Bloodtype Online

      This film is a mixture of subtle depravity, insanity and psychedelic art house cinema. Images in this tale about repressed memories, incest and deformity will stick with the viewer permanently due to the enhanced visuals that involved far-out dancing and some impressive make up design of the “malformed men”. The film has elements of Todd Browning’s “Freaks” while taking the audience into an extremely strange world like Robin Hardy’s sexual and religious odyssey “The Wicker Man”. 

      The film follows an imprisoned Medical Student who is tortured by an image of a doppelganger. Soon after being attacked by a bald man in prison he breaks free and runs into a girl he hears singing an all too familiar song from a distance. He meets he at a circus after he plans on showing her a drawing of cliffs near a beach he has burned into his tortured memory. After a tragedy at the circus he goes to a masseuse that gives him more detailed information about a family with a sordid past. Also he notices that a man named Genzeburou has passed away and shares almost exact features as he does. From here he poses as Genzeburou after he disposes of his body and does his take of a resurrection by playing dead in a graveyard. 

      Soon he is playing husband to Genzeburou’s wife and he also has a mistress. Lucky for him his mysterious investigation is leading to a variety of sexual partners under the guise of another man.  From here a lot of the mystery unravels, the malformed men appear here and there and  Hirosuke eventually goes to Genzeburou’s fantasy island of human experiments, human fishes and tons of answers that come out in one of the most impressive and drawn out finale’s I’ve ever seen in my life. This film has it all from a great story to flesh eating crabs, revenge to mad scientist camp. The tail end of this movie is both surreal and so ludicrous you have to enjoy it. While the story is bizarre the story is easy to follow and all the revelations are explained well. The image of  Genzaburou’s father walking onto the beach and up the cliff is one of a kind and is worth being thrown in two different scenes in this horror pot of gumbo. The amount of treachery, repulsion and out of the ordinary occurrences make this film a must buy for Japanese cinema lovers because this is far from the white painted ghost formula that is crowding the market and being adapted into to many American remakes. Also I’d like to give a nod to the moody score by Masao Yagi during many of the strange scenes. 

      The performances were all taken seriously although the story was so out there. I enjoyed being in the dark with the character of Hirosuke (Terio Yoshida). I can’t express how incredibly unhinged actor Tatsumi Hijikata was as Jougorou. He is easily one of the biggest nutcases in cinematic history. He was a voyeur husband gone mad scientist serving revenge in a way I’ve never seen, although I think “Oldboy” may have been inspired by this film. Every character is imperative to this story so pay attention and you will fine the ending to be quite rewarding.

      The DVD is spectacular and includes an audio commentary with film critic Mark Schilling, an excellent Malformed Memories features that includes many talented filmmakers like Shinya Tskumoto (Tetsuo the Iron Man) and Minoru Kawasaki (The Calmari Wrestler) sharing their thoughts on how talented they believe  director Teruo Ishii to be an how entertaining his movies were. They both seemed to agree that “Horrors of Malformed Men” was Ishii’s magnum opus. The liner notes supplied with this disc are both amazing and describe the complete evolution of “Horror’s of Malformed Men” from its conception to its fruition. This DVD is a new, fully restored transfer mastered in High Definition from Toe Co. original vaults. There are scenes in this film that look like they could have been shot yesterday. The only reason I can tell this is not new is because it’s 100% original. Synapse always gives the good treatment and luckily the film speaks for itself. This is an amazing sleeper classic that deserves its cult status and makes me appreciate the Asian films I’m missing out on. I also can’t wait to get my hands on some other films from Teruo Ishii. If you want a truly original experience in terms of story and artsy visuals you must buy this film. 

*** ½ 

-Russ Rutter