Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

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.

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.