Shojo no harawata

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.

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.

After reading the opinions of other users I thought it a good idea to express my own.

Plot: Soft-core filmmakers take nubile young women to a remote house under the pretense of "advancing" their careers. Too bad for them a maniac in the form of a demon with a large penis is stalking and killing them.

There is a ton of soft-core sex (including demon sex), a beheading, a disemboweling, severed hand masturbation....well, these are things already mentioned in previous comments so let's get to the point of why I enjoyed this movie.

Its sleazy, trashy, a bit gory, and a whole helluva lot of fun. This movie does things that were completely shocking and unexpected and had me, more than once, laughing and crying out, "OMG!". If you're like me you've seen just about every piece of exploitative filth made in the US and Europe, but this film tops them all. And it has an ending which left me gape-mouthed and wanting more.

As far as the optical censoring mentioned in other posts, yes, its true. Now to clarify this. The Japanese do not allow below the waist nudity, period. Optical fogging is a fact even in porn. To the user who hopes Synapse would correct this, they won't. Check out their website and you can find an old news piece that talks about how the actress' wore small pieces of white tape over their genitalia. So, even if the fogging is removed, you won't see anything. But don't let this stand in the way.

If you are a fan of Asian exploitation, horror, or manga I can't imagine you wouldn't enjoy this movie. In fact, that's what it reminded me of; a live action manga. So, check it out.

I got misled into seeing this aft reading a review praising that it is an atmospheric horror movie.

The movie is not at all scary, there is absolutely no atmosphere, the editing n cinematography is abysmal.

Why certain reviewers praised n called it an atmospheric horror movie is beyond me.

For fans of porn and/or horror there is nothing but disappointment to be found in this film. The 'porn' is no stronger than you can find on late night television in Japan replete with the fogging or pixelation. But even if the fogging were removed it still wouldn't have lifted the sex scenes out of the banal to the, hopefully, mildly arousing. The perennial motifs of Japanese porn are here; juvenille looking women wearing white knickers taking no pleasure in the sexual acts they indulge in only under protest. As for the horror quotient, there isn't any!!

Dont believe the hype around the DVD release of this film and don't, upon seeing the box's cover, buy it on the assumption that its a manga animation....like I did.