Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole

I think during the 80's, while Cronenberg and the like were showing their special effects skills, some daring Japanese directors were ready to show their might on the screen and it led to these films. All of them were put together to showcase nothing more than special effects with almost no story line whatsoever. Except this little gem!! I have to say, these films are definitely heavy on the gore, and they are way good at the special effects. They definitely caught me off guard when I saw them without knowing what I was sitting down to watch. But that's where it ends, special effects for gross out factors (which the Japanese do very well). But again, this one is a bit different than the others, so don't just write it off like perhaps "Flower of Flesh and Blood" or "Devil's Experiment".

First off, this has the artist element, as the crazy man who paints the scum and filth inside of a sewer would. And it has a very strange feeling almost from the get go. An almost bizarre art house quiet despair right from the get go. You can almost smell the rotting filth just by watching it. And that's exactly how I can explain this film, as if you watch an animal get hit by a car and watch it die, and subsequently rot to a bloody mess on the side of the road. But that's only an allegory to what the movie looks like, as the movie is perhaps an allegory to a deeper meaning.

While this film is certainly vile, and has loads of gross out factors from stem to stern, it has a certain humanity to it. Almost a beautiful love to it. And that is where this movie stands out from the others.

If you've seen the others and haven't seen this one, then definitely watch it. If you've wanted to see them, and haven't yet, definitely watch this one. If you like gross out gore cinema, then definitely watch this one. If you're weak in the stomach, then steer very far away from any of these films.

A painter named Hayashi(Shigeru Saiki)finds a wounded mermaid(Mari Somei)and saves her.He takes her home and puts her into his bathtub where she keeps decomposing,the spreading disease spurting blood and pus.Hideshi Hino's "Guinea Pig 4:Mermaid in the Manhole" is easily one of the most disgusting horror movies I have ever seen.The make-up effects made by Nobuaki Koga are incredibly revolting.The character of Hayashi is pretty sympathetic and the film has a mood of a very sad romance.The mermaid represents painter's wife and "all the beautiful things" he has lost,so she is bound to rot and vanish too."Mermaid in the Manhole" works as a piece of extreme art,so anyone who loves Japanese horror should give it a look.However if you're easily offended avoid this one like the plague.

It is hard to describe the viewing experience for this movie. Even if you have seen the other Guinea Pig series movies, this one is on another level of disturbing. Where the first three are gory, they are also just straightforward dismemberment stories. They are simple and shocking, but no really new ground from hundreds of other horror movies. Mermaid in a Manhole is a different story. It focuses on disease and decay. It captures the lead character's descent into insanity. Then, once the viewer has gone through all this for the first two-thirds of the movie, we move to the dismemberment.

I like the psychological angle of this story and I think it makes this installment much better than the first two, but it is hard to watch and appreciate. To some degree, it reminds me of Nekromantik in that the story is intriguing and pushes the viewer to think about what is happening, but the images are so terrible that it is hard to want to.

I saw this in the middle of the night, and it wasn't subtitled. Still, I figured out what it was about, despite the fact that I don't speak it's language. It's about what appears to be a painter who rescues an injured woman who begins to rot and spew pus. As she dies, he uses her goop as paint. The film's ending is depressing as it appears that he wasn't playing with a full deck.

The overall tone of the film is bad enough without the bizarre situation, but the fact that the film literally doesn't race makes the outcome more of an effective idea that could be better implemented with a little less patience. Still, when the screen isn't drenched with guts and pus, it's pretty to look at. This is, i guess, a part of some strange series of films in Japan that deal with special effects gore and realism. This works in both areas, but also happens to have a little more to offer.

This is a sick movie. A young painter finds a dying mermaid in the sewer and he takes her home. Then the mayhem begins... This is actually a real movie compared to the previous "Guinea Pig"-movies. It´s not so sick an it got a certain cinematic style. Still I wouldn´t recommend it to anyone but hardcore-Japanese-splatter-movie-fans. I give it 5 out of 10.