fake snuff films – Horror Ghouls

Flower of Flesh and Blood, the second installment in the Guinea Pig series, was made simultaneously with the first one, and they couldn’t be more different from each other. This one is written and directed by Hideshi Hino who had already established himself as a horror manga artist with his nihilistic and misanthropic one-shot comics Hell Baby (1982) and Panorama of Hell (1984). Besides of making horror comics Hino was also interested in working in the film industry, and directing a short film under the Guinea Pig banner, based on one of his own comics, would be a perfect arena to test the bloodsoaked waters.

It’s night in Tokyo and a young woman is being stalked by a car as she walks down the street. A person comes out of the car and kidnaps her. She then wakes up in some torture chamber with bloodstains on the wall while tied to a bed and it’s all bad vibes, to put it that way. We then get introduced to the killer – a ghastly-looking man with a pencil mustache, white face painting, red lipstick, a demonic grin and he’s dressed like a Samurai. Welcome to your worst nightmare. If she wasn’t terrified enough already he gives her a quick foretaste to come by holding a chicken, cuts its head off and tosses it at her as he says This is your fate! He then jabs her with a big dose of some strong drug which knocks her right into wonderland before he gets ready for the killing ritual. The only thing missing is some classical background music.

To keep some of the snuff elements, the killer looks at the camera as he breaks the fourth wall by saying something to the viewer in a disturbing poetic manner. It’s all in Japanese with incoherent subtitles from google translate but let’s just pretend he says something like:

What you are now about to witness is hundred percent real! No fake amateur bullshit!

The one who took the bait was Charlie Sheen, of all people, after he got a VHS copy of Flower of Flesh and Blood from the film critic Chris Gore in the early 90s. This story is widely known and legendary but here’s a breakdown: When Sheen saw the film, he got shocked as he thought he’d just witnessed a real snuff film, and reported it to the FBI. They confiscated Sheen’s copy and launched an international investigation to track down those who was involved in the film, including the American distributor and Fangoria writer Chas Balun. FBI eventually found Hideshi Hino in Japan who then showed them a making-of documentary of the film while he probably laughed his ass off and were forever grateful for the global hype and free advertisement, thanks to Charlie Sheen.

Compared to the first one, Devil’s Experiment, this is on a whole another level on all aspects like day and night, with the same runtime of 40 minutes, and works so much better for its purpose. This one is also shot like a more traditional film with use of different camera angles, competent use of lighting to create a rotten atmosphere and a great showcase of really impressing shock effects which will make every weak stomachs turn to pure panic attack. Even though there’s some cheesy and out of place sound effects here, this is overall a nasty piece of straight-forward horror gore show and top tier torture porn with a flavor of visual stylishness, plain and simple. Not for everyone (no, you don’t fucking say) which could as well share the same universe as Nacho Cerdà’s wet’n sticky necrophilia dream Aftermath (1994). But for us lower level horror ghouls with a more morbid appetite for sick undergroundish stuff like this and just want to see a cute and drugged-out Japanese girl being brutally dismembered to the unrecognizable with as real-looking effects as can be, wrapped up with a nice dessert of maggot-infested body parts, well … this is a perfect gore meal – just for you. Itadakimasu!

Writer and director: Hideshi Hino
Original title: Ginî piggu 2: Chiniku no hana
Country & year: Japan, 1985
Actors: Hiroshi Tamura, Kirara Yûgao
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0161635/

In the mid-1980’s the amateur filmmaker Satoru Ogura wanted to shock and disgust with a series of grotesque films. Sounds cool enough. His first (and only) film was Devil’s Experiment, a 40 minute “faux snuff film“ which became the start of the notorious, bizarre, goofy and overhyped Guinea Pig film series.

In the Devil’s Experiment we witness a young woman being tortured by a group of people while someone filming the whole act handheld in found-footage style. The torture happens in several stages/segments. They start soft by smacking her in the face while being tied to a chair. After she’s been bruised up they kick and throw her around the floor like a rag doll. In the next segment she sits on a rotating chair as they are spinning her a hundred times or so, which seems more like a harmless prank than torture, but whatever. They shove a bottle of whiskey down her throat to make her puke so we can go over to the next segment.

And already some minutes in there ain’t a single moment of realism here and I have a hard time to believe that anyone who saw this on VHS in the 80s thought they were witnessing a real snuff, because … bro, c’mon, seriously… This is amateur hour-boolshit on its lowest to such extent that it just made me shake my head and chuckle. This shit was actually promoted as a real snuff film when it circulated on the VHS market in Japan, you see, and still to this day it rises concerned questions from naive numbskulls if this is authentic or not.

Then there’s the acting, and oh my lord, haha …

The lady who portrays the victim couldn’t care less. She seems bored most of the time and acts more as if she’s sitting on a vibrating chair on The Howard Stern Show while she makes some cute moaning sounds such as:

uuhh … iuuing … uhh … tahh … iiimghh …

Then they peel her skin and rips off her fingernails with a plier. An her only reaction is:

ahh … ehh … uhn …

There’s also a moment where she smiles. Director Ogura auditioned a bunch of women who was eager for this role and this was the best he could pick.

In another segment they pour some frying oil over her while she’s tied to a bed. Her reaction is some orgasm and growling sounds. She’s either the worst actress of all time or she’s supposed to have a larger pain threshold than Rambo. I’d guess my first assumption.

They also toss some fresh animal intestines on her while they laugh and giggle like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. Watching blurry still images of this scene would make every gorehound cream in their pants and assume she’d been brutally butchered up, but don’t get fooled.

The scene with the eye at the end was well done though, I give it that. But besides from that the whole package is so bad, sloppy, tame as a newborn duckling and downright laughably inept that it actually makes Hostel look like a legit snuff film straight from the deepest dark web. Woof.

Director: Satoru Ogura
Original title: Ginî piggu – Akuma no jikken
Country & year: Japan, 1985
Actors: A group of uncredited amateurs
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0161634/

Tag: fake snuff films

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985)

Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment (1985)