HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN – The Blu Review

Review by Roger Carpenter

Just after the turn of the Twentieth Century, a new artistic movement began to sweep Japan.  Steeped in traditional works of art like sculpture and painting, this new movement, ero-guro-nansensu, or erotic-grotesque-nonsense, found its way into many other mediums as well.  So it should come as no surprise that this sensibility would eventually be captured on film as well.

Nowadays many Japanese filmmakers take this concept to the very edges of taste, filling the screen with nudity, sex, and outrageously bloody special effects, perhaps culminating with films such as Organ (1996) and Grotesque (2009).  But before the ero-guro-nansensu ideals bled over into torture porn, the original concept had more to do with eroticism and sexual corruption combined with the very Japanese taboo of malformation or deformation of the body.  Wrap all this up with a general fascination for the decadent and the bizarre, and a new movement was born.

One of the most popular purveyors of the concept was the writer Edogawa Ranpo (say it quickly and you may realize it sounds like a Japanese perversion of a certain Nineteenth Century writer of the macabre who Ranpo admired), who wrote many popular novels and short stories that are still widely read in Japan today.  His works in the ero-guro-nansensu genre are considered classics.

Filmmaker Teruo Ishii had long been a fan of Ranpo’s stories.  As is typical of Japanese filmmakers, Ishii had labored for many years as an assistant director and had moved into directing in the very strict Japanese studio system, churning out regular potboilers at the rate of six or seven films a year for quite a while.  But he scored big in 1965, with the first Abashiri Prison film, directing the original as well as nine more sequels in the ultra-popular series in just three years. Exhausted by his long hours and by having to churn out retreads of the same film over and over, Ishii first turned to ero-guro-nansensu with an eight-film series examining torture in Japan, with films such as Shogun’s Joys of Torture (1968) and The Orgies of Edo (1969). These films solidified Ishii’s status as a master of this particular genre of film, though he is still widely considered only as a “cult director” even in his native country.  When Ishii was given the opportunity to adapt an Edogawa Ranpo story, he was so excited—and afraid it would be his one and only opportunity to do so—that he took a classic Ranpo story, The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, mixed it with all his favorite bits from other Ranpo stories, and produced a powerful cocktail that are equal parts erotic, grotesque, and ridiculous.

Our tale begins in an insane asylum where the protagonist of the film, a young medical student, manages to escape captivity.  He sees a newspaper and notices a death announcement.  The dead man seems to be the medical student’s exact double.  Fascinated by this seeming doppelganger and needing a place to hide out anyway, the medical student tricks the dead man’s family into believing he has been resurrected and assumes his new identity while he investigates his doppelganger’s death. This leads him in search of his long-lost “father,” who lives on an isolated island and refuses contact with the outside world while he attempts to create his own personal utopia.  Consumed with curiosity, the medical student forces his way onto the island with a small contingent of family members and servants only to discover his father is mad and the “utopia” he has created is more like Hell on Earth…and the medical student has inadvertently stepped into a trap and now must choose to help sustain this living Hell or become a part of it himself.

True to form, Horrors of Malformed Men is equal parts eroticism, grotesquerie, and fever-dream.  Dismissed by studio execs who didn’t understand it and who were offended by the film and poorly marketed by advertisers who had no idea how to present the film, it died at the box office upon its initial release in 1969.  And, due to the Japanese considering the word “malformed” as an extremely offensive epithet, the film didn’t garner a home video release until 2017 in its home country.  Nevertheless, Ishii enthusiasts were able to see the film through festivals or video releases in other countries and its reputation as Ishii’s seminal masterwork continued to grow over the past few decades.

Without depicting any sexual activity, the film is filled with nude women, some swimming mermaid-like in the island lake, some bathing together, and others painted in various golds and silvers and dancing suggestively. The general feel of the film is certainly erotic without ever approaching the pornographic.  Likewise, there is a general sense of the grotesque, from the opening scene in an insane asylum to the wild gyrations of the master of the island to the numerous freakish, Moreau-like inhabitants of the isolated island.  Even the general concept of creating a utopia for malformed people by kidnapping people and surgically deforming them is grotesque in and of itself.  In fact, it’s pure madness.

The imagery of the film perfectly captures the ero-guro sensibilities of Taisho-era Japan.  Simply put, the film is filled with images of the erotic and grotesque that are quite captivating.  The use of color and of the musical score only serves to make the images that much more impressive.  For viewers who enjoy pure cinema, this is a feast for the senses.  If the film has any failings, it has more to do with what many may perceive as “style over substance,” namely, the lack of a linear plot.  Viewers who are patient will be rewarded at the end of the film with an explanation that, while convoluted, ties all the loose ends up quite nicely.  However, many viewers who may not be used to such loose plotting, will be frustrated with the film and may give up early on.  Indeed, the film is equally praised for its powerful imagery and score as well as reviled for the “nansensu” scripting so important for these types of films.  Westerners who enjoy knowing exactly what is going on at any moment in a story will likely hit fast-forward or simply turn the television off.  But those viewers who are a bit more open-minded will be rewarded with a film that is simply astounding through-and-through.  I haven’t seen nearly all of Ishii’s works, but I have seen quite a bit.  I like much of what I have seen but nothing comes as close to attaining the ero-guro-nansensu sensibility as perfectly as Horrors of Malformed Men.

Some viewers will be put off with the obtuseness of the scripting while others will be turned off by the grotesque images on display.  Others simply won’t understand some of what is going on—and I have to admit there were parts I had to research in order to truly understand—but as a pure cinematic experience the film is terrifically entertaining.  And for those potential viewers who have been scared off by the title, be assured that none of the images are nearly as gross or as sickening as the title seems to imply.  Yes, the images are disturbing on an emotional level, but the low-budget effects (and remember, this was in 1969) serve to lessen the impact somewhat in comparison with what 21^st Century effects might be capable of.  Although also a source of contention amongst genre fans, Ishii also injects the film with two or three sequences of very broad humor that serve to lighten the mood occasionally.  While some find the insertion of nearly-slapstick humor into the film as incongruous, I actually found it well-balanced and enjoyed these sequences as much as any of the others.

Arrow Video USA has released a really stupendous package here.  The film has been restored in 2K from the original camera negative and is presented in high definition Blu-Ray.  It comes with two audio commentaries, one ported over from the DVD release over a decade ago with Mark Schilling and a new commentary with Tom Mes.  I found the Schilling commentary to be the better of the two, but both shed light on the film and give it some much-needed Western perspective.  There are several special features including an interview with the screenwriter as well as with Japanese filmmakers influenced by Ishii.  There is also some footage of Ishii in Italy while attending a career retrospective.  He is interviewed towards the end of the footage and it was nice to hear him speak about his career.  An image gallery and trailer round out the special features.  The first pressing also includes a booklet with writing by some of the best Japanese cinema experts out there, including Mes, Grady Hendrix, and Jasper Sharp.

You can purchase the film directly from Arrow Video at http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/category/usa/ or from Amazon.