CAPSULE: MERMAID IN A MANHOLE (1988)

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Ginî piggu: Manhôru no naka no ningyo; AKA Guinea Pig 5: Mermaid in the Manhole

Beware

DIRECTED BY: Hideshi Hino

FEATURING: Shigeru Shaiki, Mari Somei, Masami Hisamoto

PLOT: An artist is inspired by an infected mermaid found in the sewers.

Still from Mermaid in a Manhole (1988)

COMMENTS: The “Guinea Pig” series is an infamous Japanese extreme gore franchise of the 1980s. The first two installments are pioneers of the torture porn subgenre, creating the tropes such films now rely on. Later installments become more conceptually creative, however, with Mermaid in a Manhole—the only entry with fantasy elements—-the prime example.

The story follows an unnamed, grief-stricken artist. After the loss of his wife, he finds solace by exploring the sewers, painting dismembered pieces of an idolized past he finds scattered around.  Among these broken mementos, he discovers a beautiful mermaid. He is shocked to notice she is infected with something,  so he decides to take her home to look after her. And an odyssey of blood and flesh begins.

Despite the lyrical set-up, this cinematic experience is as extreme and as nauseating as it can get.  “Extreme Cinema: Affective Strategies in Transnational Media” by Aaron Michael Kerner and Jonathan L. Knapp will prove useful in anatomizing the grotesqueries. As it often is with extreme horror,  parallels can be traced with pornography in the way the (female) body is depicted (and dissected).

Mermaid features a plethora of meat shots, with close-ups on the creature’s beautiful feminine body as it is gradually desecrated by a cancerous (if phantasmagorical) illness. The descent is accompanied by moaning. Everything culminates in a series of increasingly disturbing shots, as weird, multi-colored secretions ooze  from the tumors engulfing the mermaid’s body. This is truly body-horror at its most disgusting and depraved.

There are hints of artistic ambition under the monstrosity,  however. The film’s visual palette combines dark tones with more vibrant ones to reflect on nostalgia and the passage of time. Piano tunes create the necessary ambience and enhance the sense of dread.  And there is something of an allegorical meditation on sepsis and decay.

The movie could work better, however, with a more elliptical approach.  Mermaid unnecessarily indulges in brutal realism. Secondary characters add nothing substantial, except some clumsy exposition. And the finale is simplistic and out-of-place in its attempt to rationalize the events prior to it. Yes, the movie doesn’t provide certainty, but the way it blurs the lines between what is real and what is not is unnecessary in this context, looking like a banal gimmick out of a psychological thriller.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:  

“…repulses and intrigues at the same time, and feeds not only your appetite for onscreen weirdness, but also your brain.”–Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop! (“Guinea Pig” box set)

I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
Where to watch Huinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole

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