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

Director: Hideshi Hino

Stars: Hiroshi Tamura, Kirara Yugao

IMDb

A woman walking home late at night is attacked by an unknown assailant who knocks her out with chloroform. When she regains consciousness, she finds herself tied to a bed in a blood-splattered dungeon, at the mercy of a white-faced man in a samurai helmet who wants to turn her into a “flower of flesh and blood”. He then proceeds to slowly dismember and disembowel her as the camera records it all.

Japanese snuff month comes to a close with definitely the most notorious film in the genre. That’s right, it’s the second film in everyone’s favourite heptalogy (unless you’re interested in child wizards), the “Guinea Pig” series. Before you get too upset about snuff month coming to a close however, I shall be reviewing the rest of the none snuffy “Guinea Pigs” in the coming weeks. Yay! Well, I won’t bother with part seven as it’s basically just a “best of” compilation and I think I’ll be covering everything in the initial six reviews. Anyway, back to part two. This is kind of a re-enactment of a “real” snuff video that the filmmakers got sent to them. We know the drill by now, there’s not much plot to talk of, it’s just wall to wall torture and this one certainly doesn’t disappoint in that aspect. So let’s see what all the bloody fuss is about then.

The Flower.

We’re somewhere in Japan and a Woman,  I think I’ll call her The Flower, is walking down a dark road and there’s a car following her so she starts running all womanly, but she’s rubbish and seems to be getting nowhere. Outfit update: She’s wearing a black dress with a bright pink belt that perfectly matches her bright pink shoes. I’d love to know where she’s been, or where she’s heading to, but it’s never revealed unfortunately, character development isn’t this film’s strong point, mental gore is. So a guy eventually gets out of the car and chases her ass through a park before catching and chloroforming her. As we see that one of her snazzy shoes has slipped off, we get an equally snazzy title screen. It’s a good start all round.

The Flower awakes tied to a bed in a danky room with bizarre artwork on the wall. I reckon it might be a torture dungeon to be honest. She notices a man in a samurai helmet and with a set of teeth that wouldn’t look out of place on The Jeremy Kyle Show, sharpening some knives in front of a wall that looks like it has blood on it. It’s not looking good, The Flower. I think Ill call this guy The Samurai. The Samurai gets a rooster/chicken thing from a box and starts waving it at The Flower’s face as she screams. I’m guessing she’s not a massive fan of poultry. He then tells her, “This is your fate” and cuts it’s head off. More screaming, he’s just showing off at this point. By the way, he didn’t really kill it. This is Japanese snuff, not an Italian cannibal film!

The Samurai

Next up we see The Samurai mixing some narcotics with water. He has a taste and nods his head like a French chef. After collecting some of the good shit in a syringe, he’s on The Flower, groping her for no real reason until he injects it into her thigh. Seriously though, he touched her flange about five times, I’m just wondering if the actress was aware this was going to happen, I always think that. So yeah, as soon as he injects her she’s tripping her tits off. There’s a drop of blood where the needle went in so The Samurai has a cheeky taste then cuts her dress off with a pair of scissors. For some reason she’s wearing a nighty underneath the dress (of course it’s pink), well that gets cut off too and we’re down to her undies (pink, pink, pink). Two more snips and it’s jugs and muff time!

Ah. We cut to a bit later on and now she’s all naked but with a white sheet covering her. It looks like we’re not going to see so much as a bum cheek. I guess this actress, who’s big break was in a torture snuff film, didn’t have “will show baps” on her resume. Unlucky, lads, I wonder why she never worked again. So The Samurai stabs her with a spike thing then looks into the camera and tells us that she can’t feel pain because she’s all trippin’ and in fact, she’s getting pleasure from the torture. What? I want to see crying and screaming and begging and naked ladies. This film is starting to go down in my estimation. The samurai basically tells us that he wants to start at her wrists and he turns on a light that has a red filter on it. Again, pretty snazzy for a psychotic mental.

The date…

So over he goes and after producing a flick knife he starts to cut off her left hand. Well, what this film lacks in screaming and tits, it sure makes up for in gore effects. This is wonderful, the squishy sounds that the cutting is making and the snapping of bones is music to my ears. After managing to separate the hand from the wrist, it’s still making a clutching motion as he holds it. He quickly cuts off the other hand, changes the light filter to a blue one and tells us he’s about to start on the shoulders. This should be good. Yeah, so he cuts around the shoulder with a knife and then uses a hammer and chisel to get through the bone. Of course, being a fully qualified samurai, he could have just used his sword, but I think he’s having too fun a time using the contents of his tool box. Off pop the arms.

The filter is switched to yellow, which as we all know signifies it’s time for those legs to go. This proves a tricky job, no use for pussy knives here, he spends the next few minutes sawing through her leg until it finally comes away in his hand and he holds it up looking at the bit where the rest of her used to be. Time passes. She’s completely legless now like the Japanese Boxing Helena, and as the light shines green, The Samurai’s all, “Right, now I’m gonna cut her belly open”. Well, he says it more poetically than that to be fair to the crazy bastard. He bloody does as well though, with a scalpel, before ripping out her guts which makes her spit blood on her own face. There’s sausagy intestines all over the place and he loves it.

He scores!

Have you guessed the next light colour yet? Well done if you said white, you get seventeen points. The Samurai says something about a red necklace and I get all hungry for a decapitation. There’s no pissing about here, he just picks up an axe and takes her head off with one chop, sending it flying across the room and into the wall. Judging by the blood stains on the wall, I’m guessing he’s done this before. Oh, just in case this guy’s not mental enough for you already, he picks up the head and starts necking with it. No? Not weird enough? Okay, he then scoops out her eye with a spoon (squelch, squelch) and friggin’ sucks it. After a quick smoke break, he’s kind enough to give us a little tour of his collection which is basically a room filled with body parts. I really love this scene. The last shot shows another woman walking down the street. I’m guessing she dies.

Okay so again, this is only recommended to the gore hounds, but I don’t know what it is about it for me, it’s the most notorious film of it’s kind and has caused much controversy around the world, but it just doesn’t make me cringe. I can watch it while eating spaghetti without so much as a grimace, which is something I certainly couldn’t say about “Tumbling Doll of Flesh” or “Muzan-e“. I really think it’s the lack of reaction from the victim. Like I said before, I kind of need the screaming and that sense of dread which we do get at the start, but as soon as the drugs get injected I just feel I’m watching a special effects display, and as truly amazing as they are, and I would recommend a viewing of this and the “Guinea Pig” series in general on that basis, it’s just lacking the true horror element. Anyway, it’s time to rest now J-snuff month, sleep well my child. We may no longer have each other, but we do have the memories (please imagine a snuff montage here). Cheers.

And that’s the first ever review of “Flower of Flesh and Blood” without so much as a mention of Charlie Sheen… DOH!