises to the occasion in terms of character development and plot. I watched the other Hino directed entry in the series, "Mermaid in a Manhole," a few years ago and I thought it well developed and interesting. In that film, which contained numerous graphic scenes, Hino developed a plot heavy on human suffering that showed emotional pain as a real tragedy. In "The Flower of Flesh and Blood," he indulges in sadism for the mere sake of sensationalism. If you really want to see this movie, just steel yourself for the depths of degradation. If you have kids in the house, don't even think about buying this film if there is any chance your children might find it. This is not acceptable viewing for youngsters, and it probably isn't acceptable viewing for most people. Beware, oh beware! "The Flower of Flesh and Blood" is upon you!

Let me tell you that this film was hard to sit through. You can imagine with all the other Guinea Pig movies I was somewhat prepared to what i was about to see. First off beautiful looking DVD, the menus were creepy enough without seeing the film yet, then i pusued into the movie. This is sick and what i was looking forward to, the part where the hand curls up after he takes if off was tactfully pulled off, i can see a little bit why Chucky Sheen went ape after seeing the movie. I won't go into more but i was rest assured by watching the Making of GP to see what a blast these people had making the movies that have grossed out many. The manga was a nice touch with the added english translation. I'd have to say this the best DVD out of the GP series that has come out and can't wait to finish my collection!

The Guinea Pig series are supposedly based on some actual snuff film. Flower of Flesh and Blood is the re-creation of those dastardly deeds.
This movie graphically shows a woman being kidnapped and hacked up to pieces. It entails the steps of this tortuousous act in fairly realistic fashion.
However, I couldn't help but get the strong feeling of being manipulated. This movie seems more like something some buddies threw together for fun. Not the graphic depiction of a heinous crime. Plus, I probably would have enjoyed this more if I hadn't previously seen Aftermath/Genesis, which is much more gruesome and realistic.
Still this is worth a look for you gore freaks...

I adore gore and horror pics, particularly the ones that are truely disturbing, so naturally I was drawn to this film because of it's notorious reputation: Charlie Sheen apparantly came into contact with a vhs copy of this film and believing it was a genuine snuff film alerted the FBI. After an investigation it was revealed that it was only a part of a series of experimental Japanese horror pics. (My own take on this though is that Charlie paid good cash for a snuff film and then went the step further to confirm its autheticity via the FBI to complete his fanatsy). Wow anything with a history like this has gotta be great I thought.

I am now glad though I picked up a bootleg version as I find it hard to believe anyone could mistake this for the real thing. For starters while the s/fx are top notch and miles ahead of anything else (a clenched severed hand was brilliant), the camera lingers enough for you to see the seems (the jello like flesh comes away from some clearly rubber skin several times) also the film has the campy samurai movie sound effects (think Baby Cart series) and the decapitation is purely cheesey. The camera angle also changes mid shot showing there to be more than one camera, thus distroying the sense of a single sicko accomplice filming the murder as the discrption brags.

With these flaws taking away any sense of realism and no story to speak, I think that watching this film is no more than grading a series of special effects. This is why even though the effects are generaly amazing, this is still an unfullfiling viewing experience. Of course if you are interested in this kind of film or the horror/gore genre you will want to see this and should at least once. With the price of the DVD I would suggest renting (if available) or getting a bootleg as I cannot see it justifying the purchase price.

The bottom line is that the special effects are awesome with only a few slip ups, but their is no sense of realism, the film is not as intense as others would have you believe and with a short running time and absence of any other redeeming features rewatch value is limited. There are more gorey movies out there Braindead (Dead/Alive in the USA, even unrated US version is cut by 8 min) for example and more chilling and intense horror films out there as well. Cannibal Holocaust acheives what this film set out to by successfully bluring the lines between reality and fiction and also has an equally interesting history (the director of Cannibal Holocaust was charged with obscenity, it was belived to be a snuff film as well on release and the mystery of missing pirahna scene). Flowers of Flesh and Blood is deffintely unique with outstanding effects but is in no way at all brilliant.

I have the complete set of Guinea Pig films and trust me, 'Flower of Flesh and Blood' is by far the best. The special effects are incredible and extremely believable.

The plot is simple - a girl gets kidnapped by a stranger who ties her to a bed and whilst wearing a samurai suit, starts to disembowel her and hack her to bits.

It's super-strong stuff and not your average gore flick but I heartly recommend this one.

Well done to Amazon for making this so freely available and on such a good DVD.

I heard about the Guinea Pig movies for years but never got around to seeing any until now. While I suppose the acting and the production value were okay for something of this nature, I was a bit underwhelmed, probably because the whole thing just seemed like a long commercial for the special effects people. The effects were pretty cool, but it takes more than special effects to hold my attention, even for the length of this film.

The story, told by text on a black screen before the movie starts, tells of a legend in which photos of a dismembered girl were sent to an artist, who promptly handed them over to the police. That's pretty much the end of the plot, because the rest is a dramatization of how the murder occured, making it basically a fake snuff film. The gimmick here is the killer collects bodies and he thinks it's beautiful when a woman's body is squirting blood from its severed limbs. Scooped out eyeballs are particularly lovely, at least according to this guy. As there is no real plot, I can't be too wary of giving out spoilers.

Basically, this guy kidnaps women in the subway and dismembers them slowly while dressed kind of like Darth Vader before adding them to his collection (which would've fit nicely in the house in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and singing weird songs. The end part was almost entertaining because of the over-the-top Fulci-esque skulls with worms all over the place and the singing.

If there is one reason to actually watch this, it's the special effects, which are explained nicely in the Making of featurette that is also on the disc. In fact, the Making Of was a lot better than the movie, and it made me wish I'd rented He Never Dies instead of this one, because it seems to actually have a plot.

When people talk about the infamous "Guinea Pig" series, this is the one they are really talking about. This is the one that inspired serial killer Miyazaki Tsutomu, who performed its rituals on real victims instead of with special effects. This is the one that Charlie Sheen mistook for a real snuff film and reported it to the FBI who investigated its director. This is the one of myth and legend.

"Flower of Flesh and Blood" is directed by famous Japanese horror-manga artist Hino Hideshi, he of the Hino Horror series which have been adapted into films such as Boy from Hell and Ravaged House. He claims that this is a recreation of an actual snuff film sent to him by a fan, but Hino is well-known to stretch the truth when he feels like it. Or just to lie, so I wouldn't take him too seriously.

There is no story, and this is basically just an exercise in special effects. A man dressed in a samurai costume slowly dissects a drugged woman over the course of 42 minutes, slicing her here and there and taking off the pieces to create his final "flower of flesh and blood". For gore fans, this is as good as it gets, just pure craftsmanship with a special effects artist demonstrating some quality work and no annoying plot getting in the way. People will be quick to point out how "fake" it is, but that is probably just bravado more than anything else. This is really well done.

This DVD also includes the "Making of..." feature that the producer and director put together in order to prove that they hadn't actually killed anyone. It does take away a bit of the magic and legend, but is a nice feature in and of itself and is probably more interesting to watch story-wise than the main feature itself.

Is "Flower of Flesh and Blood" a good film? Not really. Not for casual viewers. But for gore-horror fans, this is required viewing to see just how far someone can go. And if the creepiness of knowing it is all smoke and mirrors takes some of the fun out of it for you, you can just remember that all of this DID take place for real, in Miyazaki Tsutomu's apartment, even though he was inspired by the film rather than the other way around.

The main thing I couldn't stop asking myself throughout the viewing of this film is how anyone could mistake this for being a real snuff film. For one, the girl should have died within minutes of having her hand sawed off. Instead, she keeps breathing strongly and her face still contains a healthy color clear up until her executioner eviscerates her, exposing her viscera in all its sanguine wetness. Furthermore, the rubber looking body parts that the serial killer presents to the viewer as his ghastly collection looks as if they were bought from a cheap Halloween party shop. I think the most disgustingly realistic looking thing about these final scenes was the squirming crawling orgy of maggots and earthworms as they dripped and slid their way across the surface of the obviously fake body parts and skulls.
Also, I didn't think that the gore, guts, blood, and violence lived up to the hype and controversy surrounding Guinea Pig. I felt that there should have been much more blood, buckets of blood, soaking the blankets and pooling on the ground around the bed and with the exception of the beheading, evisceration, and the masterfully done scene in which the tortured victim has her hand chopped off, it didn't look as realistic as it should have been. If you want to see some serious gore I recommend watching The Men Behind the Sun instead.
And as far as being severely disturbing, I think Salo and Cannibal Holocaust has this movie beat.

Supposedly based on a snuff film that was sent to Manga artist and filmmaker Hideshi Hino (this was later found to be a fabrication created for the film), Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood caused an uproar when actor Charlie Sheen famously reported it to the FBI believing it to be a real snuff film. It wouldn't be unfair to say this was ridiculous, `cause as you've seen or may see...It's obviously NOT real.

This 41-minute film opens with a young woman being stalked and eventually abducted. The abduction scene has multiple camera angles and credits, I want to point out. When the woman awakens, she's tied to a bed and her abductor is dressed as a samurai. At the 17-minute mark, he begins graphically dismembering her body...Which lasts until the very end.

That brief description encompasses the entire plot of the film. The actor portraying the killer is a genuinely creepy looking fellow, but little else about this film is very creepy. I wasn't particularly horrified or shocked by what I saw in the film. The knowledge that it's fictional and the fact that the victim is drugged into a comatose state throughout her ordeal makes everything that occurs more disgusting than disturbing. What Flower of Flesh and Blood does accomplish is relative realism. A lot of people are divided on just how realistic this film appears to be...Well, it's certainly more realistic than the gore presented in many other horror films, especially when the low production cost is taken into account.

But, overall, this film does fail to live up to it's hype. The creepiest part of the film for me was the image of the man's "collection." While a curious piece of horror filmmaking, don't expect anything deeply horrifying or revolutionary. So, while it's nothing special it is worth watching if you're a horror/gore junkie and you're curious about the infamous film.

GRADE: C+

This movie is short and sweet with some of the best special effects I've ever seen.The Japanese build a replica of a human body and dismantle it before your eyes. The special effects are so amazing you can actually see each pore in the skin.They obviously spent a lot of time on the effects and thats about all they spent time on. No story, no character development, just a home video made to look like a snuff movie. This is the one movie that actually turned my stomach a little bit. Go buy it now, if you think you can handle it.