Shojo no harawata

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.

Given the title and outlandish box art, I was ready for just about anything. Perhaps my expectation were forced just a bit to high, because I was left a little dry.

A film crew working on a soft-core sex movie end up at a strange house when they get lost in the fog and decide the best way to spend the evening is to have sex. Where hasn't this set up been used before? The difference here is the uber-perverse nature of the sex. Not allowed to show all the goods (groin shots were illegal in Japan for a long time, what is shown is fogged out) the movie tries as hard as it can to show the viewer just how unnatural sex can be.

Amidst all the kinky goings on, a mud monster (whose origin I can't fathom) shows up and begins murdering the men and raping the women...then murdering them too. Some of the sights are a bit much, most notably a woman having her intestines pulled out through her vagina or another woman spitting out a mouthful of...stuff, but otherwise the gore is pretty standard fare.

Ultimately the film is pulled down by it's own designs; it's too over-sexed to be a strait horror picture and too gruesome to work as a sex flick. The mediums can work, but there need to be a balance.

4/10

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.