Customer Reviews

Horrors of Malformed Men

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

And coming from Japan's long, unique, and often bizarre history of film, that is saying something. The fact that this film was produced in the sixties actually boggles my mind as does the amount of material pilfered from it over the years by both Western and Eastern filmmakers. The fact that it is still to this day banned in it's native Japan is another sticking point. Consider this a must for the film fan who's seen it all.

An insane asylum, psychadelic dancers in silver body paint, siamese twins, a pond full of beautiful naked women who are fed from a boat like so many koi, a bizarre family mystery, matching swastika scars on the feet of two different men -one alive and one dead, second-hand cannibalism via crustacean, women sewed to sheep, an island of custom made freaks, an murder scene that was ripped off wholesale for use in a James Bond film (You Only Live Twice), and a revenge plot so insanely convoluted that it must have influenced Oldboy are just some of the head-spinning madness "The Horrors of Malformed Men" has to offer.

The sensational cover of the DVD is extremely misleading, but it got me to watch the film so who's to argue? Fans of Takashi Miike are urged to buy this film ASAP and cult cinema/grindhouse afficianados should consider this a must-see as well. The gore is less than one would think, but there is plenty of sex, bizarre visuals, and insane and disturbing material here to make this a memorable experience for any exploitation fan. The only drawback is the poor makeup. But again, we are talking about a foreign film from the 1960's here so don't let that stop you from snapping this forgotten gem up.

This is my second run in with director Teruo Ishii, a film that is as twisted as the previous film of his I had seen Blind Womans Curse. Horrors I hear has a reputation for being a banned cult classic. I'll admit that I walked into this expecting rampant nudity and gore and a take on some taboo subjects. The taboo bits come up in the end of the film that I won't explain here to spoil it, but as a whole compared to the films of Takashi Miike and the like its banned status is a little perplexing. But that doesn't make it bad. In fact the film is a perplexingly awesome mix of the surreal and the over the top. It mixes the stories of Edogawa Rampo to create a smorgasbord of absurdity. From the opening where the main character escapes from an asylum where women bear their breast and stab people with fake knives to the part where the hero pretends to be the resurected son of a wealthy family who he just happens to resemble. And this is before we even see the butoh dancing ruler of a dream island who kidnaps beautiful women to take to an island where he surgically altering men to take over the world. The movie takes it to level ten when it comes to giddy silliness. And this is before Rampo's Kogoro Akechi shows up at the end to reveal the plot. I've already revealed some plot details but that I'll keep secret to avoid spoiling it.
To me the whole thing feels like the predecessor to the films of Takashi Miike or Katsuhito Ishii. Unlike others I didn't find it a masterpiece of horror but at least Shinya Tsukamoto agrees that its goofy blast.

It's too bad that "Captain Samba" doesn't know what he's talking about. It's fine if he didn't like this film, but his claim that "maybe one line in 30 is translated" is just plain wrong. Everything in the film is translated, and the subtitling is one of the better jobs I've seen of a classic Japanese title. Even written signs and songs are translated, which is uncommon for many DVD labels.


Rent the film yourself to judge - don't believe this clown's review.

Teruo Ishii's long-banned Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) is a genuinely nightmarish piece of Japanese horror cinema. Both highly disciplined and extremely excessive, its plot elements include deceitfully-assumed identities, doppelgangers, family secrets, murder, revenge, unrequited love, adultery, kidnapping, incest, bestiality, dismemberment, torture, cannibalism, human beings purposefully deformed through radical surgery, and almost every other known perversion.

The film's 'mad doctor,' Jogoro Komoda (Tatsumi Hijikata in a wonderfully bizarre film-stealing performance), who kidnaps and deforms innocent men and women so as to surround himself with literal reflections his own emotional scars and psychosis, is the maddest mad doctor in the long history of world cinema. Compared to Komoda, H.G. Wells' Dr. Moreau, as depicted in both the original novel and by Charles Laughton in the Island of Lost Souls film adaptation of 1933, is a paragon of virtue, benevolence, and rationality.

Komodo joins the very upper ranks of nefarious screen villains, such as Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986).

The first half of Horrors of Malformed Men is a conservatively-produced drama concerned with the mysteries of identity and memory: Hirosuke Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida) awakens in an insane asylum, suffering from amnesia and surrounded by rioting female inmates. Escaping, Hirosuke discovers that a prominent citizen, who resembles him exactly, has just been murdered. Cautiously making his way to the dead man's family compound on a remote portion of the Japanese coast, Hirosuke begins to unravel the mysteries of his existence, which he learns are closely tied to a weird, isolated island barely visible from the shore.

From the moment Hirosuke and his entourage set foot on the island, Horrors of Malformed Men shifts into high surreal gear and never stops building momentum for a single frame.

Ishii is an extremely perceptive, sensitive, and talented director: despite its shocking carnage, spiritual squalor, and decadence, Horrors of Malformed Men, which was originally intended for general audiences, is also a physically beautiful and emotionally moving film: the climax is so deftly handled that viewers may come to sympathize, however briefly, with Komoda and the passions which has driven him to create an obscene Garden of Eden on Earth, with himself as both Father Creator and Serpent.

Despite the surgically-grafted horrors writhing through the second half of the film, one of the most powerfully repulsive scenes involves not the torments of the physically maimed, but a starving captive woman who voraciously eats handfuls of live crabs off the corpse of her lover (whose flesh has, in turn, just been devoured by the crustaceans).

That said, some--but only some--of the film's 'special effects' and 'monsters' are ludicrous as only monsters of 1960s Japanese cinema can be, and are seemingly intended to appear so: one 'monster,' for example, appears to be nothing more than a male actor amateurishly covered in standard-issue white marshmallows. Which will serve to remind viewers that earlier in his career, Ishii had directed the 'Super Giant' children's science fiction series, later compiled and released in the United States as Atomic Rulers of the World, Invaders from Space, and Attack from Space in 1964.

However, viewers looking for far more traditional monster, horror, and suspense fair such as Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Village of the Damned (1960), Halloween (1978), Aliens (1986), or Sleepy Hollow (1999) should probably avoid Horrors of Malformed Men, which they are likely to find obscure, 'arty,' and unnecessarily complicated.

Horrors of Malformed Men is an important but disturbing work of fantastic art in the centuries-long tradition of the visionary and the grotesque, which, in cinematic terms, also includes Freaks (1932), Eyes Without A Face (1959), The Birds (1963), El Topo (1970), Profondo Rosso (1975), Blue Velvet, The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Donnie Darko (2001).

If you make a film involving cruel experimentation on animals, you are bound to face some serious backlash. The movie will most likely get banned in several countries. But what about doing some malicious testing and transformation of humans? That will strike a devastating nerve in the collective minds of the world. The Horrors of Malformed Men is a true paramount to the unflinching evil that man is capable of and the fear that wickedness can generate. Still banned in Japan, this is "the most notorious Japanese film ever made." No cult horror film collection is complete without it.

The Japanese rarely seem to make a simple film. This one is also very complex, even to the point of being convoluted. But that makes for incredible replay value. American films seldom offer such a thought-provoking script, I'm sad to say. Casual movie watchers should stay far away from this one.

Along with the complex storyline, there is plenty of bizarre and twisted imagery. It all boils down to a web-fingered doctor kidnapping and surgically deforming people. He has a twisted scheme formulated to surround himself with physical representations of his own mental and emotional scars (shudder!). Talk about disturbing.

Filmed back in '69, this masterpiece opened several doors and influenced all types of following films. This movie reminded me of FREAKS and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. Highly recommended. You've got to see this to believe it.

Eight years before the original The Island of Dr. Monreau director/ writer Teruo Ishii gives viewers Horrors of the Malformed Men, a much darker film that is still banned in Japan.

Horrors is a twisted, artsy, perverse, at times erotic and brutal revenge horror tale with enough secrets and plot developments for ten movies, yet to give any of these away is to lessen the experience. Horrors is a revenge film that out revenges Oldboy, perhaps gave the inspiration for the seemingly commonplace of black hair in Asian horror films as a way to be scary, and would have the actors who played the "freaks" in Tod Browning's Freaks finding moments of optimism upon viewing for being naturally malformed.

Horrors starts out as being weird and out there, viewers that are not fans of such vague artsy films are encouraged to stick with it, as all loose ends are not only tied up by the end of the film but are double knotted. Horrors also has some artistic and original use of color at times that fans of Argento will appreciate, however all while being totally original.

This film goes all the way and does not look to appeal to all viewers, as it is sure to offend some with such elements of cannibalism, incest, and brutal imagery, yet these factors are not mere exploitation but are pertinent to the plot. That isn't to say horrors doesn't have some gratuitous nudity. Horrors, is however, an original and unique horror film, even more so that it was made in 1969, and is certain to add that same uniqueness and diversity to your horror dvd collection.

this one has been in demand since the advent of DVD, and the fine folks at Synapse have done an outstanding job as usual....at this point , its only available in north america period!

The first twenty minutes of this movie were really interesting, and the next two hours were equal parts meandering, bizarrely comical, and redundant. The half an hour of explanation by a mysteriously placed detective was completely unnecessary (I think the filmmakers must have been afraid of just leaving it to make no sense, so they try to tie it up in a neat little package), and the last scene is completely laughable. "Meh" is a good description for this film, but at least the film looked expensive.

DEMENTED, DERANGED, DISTURBED, DELIGHTFUL - THIS IS TERUO ISHII, NOT AKIRA KUROSAWA - YOU EITHER GET IT OR YOU DON`T. AND I`M SO SORRY YOU GUYS EXPECTING RAMPANT NUDITY WERE DISAPPOINTED - THAT`S WHAT PORN`S FOR... THIS IS ASIAN CULT CINEMA, NOT PINKY VIOLENCE OR ROMANPORNO, AND IF YOU DON`T KNOW WHAT THESE TERMS MEAN, YOU SHOULD PULL YOUR PANTS BACK UP AND FIND OUT... TERUO ISHII AND KINJI FUKASAKU RULE FOREVER!

This is super boring and not very shocking at all. Sex? None. Sure there is nudity, but it's all like a few Japanese folk singers ate some pot brownies and decided to take up residence in a costume shop for a while. A few topless chicks and lots and lots of meandering scenes. The malformed men are just people covered in flour or what seems to be birthday cake! I want my money back. Trust me. You don't want this. I enjoy weird, but this did not do it for me. Rampo and Tsukamoto make weird Japanese stuff. Try other stuff by either of these two. Ishii missed the mark with this one.