Guinea Pig: The Devil's Experiment, 1985, dir. Satoru Ogura
This was possibly the hardest film I've ever had to watch. It's set up like a snuff film; no plot other than a woman being tortured for forty minutes, pushing the limits of her human pain, both physical and mental. The effects in it were so effective that I couldn't tell at times if something was an effect, or if instead I was seeing an actress just that dedicated to what they wanted to show on screen. There were some points at which suspension of disbelief was easier, such as when the three torturers were using the classic theatrical slap of one of your hands hitting the other while it seems like you're hitting something else, and when the victim is being forced to listen to noise, since that can easily be added in after the fact. Although some may find the practically home-video quality of the footage poor, it works towards making this really look like it could be a snuff film. This definitely isn't for the squeamish, but if you're into seeing the extremes of horror, especially Japanese, this is a must see.
Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood, 1985, dir. Hideshi Hino
The second installment of the series brings a name on board that can actually carry a decent amount of weight: Hideshi Hino. The infamous horror mangaka, who not only definitely penned this but according to everything I can find also directed it, brings more plot into this film than the first. This time the torture of the "guinea pig" in the film is preceded by a bit recounting the capture of the woman, and endcapped with a demented monologue from the serial killer in the samurai costume. Although the effects in this installment are phenomenal and are some of the most realistic gore I have ever seen, it is more obvious from the way they have been shot this around that they are indeed special effects. It helps, too, that there is a making-of just as long as the film itself. Even knowing that these are fake, though, the ideas and images presented are still terribly disgusting, and should be enough to make all but the hardened at least squirm a little. Overall I found this one a better film than the first because as the script by Hino, a veteran writer, has a poetic quality to its horrors, which end up being a kind of ultimate, horrific creation through deconstruction of a human being, as if some post-modern strains of theory were taken to their worst ends possible.
Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies, 1986, dir. Masayuki Kuzumi
At this point the series had garnered a decent amount of controversy as well as switched hands to another distributor, which results in the first comedic entry in the series. It serves essentially as a blunt satire on what the strains of corporate life in Japan can do to low-level members of the bureaucracy. The protagonist is such a worker who literally gets trapped in living hell he cannot escape: no matter how he tries to kill himself he cannot die. At first he tries again and again to find something that is effective, but it eventually turns into him essentially pulling a series of gorier and gorier gags on a coworker. As such, the gore starts out a little slower this time around but escalates to a point on level for the series, with organs strewn about a room and dismemberment aplenty. The comedic nature of this entry definitely makes this the least horrifying of the series at this point, but it will definitely be horrifying enough to those squeamish at all when it comes to gore. Personally, I wasn't scared but still found the gore inventive enough as a means for comedy that it should please any gorehound. The only problem I had with this film was the odd framing device where some sort of scholar is presenting the tale to the viewer, which I guess is meant to imbue some sort of realism as the first two films had, but with the fantastical premise of this entry it comes off as completely unnecessary. In a way, though, it adds to just how silly the entire film is, so it shouldn't stop anyone from enjoying it.
Guinea Pig 4: Mermaid in a Manhole, 1988, dir. Hideshi Hino
For the fourth entry in the series Hideshi Hino gets back on board as writer and director, and things take a turn for the darker again. Personally, this is the film that had me the most disgusted with the gore, which focuses on infection, pustules, worms, and maggots, which make me much more squeamish than hacked flesh ever has. Although I was much more disturbed overall by the nature of the first Guinea Pig film, this one had me closer to just wanting to vomit. Beyond this, the plot of this film is the most engaging of the series: a man whose wife recently died discovers a mermaid in a sewer, whom he brings up to his apartment to paint a portrait of, which he continues to do even when her body is ravaged by an infection. The themes touched upon by this film are prevalent throughout Hino's career: places of waste and objects of destruction, death, and rot as a source for the creative process. In this tale he takes this concept to the level of the material for the creative process coming from the rot itself, as the painter uses the seven colors of pus from the mermaid's sores to paint her portrait. With its commentary on the creative process and less conventional, more inventive style of gore, this is the strongest entry in the series, thanks to Hino's skilled hand as an artist.
Guinea Pig 5: Android of Notre Dame, 1988, dir. Kazuhito Kuramoto
Unfortunately, this is the point at which the series becomes noticeably weaker. The focus on plot is continued, and this time a sci-fi angle has been added to the horro, with a midget performing twisted experiments in an attempt to find a way to help his dying sister. Oddly enough the gore is downplayed this time, perhaps because the people involved just weren't as talented as before, as can be seen in the lackluster script and acting. Granted, these were never the selling points for the series, but since there is an attempt to give even more plot than any entry before it, a better script and acting would have been necessary to make this effective. Instead, the characters and their conflicts come off as yawn-inducing, which really wouldn't have been a problem if the gores was piled on like it was before. Instead there's a prolonged scene where we get to see a few things done to a corpse, which are really small in effect considering what's already been shown in the series. When one character has his legs cut off, it's considerably less realistic than in the previous entries in the series. One high point, though, is the severed head attached to a robotic arm kept alive by the midget, which is the best done effect in the film as we see it gradually get more and more disgusting. In the end, though, I feel like I've seen very little for what could have been done with this minimal story in fifty minutes. Worse than this is the plot hole which remains as my last impression of the film: if the midget's sister was terminally ill because of a heart problem, why didn't she just get a heart transplant?
Guinea Pig 6: Devil Doctor Woman, 1990, dir. Hajime Tabe
And now for the silliest and least gory of the films in the series. While the premise is amusing enough itself (a transvestite, black-market doctor "curing" really strange diseases), it gets lost in "diseases" that are just too focused on being ridiculous and less on being ridiculously gory. If there was more of a focus on ideas like the man getting the mobile tattoo removed from his body (can you guess how much skin has to be removed to catch a tattoo that can escape?) and less on things like a talking stomach this would have been more effective as an entry in this series. It also doesn't help that these are by far the weakest effects in the series, making even the poorest effects in the previous entry look uber-realistic. One of the few things that really works for this entry is the title character, who is played by the delicious Japanese transvestite Peter, who also happens to be a legitimate actos who even had a decent role in Akira Kurosawa's Ran. Overall, if you're going to skip on seeing an entry in this series, I'd have to say it would actually be Android of Notre Dame, for at least this film isn't trying to take itself seriously and can be enjoyable in just how irreverantly goofy everything is; it's obvious that the crew on this film was just having a good time being stupid.
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