It's not often that a
horror movie shocks and appalls me but Japanese director
Hisayasu Sato managed to do so with his enticingly titled movie
Splatter: Naked Blood (Nekeddo burâddo: Megyaku). Although the effects are not entirely convincing Sato is not afraid to subject the viewer to some
close-up, detailed, slow, torturous, graphic gore, with one scene in particular described as "
one of the most appalling scenes in Japanese horror." This movie is a 1996 remake of one of Sato's previous movies from 1987, Genuine Rape.
The plot is fairly simple (for the majority of the movie) and I think it is this simplicity that gives this movie a sense of horror in it's purest form. Eiji is the 17 year old son of a failed scientist with a vision of eternal life through science. Following in his fathers footsteps, Eiji has created a painkiller which increases the release of endorphins when the user feels pain making pain a pleasurable experience. He names his wonder drug "Myson" and feels it is time to test his creation on human subjects. Luckily for him his mother is currently testing an anti-pregnancy drug on three women so Eiji secretly introduces his painkiller into this experiment and plans to covertly study the effects.
Each of the guinea-pigs has her own dysfunction, one woman is obsessed with food and eating, one is incredibly vain and would rather die than become ugly and out of shape and the final test subject, Rika, is a chronic insomniac due to being traumatized by the shock of menstruation as a child.
As the drug kicks in, and the females discover the pleasurable feeling from hurting themselves, their dysfunctions take hold and we witness the extreme lengths that these three unknowingly drugged Japanese women will go to in order to get their endorphin fix.
The vain woman, gets a buzz off of piercing her ear and before long she is going for the world record of "most pierced woman", the glutton gets the taste for human flesh after she cuts herself whilst preparing calamari, and before long she is enjoying a meal of deep-fried hand, pussy flaps and nipples with eye for dessert. (I expect this scene is the most appalling scene referred to earlier and I must admit there were a few times that my stomach did a somersault).
All the while Eiji is falling in love with Rika as he stalks her with his video camera (all in the name of science of course), and before long he admits to her that he has tampered with the experiment. Surprisingly unfazed by this revelation Rika invites Eiji back to her apartment and suggests that he samples his own drug before they indulge in a rampant sex session. Eiji soon discovers Rika's dark secret and is soon experiencing his own endorphin rush in one final test of Myson's unique properties.
This movie is basically three drawn out splatter scenes wrapped up in a bit of a story. The self-mutilation that the test subjects go through makes for very disturbing watching as they thoroughly enjoy the bloody pain that they are experiencing. Nothing is left to the imagination and the most intimate body parts become victims of Myson. I must admit that I found the ending to be quite confusing and it took a few watches to grasp what was really going on but overall this is a solid chunk of hardcore horror and an essential piece of cinema for any splatter punk.