AKA: Edogawa ranpo taizen: Kyofu kikei ningen
Country and Year: Japan (1968)
Director: Nobuo Nakagawa
Starring: Teruo Yoshida, Seizaburo Kawazu, Kunio Murai, Sachiko Kuehara, Chioko Tsukioka

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars (very good)

Teruo Ishii’s Horrors of Malformed Men has a long history as a film more heard of than seen. Banned for years (and still unavailable in Japan), rumors of a cult film nonpareil have sprung up in the absence of the genuine article. Having finally seen it, I can say that, taboo-bursting freak-out that it is, films of more recent vintage have certainly surpassed it in terms of sheer offensiveness and grotesquerie. However, to say that is not to say that they have surpassed it in terms of artistry or creative vision. There, Horrors of Malformed Men has the advantage of being the child of three fathers, each ground-breaking in their own field: director Teruo Ishii, theatrical pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata, and author Edogawa Rampo.

Most important to the realization of Horrors was the ero-guro (erotic-grotesque) vision of Teruo Ishii (see here for other articles on Ishii). Horrors may or may not be Ishii’s best film, but it is the paradigm and best example of an Ishii film – an uncompromised opportunity for him to allow his id and ego to run free with a studio’s resources and imprimatur. Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf (see review here) came close, but that film has none of the resources or polish that make Horrors such an exceptional experience. Nor was Horrors so bogged down in the minutiae of torture as to be dull like Yakuza Punishment: Lynch, or hampered by the attempted imposition of a conventional plot like the Sonny Chiba vehicle Executioner. Here Ishii was working at the height of his powers with a strong cast and a decent budget.

Scenarios, themes and images that appeared consistently throughout Ishii’s career are brought into play in Horrors. Circuses and carnivals, the deformed, asylums, slapstick, mockery of the clergy, sexual perversion and the works of Rampo all commingle on the screen. Admittedly, Ishii lacked the painterly eye of fellow exploitation guru Norifumi Suzuki (School of the Holy Beast). Nevertheless, where Ishii could not create beauty (and make no mistake, there are beautiful passages in this film), he created images of such surpassing oddity or ugliness that they similarly linger in the mind. Horrors gives us such indelible images as a women chained to her dead lover and forced to eat the crabs that have picked over his body, a pond of women fed like koi, and nude dancers in body paint.

Of course, the greatest visual effect was in truth the film’s second father – Tatsumi Hijikata, a Warhol-esque figure who co-founded Butoh, an avant-garde, often sexually explicit, theatrical art form considered shocking and offensive by many. Hijikata (who also played the mad hunchback in Ishii’s weaker Blind Woman’s Curse) dominates the screen with his uniquely bizarre physicality. Our first vision of Hijikata comes as he performs a dance before roaring waves, his twisted movements prefiguring Sadako’s famous entrance in Ring. Perhaps the source of the discomfort he creates is that he truly seems mad – it is not hard to imagine the real Hijikata as simpatico with his character of Jogoro. Similarly, his theatrical troupe, the Ankoku Butoh School, fill in the background in much the manner of The Living Theatre.

The last of the parents is the famous mystery and horror author Edogawa Rampo. Of course, Rampo was no longer alive to participate personally in Horrors, but it is his writings and philosophy that guided and inspired it. I have discussed Rampo at length in my review of Ishii’s Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf (see here), and won’t do so again. Horrors takes as inspiration a number of his most famous stories. While the majority of the story is based on “The Strange Tale of Panorama Island,” segments are drawn from a number of other stories, including a brief tribute to “The Human Chair,” in which a thief conceals himself within a large armchair and derives sexual pleasure from women who sit upon him. Also familiar both to fans of Rampo and of director Shinya Tsukamoto, another Rampo enthusiast, is “The Twins,” filmed later by Tsukamoto as Gemini. “The Twins” featured the plot device of a twin brother who replaces his own sibling, and must conceal his otherness from the man’s wife and family. Here, Ishii uses the filial exchange as a plot device in his mad soap opera. Even Rampo’s most famous literary creation, the detective Kogoro Akechi makes a cameo appearance.

The ultimate result is a bizarre blend of mystery, body horror, and out-and-out theatrics. The nominal story follows medical student Hirosuke (Teruo Yoshida), a cipher left to rot in an institution filled with homicidal women. Yoshida escapes and makes his way to the coast, where he assumes the life of his apparent twin, including resuming relations with his twin’s wife and mistress. In a twist evoking both the Island of Dr. Moreau and the horrific denouement of Marlon Brando’s outdoor asylum in Apocalypse Now, Hirosuke and companions eventually make their way to the island of Jogoro (Hijikata), a deformed madman who rules his island fiefdom like a combination of priest, mad scientist and despot. Here, amidst medical experiments and intentional atrocities, Hirosuke learns the truth about his origins.

Throughout, Ishii takes advantage and plays off of the traditional Japanese mistrust and distaste for physical abnormality. Ishii combines beauty and ugliness, contrasting filthy hunchbacks with gorgeous, young, and frequently-naked starlets like Yukie Kagawa and Yumiko Katayama (who should be familiar to audiences from Panik House’s Pinky Violence set, reviewed here). Indeed, this artistic choice reaches its culmination in the combined person of a man-made Siamese twin, created by Jogoro to be a half beautiful woman, half malformed man. A fitting symbol for Ishii’s work in general.

Recommended? As with most Ishii films, Horrors is not for everyone, but it is essential for fans of Ishii and outré cinema, and an important historical milestone for Toei Studios and Japanese film in general.

If you like this, you might like: Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf, Gemini, Apocalypse Now, Island of Dr. Moreau, Female Convict Scorpion, Trapped in a Closet

DVD DETAILS

DVD Production Company: Synapse Films (www.synapse-films.com)
Release Date: August 28, 2007
Run Time: 99 Mins
Extras: Image Gallery, bios, essays, commentary, interviews

Synapse’s 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen restored print is positively gorgeous, especially for a Ishii film of this era. The colors really pop, which is especially welcome during the theatrical sequences on the island.

Synapse also has included a veritable plethora of extras. First, there is the original trailer, an excellent gallery of poster images from Ishii films, and biographies of Ishii and Rampo. Next, Synapse and Outcast Cinema have provided a great deal of context, including liner essays by Patrick Macias, the author of Tokyoscope, Jasper Sharp and Tomohiro Machiyama, an audio commentary by Mark Schilling of The Japan Times, and footage of Ishii’s visit to the 2003 Far East Film Festival. Most usefully, the materials explain why Horrors was banned for so long (and remains unavailable in Japan). Finally, the Horrors production team recently cornered directors Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo) and Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler) at the Nippon Connection to talk about Ishii.

All in all, it is a very impressive package for an unjustly neglected film.

© David Austin