GUINEA PIG
DEVILS EXPERIMENT / ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME

DEVILS EXPERIMENT

Production, Year, Staff and Cast have not been credited because "This was secretly filmed by an unknown person"

198?/43 mins/Color/2.0 DD
1.33:1/Japanese/Japan/NTSC All Region

ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME

Directed by Kazuhito Kuramoto
Produced by Satoru Ogura
Written by Kazuhito Kuramoto, Mitsuo Mitsuki & Yoshikazu Iwanami
Cast: Toshiki Hino, Mio Takagi, Yumi Iori, Tomorrow Taguchi & Mirei

1988/52 mins/Color/2.0 DD
1.85:1/Japanese/Japan/NTSC All Region

Review from the Unearthed Films DVD

Web Sites: http://www.guineapigfilms.com & http://www.unearthedfilms.com

DEVILS EXPERIMENT. It was in 1985 that producer Satoru Ogura joined by horror artist Hideshi Hino had the idea of creating a "faux" snuff film to shock horror fans. Out of this idea was born DEVILS EXPERIMENT, a film supposedly based on actual events that were on a tape Ogura supposedly received. Three men are about to torture a woman through various stages which are even labeled at the bottom right of the screen; hit, kick, claw, unconcious (where she's strapped in a chair as they spin her and make her drink Jack Daniels), sound, skin (they pull one of her nail), burn, worm, guts, needle (where they insert a needle on the side of her head until it takes one of her eye out). A truly gruesome and violent film not made for everyone's taste. One problem i have with DEVILS EXPERIMENT is that i find it hard to believe that Satoru Ogura wanted us to believe that this was actually real. Some parts are completely incoherent and impossible to be believed as real. The film looks too good and tries to be too artsy to feel real. We even get some POVs of the victim, talk about impossible! Still the film went on to become infamous much like the FACES OF DEATH or Mondo films but to a higher level.

A young man by the name of Tsutomo Miyazaki would emulate the vicious FX from the film in real life on four girls. He got caught when he was about to get a fifth victim. He was dubbed the "Otaku Killer", "Otaku" in Japanese means "fanboy". Miyazaki had a collection of over 6000 tapes which included GUINEA PIG, which got most if not all the blame. ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME. This second film to be release is actually the sixth entry of the series to be filmed. Certainly one of the weirdest episode of the serie. Dr. Karazawa (Toshiko Hino) is a dwarf scientist who's trying to find a way to keep his ill sister alive. Lucky for her, he's mad, deranged and lets not forget, a scientist. He is approached by the mysterious Kato (Tomoro Taguchi) who finds him a female human body to work on. Unfortunately for Karazawa, he is blackmailed by Kato. Karazawa finally turns to the whole situation to his advantage, he keeps only Kato's head while pursuing his research to save his sister.

As everyone can guess, this series gained a massive cult following through the bootleg videos. Florida-based independent label Unearthed Films have done what no one would have otherwise, give the GUINEA PIG serie an official North American release on DVD nonetheless. According to Stephen Brio of Unearthed Films, "The DVD authoring company that was involved with the GUINEA PIG DVD's refused to author and replicate them after receiving the master tapes. Their corporate lawyer mentioned some laws in the U.S. and other nonsense that they were to disgusting for their company to handle. We contacted many other DVD companies in a mad scramble to have these DVD's transferred and replicated. Everyone refused. Each company expressed interest until they received the master tapes. One after another they sent them back with an apology stating the films were to rough or just plain wrong. The DVD company that did the wonderful TRACES OF DEATH series and FACES OF DEATH series on DVD even refused. We were in a pickle until one company accepted the challenge. We found a home. A DVD authoring company that will transfer everything we get our hands on now and in the future".

Both films were shot very low budget in the mid 80's, still the transfer is quite impressive. Presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio the image looks good and the 2.0 Dolby Digital remix is quite nice. The films are in Japanese with optional yellow English subtitles. The main menu is a split menu where we choose which feature to watch, nicely done. DEVILS EXPERIMENT is separated in 12 chapters while ANDROID OF NOTRE DAME is separated in 6 chapters. There is no inlay card of booklet and the DVD comes in a keep case.

These two GUINEA PIG films were also released on PAL Region 2 DVD in Germany.

Thanks to Unearthed Films

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2003. ©

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