Shojo no harawata

A lot of these Japanese soft porno movies remind me of old American nudie/sex films from the 60s, albeit a lot more explicit. This one is no exception, save the severely warped "horror" (?) movie that somehow sneaks its way into this tame squeal and grunt production. The "porno" parts are almost anti-erotic (they reminded me of scenes from Andy Milligan's "Seeds of Sin" for some reason) with lots of irritating Japanese girl squealing and the typical Japanese obsession with various bodily fluids dripping or being flung about (watch out for fogged pubic hair though!). In the midst of this time wasting stuff a muddy guy stalks around the fringes of the production and finally makes himself known by killing and raping the cast in ridiculous ways, before finally impregnating the one survivor while spouting off nonsense about "the only power that can kill me" or something. This movie was boring, and yet fascinating. The acting comes from the Big Book of Japanese Acting Templates. The cute girl acts like the cute girl in every other Japanese movie, as do the crazy girl, sexy girl, and horny lecherous old man. The violence is very cheap and silly, but seemingly from another movie, as if the director really wanted to make this extreme and surreal horror movie statement (in the terrible supplemental interview with him that I watched for 5 minutes he mentioned Decartes and said he was "angry at the world") but could only get sex movie studio Nikkatsu to fund it, so tossed off a half dozen boring sex scenes before getting to the good stuff. The "good stuff" made this movie semi-legendary on the underground/bootleg circuit for years (the title alone was a strong selling point), but I'm glad I never shelled out $20 for a bootleg, its just not all that great, save as a curio.

Maybe it was the title, or the trailer (certainly not the interview on the DVD, which is with the director as he keeps saying "hi, kids" into the camera like a buffoon), but I had expectations for Entrails of a Virgin to be at least a bit of sleazy fun with some good sex scenes and brutal, bloody killings by a weird Japanese penetrator. Turns out it's way too sleazy for its own good, or bad, or whatever. There's a problem- and one can see this also in the Italian sexploitation flick Porno Holocaust, similar to this in many respects- in not having balance to the sex and violence. Too much sex and it will turn into a prototypical porno, and not even with much production quality in comparison with most professional porno movies! And with the killing scenes, there has to be at least a little tack, and maybe just a smidgen of ingenuity, in creating the creature/killer/whatever. Entrails of a Virgin has neither. It's safe to say it's a pretty soulless movie, even if isn't one of the very worst ever made- it's there just for horn-dog Japanese fetishists to get off on girls in trouble and men who have all their brains in their 'other' heads.

In this case, we're given a photo team where the guys are taking some shots of some girls, nothing too salacious, and then by way of a dense fog they stay off at some house one night and are picked off one by one by "A Murderer" as he's credited. First off, the director Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu decides he has to put in a quota of random sex scenes early on- we get spliced in (or phoned in, take your pick) clips of one of the photographers having sex with one or more of the girls elsewhere. It looks like it's from another movie. Then once settled into the house, there's a 'wrestling' scene that's poorly choreographed and shot (yeah, we really need to see him 'all' there), and then on to the rape and killings. First the rape, by the photographers, who promise the girls some jobs for their time. Then the Murderer, who like D'Amato's creature is simply covered in mud and given a stupid facial, and who for an unknown reason kills the men and/or rapes the women one by one.

Now, the latter of those, taken by themselves, should be considered the highlights of the movie. This is like saying, however, that the croûtons are the best part of a wretchedly tasting salad. An eye-gouging scene, a spike thrown like an Olympic event (that scene, actually, is kind of cool), and finally the entrailing of the overly sex-crazed girl, whose inconsequential name I can't remember. Even *this* becomes disappointing just by not being correct to the title! On top of this, the sex scenes, which become tedious through 'Gaira' and his indulgence in long-takes-without-cutaways where everything by the Japanese censors is blurred anyway, are dubbed over by the actors (you'd think that they seem to be enjoying themselves enough, hence the need to let them 'speak' for themselves). But the overall feeling from Entrails of a Virgin is that of a lumpy one, where it's just there to be gawked at and without a shred of suspense or true horror (watch as the last girl left alive, the virgin of the picture, tries to stop the murderer from getting to her, which lasts five minutes as she keeps throwing sticks at him!) You just want it to be done with, for the 'I hate women' mantra to ease up or be rid altogether.

How do you review this objectively? I don't think you can. You either enjoy this sort of thing or you don't. I've given the movie a 5 not because its either good or bad, it simply is and I can't try to rate it for that reason.

After a soft-core photo shoot the photographers and the models go to a house in the mountains where kinky sex takes with occasional interruptions by a mud-covered demon/psycho who tears the men apart and has his way with the women. Plotwise thats about it, sex followed by violence followed by sex...

I don't know what else to say beyond that. Certainly its well made with sex scenes that are quite steamy (and kinky). I can't say that there really is a point beyond the melding of sex and horror. If its suppose to disturb it does that. If its suppose to titillate it does that too. I just don't know if you're suppose to feel both emotions at the same time.

As I said you either enjoy this sort of thing or you don't. Whether you watch it is your own choice, just don't say you weren't warned.

AKA Guts of a Virgin

Japanese horror-exploitation flick directed by Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu (Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay), and the first instalment in his 'Gut's Trilogy'. Three guys (a professional photographer, his boss and one of his assistants) and three girls (a model, a wannabe model there to 'learn the ropes', and another assistant) are on a photoshoot in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. At the end of the day they head back towards civilisation in their camper van, but get lost in the dark and the fog. They stumble across a house under construction in some woods and decide to spend the night there before continuing on the next day when it's safe. After eating and drinking (this half-built house apparently has a fully-stocked refrigerator!) two of the guys start pressuring the girls to have sex with them, promising them 'work' in the future. Meanwhile a humanoid 'mud creature' emerges from the earth outside and makes its way towards the house. As various members of the group venture outside they're stalked and killed by the creature in various gory ways.

This kinda plays out like a variation on the The Evil Dead, but with even less budget and a *ton* of softcore sleaze. There are even a couple of low 'Raimi-cam' shots through the woods. It's a weird film - as though they had a script for a 'cabin in the woods' horror and one for a softcore porno lying around and decided to combine them. There is a *lot* of flesh on show here and a *lot* of unsavoury acts depicted (although nothing actually hardcore onscreen). It basically takes the Friday the 13th horny kids/nudity trope and dials it up to 11. Thing is, the nudity/sex gets real boring, real quick, and you're just waiting for the gore. When that finally comes, some of it is pretty well done (we get a hook through the throat, an Omen-style rod/spike impalement, a beheading courtesy of a loose pane of glass - plus some stuff that I won't go into!). The prosthetics work is pretty good in places and laughably bad in others, the story is almost non-existent, and the performances cartoonish. On the other hand, the kills are entertaining, the synth score is moody and catchy, and the photography in the woods with the backlit fog is very atmospheric.

The 'Guts Trilogy' was *very* hard to get hold of in the west for a long time and gained a reputation for being 'some of the sickest films ever made', but this first one, at least, doesn't come close for me. That said, it's obviously designed to shock - and depending on your sensibilities it may well do. Apparently the next entry is even 'better'! We'll see... 5/10.

When i sit down to watch a movie with a name such a this and a reputation to be one of the most grotesque japanese cinema has to offer i await to be repulsed. That didn´t happen. The first half of the movie was filled with softcore leening towards rape-porn, often featured in japanese films such as this. The few gore scenes where placed in the dark so you couldn´t see what was happening. There is of course the infamous highlight with chopped of hands, naked girls and lots of monster semen, but this comes too late. You are already uninterested. So, if this sounds appealing, see the movie with low expectations.