Guinea pig: Android of Notre Dame

Android of Notre Dame: 4/10: Demented DNA dabbling dwarf seeks to cure ailing sister (her ailment isn't specified but I'm guessing Ali MacGraw disease as she becomes prettier the sicker she gets). He gets a living dead girl to experiment on from a blackmailing body procurer (Tomorowo Taguchi who has only one expression but it's a doozy and kind of reminds one of a Japanese Phil Hartman). Taguchi gets greedy, the living dead girl decomposes, the sister gets sicker and the dwarf goes to a bad place.

The script sometimes writes checks the F/X can't cash (The legs and flying saw blade scene is particularly unconvincing) And the movie concentrates so much on the anatomical gross out it starts looking like an alien autopsy film. Yet an overall goofiness survives throughout.

Maybe it was the complete lack of humor (This is straightforward Poe style moralizing), the video quality that reminded me of a Canadian television movie, or the fact that after watching companion feature Devil's Experiment anything looks good but this little film wasn't all that bad.

None of the urban mythology surrounding some of the other Guinea Pig films applies to this one which is just a mad scientist tale involving quite a bit of gore. It does not resemble a snuff film in any way, nor is it supposed to appear to be anything more than a movie. The effects are visual amazing, but are not all that realistic, not that androids have ever been dissected before in reality.

It's only about an hour long and the production values are low, but still it might be worth tracking down. The story is interesting enough and deals with the ethics of killing someone to save another person's life.

The story of this borefest centres around a dwarf mad scientist who is trying to find a cure for his dying sister. So on he goes to commit murders in the name of research. This episode is in no way as gruesome as any of the other guinea pig films i have seen and the special effects arent realistic. I fell asleep after 35 minutes of watching this and i was in no hurry to watch the rest, but when i did get around to it, it was just the same old crap what i seen to begin with... BORING!!

"Android of Notre Dame" is a strange little film. This sci-fi / horror production is the truly bizarre tale of a mad, vertically challenged scientist and his dying sister. This film reminded me of what might happen if a bunch of horror fans stumbled across a disused "Doctor Who" studio from the '80s...the production was a combination of cheap sets, colourful lighting and gallons of very bright and otherworldly gore...just what the doctor ordered!

"Android" is definitely a hesitant recommendation but perhaps a necessary viewing for "Guinea Pig" completists and fans of alternative J-Horror.

This is actually part 3.Blame Thomas Weisser for his useful but highly innacurate Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia,this is where lots of mistakes like this originate.The first two entries (on Midnight Video) in this series are DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT and FLOWERS OF FLESH AND BLOOD.This entry (which is curiously also called GUINEA PIG 2 in Japan) is from a completely different video company (JHV).You can tell because this is where the series switched from thoughtful and detailed meditations on sadistic behaviour (although you'd have to be an idiot like Charlie Sheen to really think it's snuff) to camp gore comedies like this. Toshihiko Hino (who can be spotted as a torturer in the first ZERO WOMAN-not the one available on Japan Shock video as Zero Woman,that's actually ZERO WOMAN 2) is a dwarf scientist trying to find a cure for his terminally ill girlfriend.He experiments on naked women.Parts are funny,and it's easy to sit through at only 50 minutes.Director Kuramoto is also responsible for the first two SEX BEAST ON CAMPUS sequels