GUINEA PIG
THE DEVILS EXPERIMENT

The first in the infamous series of short Japanese shock films that began back in 1986. Filmed on home video, in an attempt to pass this off as a genuine snuff film, we see a young girl held captive by a group of masked man who then proceed to beat and torture her.

Starting off with the group repeatedly slapping her around the face, complete with a counter in the bottom of the screen showing how many times she's been hit, we're then treated to scenes of them subsequently kicking her around the floor, pulling out her fingernails with pliers, and cutting her skin with various tools and implements.

But her ordeal doesn't end there, as they go on to rub salty water into her wounds, deafen her with loud music and shower her in offal and maggots before scalding her with boiling water and finally gouging her eyes out with long needles in a series of long, protracted events lasting close to 40mins (virtually the films entire running time).

Made solely to cash in on the Japanese's bloody mania for violent gory films, the film is actually rather slow moving, having no plot to speak of, and is not really deserving of all the hype that surrounds it. Most horror fans may be a little bored by this, though the eye gouging scene at the end was kind-of interesting.

Overall marks : 4/10.

Other Information.

• The Guinea Pig films were the brainchild of Japanese director/producer Satoru Ogura, who wanted to make a series of gritty, realistic snuff like films that would appeal to Japanese gore hounds.

• The film was a huge success on home video in Japan and outsold everything else, including all the mainstream Hollywood titles, for 2 consecutive months after its release.

• The film was advertised as being a genuine snuff film that had been discovered. It was released without any cast & crew credits in order to maintain the illusion.

• Despite the films low budget and graphic nature of the script, the film makers were surprised to find no shortage of budding actresses wishing to audition for the role of the victim.

• The convincing scene showing a needle being pushed through the victims skull and protruding from her eye was achieved by pushing a needle into a prosthetic appliance on the side of her head whilst she held her eye open and they squirted false blood into it. For the next shot where you see the needle come out of the eye they switched to a dummy head with a false eye made of oil jelly.

• There have been six films in total, along with 2 "making-of" specials and a "best-of" compilation. However, there is much confusion over what the actual running order of these films is, owing to several films not having a copyright date, and some being released out-of-sequence in some countries. To see what the correct running order is click "HERE".

Cast & Crew.

Special Feature.

Buy the US DVD (double bill)

Buy the US DVD box set (4-discs).

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Other films in the series.

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