Jintai-mokei no yuru

I've been diving deep into Hisayasu Sato's filmography lately-partly because of his birthday on August 15th, but mostly because I needed something completely unhinged. That's how I ended up revisiting Night of the Body's Model (Jintai-mokei no yoru), and wow... it still hits just as hard. This movie is like if Roman Polanski's apartment-block got shoved through a David Lynch-ian filter at the Great Northern Hotel.

It follows Rieko, a perfumer who moves into an apartment her ex-boyfriend swore was a steal. Surprise-it's a sensory hellhole. Her new home comes with a masterclass in WTF-ery in the form of the neighbors. On one side, there's this reclusive father-son duo who are permanently welded to their unit, constantly humming "Auld Lang Syne" in a way that's both funny, unsettling and off-key loop. The son has a thing for medical mannequins and, uh, let's just say his dad's prosthetic arm is involved in ways you do not want to know.

Then there's the other neighbor, a sound-obsessed stalker who's basically Gene Hackman in "The Conversation" if he completely lost his grip. He has reduced Rieko's life to a terrifying soundscape he can obsess over. He's wired their shared wall into a network of stethoscopes to listen to her every move, creating this messed-up psychic connection and sometime uses glasses pressed to the walls as listening station. The film masterfully uses intercuts between his voyeuristic reality and Rieko's blood-soaked nightmares, with a particularly disorienting shower scene that is a real standout.

The whole place is a nightmare of isolation, the sink feels ominous, the room just oozes dread. And of course, it wouldn't be a Sato joint without a prominently featured, vaguely threatening refrigerator.

Overall, It's a wild, wacky, and wicked ride that's built not on jump scares. Sato just chucks everything at the wall: cross-dressing, prosthetic fetishes, surreal trauma - it's a dark, quirky, and uniquely Sato experience that sticks with you like a weird sensation anxiety of being heard or tapped.

Still another one of those Japanese flicks that hasn't got a proper release at this writing. It's only available on VHS so far and if you want to catch it you will need your network to catch a copy. Of course it's available on the forbidden way with English subs but the real stuff is hard to get. Having build a network I was able to get me the official release on TOEI Video label. Most of Japanese sellers don't ship outside Japan especially when nudity do appear on the VHS or DVD cover.

Even as it is spoken in Japanese you will easily get the picture. When a woman moves in to an apartment she doesn't get the picture that it is full of strange people. Her neighbour is listening through the walls with special devices what she is doing and he develops an intense empathy with everything she does and feels. His devices becoming more complex as he is having more and more the same feelings she does. But there are other weirdos in the apartment. Taking the elevator she come across a scientist father and son. They also interact with her. The son has an unhealthy fetish for his father's prosthetic arm, and an obsession over medical mannequins and artificial body parts. But not only people are strange, even in her apartment things are strange. Her food dispenser seems to have a life of its own. Her dreams do become strange and eventually even become bloodier.

A weird story that you will be locked on the screen. Don't worry, when strange things happen mostly it's unspoken. There's also one scene where she's making love and yes, it's blurred but there's enough nudity in it and intestines and red stuff to make it a hunt worthy. Also because it was directed by Hisayasu Sato, maker of the cilt classic Naked Blood (1996).

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 2/5 Effects 3/5 story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

"Night of Bodys Model" made by Japanese Pinku Devil Hisayasu Sato is a weird and unsettling psycho-sexual horror movie about a woman who moves into an apartment complex near the river.Her closest neighbors are truly bizarre and psychotic characters.A man next door constantly listens her all sounds via his complex wall-listening equipment.There are also scientist father with his creepy looking prosthetic arm and his son who is obsessed with anatomical mannequin and his father's body part.The woman has some bloody nightmares which involve body parts and bloody guts.This surreal and nightmarish Sato's movie has three graphic sexual scenes and some insanely bloody imagery.It's not as gory as "Naked Blood" but equally as disturbing.Fetishists and pinku lovers will enjoy this surreal flick.8 medical mannequins out of 10.