Guinea Pig (ギニーピッグ, Ginī Piggu) is a nasty little series of Japanese splatter films, and the second entry (written and directed by manga artist Hideshi Hino) is the most infamous. Unlike Devil’s Experiment (Ginī Piggu: Akuma no Jikken, the first in the series), this does have at least a semblance of a narrative—framed as a recreation of actual events involving the abduction and murder of a woman in an unnamed Japanese city.
More interesting than the movie itself (a grisly and sporadically effective special effects showcase, with just a whiff of poetic rumination) is the collection of urban legends that surround it—apocryphal or not. Charlie Sheen famously mistook a bootleg clip of the film for an actual snuff film before contacting the Motion Picture Association of America (or the FBI, depending on who tells the story). Authorities opened a brief investigation into the claim, before a making-of featurette put the case to bed. A copy of the series’ fourth film (not the second, as has been rumored) was found in the home of Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, which reignited a recurring conversation about the societal ramifications of violence in media. The film was broadly banned, and one British connoisseur of filth even received a £600 fine for importing a copy.
The subcultural mythology that has grown around this series (and Flower of Flesh and Blood in particular) recalls other notorious films like Faces of Death (an exhibitionist mondo film-turned-series that achieved surprising box office success) and Cannibal Holocaust—the godfather of the found footage film, which depicted authentic and inexcusable displays of animal cruelty (in addition to grotesque but fictional scenes of rape and murder). In many cases, public backlash is the best press a movie could hope for. Deodato’s short-lived murder charges only came about because of his own guerilla marketing for Cannibal Holocaust, and Britain’s infamous “video nasty” label (a reactionary moral response to the home video market of the ’80s) has become a badge of (dis)honor for unscrupulous and low budget splatter films.
Echoing the actions of the British Board of Film Censors in the early ’80s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government tried to scapegoat the Guinea Pig series after the apprehension of the aforementioned “Otaku Murderer” (Miyazaki). And in the case of the British man fined for importing a copy of the series’ second film (26-year-old Christopher Berthoud), the prosecution argued that the film should classify as snuff, not because it literally is (an opening text in the film specifically declares that it is not), but because of the “impression [of realism] it creates” in the viewer. If we follow the rhetorical logic of their argument, we end up in an ethical quagmire with troubling implications for filmmakers and artists everywhere.
I am not trying to come out as an unequivocal champion for these types of films, and I stress repeatedly that we should view media with a critical and active eye. I don’t idolize filmmakers who abuse their crew, I don’t support films that carry water for colonialist systems, and I do my best to call out films that punch down at marginalized groups or exploit themes like Black trauma or violence against women. I am not recommending Flower of Flesh and Blood to others (who in their right mind watches this stuff?)—but I am defending its right to exist.
The key, I think, is to support, patronize, and take part in a robust arts industry (this is where I want my tax dollars going, rather than imperialist wars abroad), while, as audiences and critics, holding accountable those creators and works of art that might do cultural damage through regressive politics and problematic representation. In a world flooded with misinformation and bad faith propaganda, media literacy becomes a crucial tool in navigating an inherently political world of entertainment.
The appeal of these types of films is decidedly niche, but there is a whole underworld of extreme cinema and faux snuff that will always have an audience of curious weirdos. Am I proud to be a member of that club? Maybe that’s not the right word—but I support the legal right to tell icky and transgressive stories. I don’t blame anyone for skipping entirely the Guinea Pig series or its ilk (the vast majority of people do, as well they should) but at the end of the day this is simulated gore, existing (fairly benignly) in a global system of violent political economies. Let’s not blame the former for the material brutalities of the latter.