Charlie Sheen Calls the FBI

The Japanese Guinea Pig series remains amongst the notorious underground of cinema. An inevitable development of the found footage genre. In future, concepts would be expanded around particular subcultures and myths. For example, the many films which purport to being the supposed Manson Family snuff footage buried in the desert. As well as, The Alien Autopsy video pretending to be a released recording of government approved doctors examining the remains of the strange suspect that crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947. In actuality, it was shot in some London flat using animal organs. Most of these seem like edgy experiments built up by the media (and the filmmakers) to be disturbing real horror shows when in reality, they're just hilarious hoaxes not worthy of taking too seriously.

The first entry in the infamous series was Guinea Pig: Devils Experiment, which hit the streets in 1985. In total the series is made up of 6 or 7 movies. The exact amount is unclear with 'Lucky Sky Diamond' from 1989 being put out under the banner as a later cheap marketing strategy but not necessarily considered to be included by fans and those involved in the making of them. Such are the tactics of those wanting to pump out faux snuff footage. Since day one, going right back to Michael Findlay's Snuff. Originally titled The Slaughter. A movie so shit, the producers shelved it for a while and then when snuff became hot topic, went back and added an extra scene where the crew making the film murder one of their team. And wallah! an urban legend was born. Did they really just create a snuff film? Nope but by the time that was proven, the film had achieved its infamy.

Genuinely, saved the movie and made its money back. You have to admire such a stupid idea for working as well it did. Baffling how such a bad movie has maintained a place in history as a pure cultural document. The conversation surrounding it being vastly more important than the quality of the movie. Potentially, Findlay's worst film becoming his most known.

Now, if you ever do happen to watch that movie out of nothing other than intrigue, please do not judge my man Michael Findlay too harshly on the technical abilities of that one instance. I want to say his filmmaking is normally better than that but this may not be true either. I will amend my statement to, he is normally a lot less boring. I remain a huge admirer of Findlay's work. He was 42nd Street local living amongst the filth and churning out films faster than you could say "Give us another one Michael!". Together him and his wife Roberta Findlay were referred to as "the most notorious filmmakers in the annals of sexploitation". For some unexplainable reason they're not as well known as exploitation legends such as Russ Meyer, Roger Corman, Doris Wishman and Herschell Gordon Lewis. Totally unacceptable, I will not rest until they are spoken about in the same breath.

None of his films are as shocking or extreme as they were made out to be. Certainly not as gruesome as his death, in which at the age of 39, he was killed after a helicopter crash landed in to him with the spinning rotors literally ripping him apart. Although a tragedy, it does seem strangely appropriate for a man of his nature. A totally unhinged unbalanced wacko that only comes around once every generation. True genius. Given the warrior's death. He was a man who made many softcore sleazy pictures that could be considered 'roughies'. A genre which really began with The Defilers and peaked with Bad Girls Go to Hell. Once again, roughies is a term, which sounds more violent than it was. This was still the '60s and his films were basically S and M movies, cheesy by todays standards.

What distinguishes this debauched character from other softcore artists was his work had a recognisable and charming style. Those unacquainted should begin with The Flesh trilogy. My favourite being the final film, The Kiss of her Flesh. The final 10 minutes of that is some of the most manic shit you will ever see. Just absurd antics.

His signature on these is mainly making them silent movies but then he adds in narrative voice over, revealing the central character's seedy thoughts. Economic reasons guiding the production decisions but ones that ultimately pay off in making them unusual. Unfortunately, it's not really until the second film where the sense of style is fully established. That's the point at which it essentially embraces a serialised format. Each new film showing us more of our favourite misogynist 'Jennings' going about his missions of getting revenge on all women. Findlay turns this sadist into a James Bond character with a little rattle on the score as his theme song. The director even plays 'Jennings' himself and seems to relish embodying this naughty character on every outing. His methods involve torture of women through use of 'lobsters' and other ridiculous means. Jenning's voice over narration making it all the more amusing. In one scene he burns a female's clothes and we hear his thoughts through narration as he says, "Burn slut, burn. Burn you symbol of women".

If this brand of nonsense sounds appealing and you become converted by Findlay's campy over the top sadomasochism then next you should check out Joesph P. Mawra's Olga's Girls trilogy. Ladies, be aware Olga, along with Ilsa She Wolf of the SS, is the OG girl boss. She runs a tight narcotics business and a white slavery ring. Her posse of female prostitutes she keeps in line with a strict regime of constant heroin. This trilogy is the same as the Flesh one, where it doesn't get better until the second one, so maybe just start with that. The second film, Olga's Girls is my favourite of the three. Here, they try to incorporate red scares. Always a tactic that's sure to amuse me.

In Olga's Girls, we have an informant in our midst. And naturally, our Queen is going to weed them out with various ingenious forms of torture. At first you'll be a bit on the apprehensive side, thinking maybe this woman likes to play a little rough. However, after about 15 minutes or so you'll be joining in shouting at your screen "WHO'S THE INFORMANT? YOU DO THAT AGAIN AND I'LL GO AT YOUR TITS WITH THE BLOW TORCH. HOW DARE THESE BITCHES MAKE OLGA'S JOB DIFFICULT". Trust me, you'll get super in to the silliness.

And that brings my overly long distraction into my (not so) guilty pleasure of the 'roughies' to a close. Back to the Guinea Pig series. Right Devil's Experiment is the most realistic of all of them. Marks for it if nothing else go to the authenticity of the set up. There isn't much in the way of plot and is an early found footage experiment positioning itself as a document found of a woman's torture. It's nowhere near as campy and funny as anything in the Olga's Girl's trilogy and had it not been as famous as it now is, some parts could fool me into believing it was real. These boys maintain believability by keeping things simple. The majority of the film rather than violent torture is mainly pointless abuse such as repeated slappings, chair spinnings and music deafening. Mainly just irritating bullies suffering from boredom as they continue to dish out these acts with over a hundred reps of each. Literally just a slightly more extreme extension of pulling pranks and winding your mate up. The victim looks mainly pissed off rather than in pain. Somehow adds to the realism.

The latter of which seems only more interesting when thought about along with the CIA's tactics in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Perhaps, they are fans of the film. Couldn't help but think the actress in this got off lightly with a looped sound. She could have been subjected to the CIA's horrendous playlist featuring numerous Eminem tracks, which could have only come from the mind of a sadist whose evil we can't even comprehend. Honestly, if the CIA ever come for me, I'm opting for suicide any chance I get. Those guys are the sickest people on the planet. These shitty faux snuff filmmakers are nothing compared to the CIA. They're the true masters of torture. Somehow Bush and his boys got away with this shit along with the waterboarding after 9/11, referring to them as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' rather than torture because they leave no long lasting effects. If anyone forced me to listen to Eminem that long, the damage would be irreparable. I'd be walking round like Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . Purely defeated by that monster Nurse Ratched and a shell of my former self with only my native American friend to put me out of my misery.

Little was it a surprise that in the wake of all Bush's 'enhanced interrogation techniques' post 911 a new genre would arrive by the name of torture porn. Some would call it spectacle horror to spin away from the original names reductionist approach to the genre. Personally, I've never had a problem with the term torture porn, it is what it is, ugly, and it spawned from something even uglier. No need to apologise for it. The genre came a site for the American's to confront what they learnt about themselves and to remember the violence their country was founded on. Whilst the examples of the genre weren't always pretty of technically speaking good, they remain interesting. Whether they intended to address the things they did is questionable but America's consciousness slipped in to those movies making them some of the most important movies of the 2000s. The critics will downplay it but it's just as relevant as the horrors such as Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House on the Left, which followed in the aftermath of Vietnam and America's exposure to the violence on television. This is not me saying a lot of these movies measure up to those classics but that it is a legitimate area of study, despite the critics telling you otherwise.

Hostel in particular has always addressed America's ignorance to foreign countries and even xenophobia. Wolf Creek becoming a sort of parody of that too. Saw emphasised the nature of the traps as set pieces and orchestrated it as a game to be played to both punish and enhance the self into enlightenment. As did Martyrs just in a more high art way. American Mary took the enhancements theme one step further into body horror as a form of capital. Arguably combining In My Skin and The Godfather in being about the body becoming stock to be bought and sold by illegitimate businesses as a by product of capitalism. In the process, exposing the hypocrisies of legitimate businesses practises in the process. Chained went fully in to Freudian territory. The Woman and Hard Candy both use the genre as a means to comment on misogyny. Candy borrowing elements from the rape revenge format. High Tension was equally playful in its deconstruction of the final girl theory. Ok, maybe that ones twist was silly but Aja's film remains a 90 minute thrill ride.

8MM would pursue the subject head on with a detective's investigation becoming immersed into the production of an underground snuff films. To this day, it still seems one of the best attempts to visualise what such a market would look like in terms of the manufacturing and distributing of these dirty goods. However, as is often the case, it would take an outsider to show the yanks how to do their genres. The same is true when the Italians showed them how to do westerns and the French gave them a lesson in noirs.

I'm still waiting for the same to happen with these superhero movies that have dominated our screens since 2008. Weirdly enough, the director who made what I believe to be the king of torture porn, Demonlover, also made a couple of flicks, which could be conceived as what the international response to superhero movies should be. Olivier Assayas's Irma Vep and Clouds of Sils Maria are alternatives to the MCU and DCU, which parody and push forward that superhero nonsense. However, they seem to have fallen on death ears because they've barely made it out the arthouse circuit and haven't had the influence they should have.

Superheroes aside, my reasoning for Demonlover being the peak of the torture porn genre is in it literally incorporating all the most interesting debates that emerged from these films and all completely intentional too. Demonlover is comparable to Lost in Translation in its attempts to lose itself in the dreamy noisy soundscapes of Tokyo and struggle for true companionship. However, Demonlover is much colder lacking any feeling of humanity as it confronts our inevitable globalisation. All this technology arrives to connects us and all it really does is alienate us further. The internet blurring the very idea of the real. Assayas even brings in video games, an art form constantly looking for expansion, which may one day, if it hasn't already and much against my wishes, become superior with regards to capabilities. Proving Roger Ebert's essay 'Why videogames will never be an art form' completely useless, illconceived and limited in scope. A take, which he may have jumped on too soon during the art forms infancy.

Did I mention Demonlover also has spies? Like how can they make it any cooler? Yeah we'll just have spies fighting over pornography. Who's the star of the film? None other than Connie Nielsen, who is one of the most underrated female action stars and more than proved herself capable in Soldier, Gladiator, Hunted and Basic Occasionally, she plays the love interest given little to do in the likes of 3 Days to Kill and Nobody This frequently annoys me because I know for a fact this bird could beat the living shit out of both Kevin Costner and Bob Odenkirk given the opportunity. Her casting, the spies, the globalisation, the video games and the dark corners of the internet give the film such an immediacy sitting neatly as pure pop art. First and foremost, what drives the torture porn genre is fear of the other and the ability to slip into both roles of tortured and torturer embracing one's own obsession with violence. Demonlover has all of that in abundance.

The way it observes cinemas past and looks to its future makes it completely groundbreaking. It seeks to be a modern update of Videodrome and succeeds at this massively. There's an ending that will send your head for a whirl when it's revealed one of the people involved in viewing and accessing these materials online is a child. All this hits hard and doesn't come off anywhere near as cheaply as the final scenes of Eden Lake. One of those repackaged '70s Bronson movies like Harry Brown made for Daily Mail readers. Old geezer's fearing the youth of today. Proper right wing fantasies about taking a gun into poor communities and taking aim at those in hoodies. Still enjoy them for being silly but the thing with Demonlover's ending it doesn't seem silly at all. Unlike the other torture porn movies it actually hammers home everything it goes for.

Ok, so Guinea Pig 1 is nowhere near as intellectually driven. Any admiring of it mainly comes for its silliness. It would be extremely difficult to tie it in to any specific national traumas. Mainly, it belongs to the label of Asian weirdness. A category, which could be considered racist. As is often brought against the distribution company Tartan Asian Extreme, who seek to deliver to the oddities of Asian cinema to other continents.

To deem such categorisation as racist is messy too though. These filmmakers do seek to market themselves this way and it does grant them exposure across the world. It's a complex argument, which does have its positives as well as negatives. All these movies are great and we might not have seen them otherwise though so generally I'm going to have to say I'm all for it. Especially, when the filmmakers aren't objecting.

What does confuse me is Letterboxd recently taking a stand against Gonzo porno, when I asked them why they wouldn't let me add some of those films on to the site my requests were rejected. On what grounds I asked them. Apparently, these films 'lack narrative structure'. What the fuck does that mean anyway? How can they have films on there such as the first two Guinea Pig movies and still take this stance? Koji Shiraishi's Grotesque was banned from release in the UK because and I quote, "Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development". Yet, that's on there too.

Most amusing are the hypocrisies that such a system of judgement presents. Should we remove all films without obvious character development? This seems such a restricted way at looking at films to me. Many of the torture porn movies have faced this criticism at one point or another. It would be difficult to defend Grotesque as a good movie, it isn't and I'm mainly just happy any worldwide notoriety gets Shiraishi bigger budgets and greater access to whatever he needs to make decent movies like Noroi: The Curse and Occult. However, there is some form of narrative in the sense that Grotesque is a parody testing false commitments made by partners in the early stages of a developing relationship. Does it do a good job of looking in to that? No but that seems to be an intention. Or rather a minimal excuse for the torture involved.

Unfortunately, the deriders of torture porn on the whole tend to dismiss the set pieces ability to navigate the films themes visually (hence why they tried to call it spectacle horror). A common mistake in horror. Happened with slashers, happened with paranormal films. Problem is too many lazy filmmakers begin to capitalise on the new set pieces of genres without writing a movie around them. Regardless, even using this method, the subconscious does often slip in making them interesting be it either as individual films or as a whole genre.

As has been proven, Funeralopolis does not support Letterboxd's one dimensional view of cinema. We are under the belief that it is dangerous to dictate what cinema is or any art is for that matter. Undertaking in this way will only lead to narrow understandings of cinema and will squander all that it is capable of. However, we do draw the line at actual snuff films.

The first Guinea Pig movie saves its wildest set piece for the end, in which the abusers cut out the victim's eyeball. Structurally strong in the way it doesn't go in to too many absurd and difficult set pieces that push you to the edge of 'believability'. Does a decent job in setting up the 'realness' of the events with the video being sent to the producers via mail. Having a random run time of 40 minutes is clever as a rejection of a typical feature. The big give away though seems to be in how well shot the final scenes are and the staging of it. There's some filmmaking experience in there that you wouldn't get in an amateurish production.

Despite the first film being the most realistic, it would be the second one, Flower of Flesh and Blood which would blow up in America. Who caused such an explosion in exposure? That would be super grass Charlie Sheen. Somehow a copy found its way in to this seedy fuckers possession and he goes and reports its to the FBI believing it to be actual snuff footage. Attracting attention that it otherwise wouldn't have got. Of course, it would be Mr Sheen that would find such a thing as this. A man who it would appear is not adverse to dangerous underground subcultures. According to the Two Corey's he's a nonce rapist involved in Hollywood's paedophile ring. Hasn't been proven as of yet but most of what those guys said over the years has all turned out to be true. Crazy if true though, considering his father has this idealised image amonst the US people as the true president of USA from his role in The West Wing

I remain lost as to how Charlie was convinced by Flower of Flesh and Blood being genuine snuff. First one, ok maybe I'll let you get away with thinking that but this sequel. There's literally a dude in a samurai outfit pretending to be a doctor chopping people up. Could it be any campier and absurd?

Our sequel is mainly a copy of the first with 40 minutes of torture.

Except this time, it gets a whole lot sillier. The violence actually gets bloodier but the tone more comedic. Placing this one in splatterfest territory. Hats off though to the gory special effects, which would definitely make the likes of Tom Savini both shocked and impressed as to just how they were done. As with Cannibal Holocaust, the law had to contact the filmmakers and weren't satisfied until the magician's tricks were revealed and they could prove how they pulled off such feats.

With the FBI now off their backs and their notoriety at an all time high, the Japanese filmmakers proceeded with the third film in the series, He Never Dies. Several directors would be used across the films but the original concept was birthed by manga artist Hideshi Hino. The purpose being to adapt his manga work into shorts. Not overly familiar with any manga other than the Lone Wolf and Cub series. Only reason I know that is because it led to one of the grindhouses greatest gifts, Shogun Assassin. Those who grew up listening to GZA will know it instantly from the samples on his Liquid Swords album. Losers who overrate the filmmaker known as Sam Mendes may know it through his adaptation converting it into a western mob movie, Road to Perdition (easily his best film).

On He Never Dies, they lean more in to the manga format that inspired the series to begin with and turn this into a sort of aimless and unconnected set of 40 minute shorts that when compiled together form a kind of anthology of horror weirdness. Take it in the same way as the VHS series, discussed in the last issue. Even though, they depart from the originals concept of edgy realism, they still retain some of that edge through the punk filmmaking style. Difficult to compare to the first two, those have an envelope pushing appeal in their testing of the mediums capabilities. Instead, the third goes for all out ridiculous. Gone is the desire to appear real. There is no longer much need. The hard part of gaining attention has been achieved by the filmmakers and here they seem to be having fun. I want to call it lighter and somewhat commercial but there's still lots and lots of blood and you could never call it commercial.

Guinea Pig 3 is the kind of movie you could find yourself watching at 3am. It sits on that level of insomniac viewing where one is neither awake or asleep and wondering what led you to such unusual viewing. Envision it as a Sam Raimi style satire of workplace politics and relationships. We actually get something of a clear story on this occasion. I think the second one was about samurai doctor making his masterpiece like Buffalo Bill out of human body parts. There may have been subtitles but I couldn't fully work out what this chief was trying to achieve but he seemed like he was enjoying himself at least.

In part 3, We are introduced to a man caught in the 9 to 5 taking sick days to recover. His depression grows as he finds out his girlfriend is dating another man. Therefore, he decides to take his own life. Except, there's one problem he can't. That's not to say he hasn't got the bottle. Nope, this fucker cannot die. Hence the appropriate title, 'He Never Dies'. He cuts and cuts, gives it the slice and dice, blood squirts but he survives. He is a trapped prisoner of this world. What unfolds is Nausea writer Satre directing Evil Dead 2. A total blast not to be missed by gorehounds.

Guinea Pig 4: Devil Woman Doctor features a quack drag Queen going about causing mischief. This series loves quack doctors it seems. Many people find this film funnier than me. Switched off a little here in a few its slower boring moments. Mentioned that the series feels like an anthology, this is the only that becomes one. Splits it up too much with mixed sections. Without a doubt too many shorts given the run time. Rather they just focused their attentions more on one or two scenarios. Still, a quack drag queen behind so much chaos does have its comedic value. Drag Queen die hards stay tuned, next issue will review this seasons The Boulet Brothers' Dragula.

Couldn't tell you why but even Guinea Pig fans don't have much love for Guinea Pig 5: Android of Notre Dame. As a dwarf cinema appreciator, I'm fully behind this movie. It's some Sinful Dwarf meets Frankenstein madness. Could also be a live action Dexter's Laboratory. All I know is that dwarf put in a fucking shift. Amazed how he didn't become a star like master dwarf, Peter Dinklage. Ok, maybe it's a little hard to match the master but he is talented. His line, "did you know that the Hunchback of Notre Dame was an Android?" is bad line poetry delivered excellently.

Finally, we get to the last one

Guinea Pig 6: Mermaid in the Manhole. Would you believe me if I told you that this series suddenly elevates itself in to high art? Believe it! Manga man Hideshi Hino gets back in the director's chair and makes unquestionably the best one. I'm not suggesting you go out and watch all these films. Just this one, it could well knock you off your feet as it did myself. Last thing I was expecting from this series was this sudden emotional U turn.

Bear witness to the array of colours, the explosions and the commentary on loss and obsession. This is the longest film of the bunch at an epic length of 63 minutes. Takes a while to get going but that’s part of the magic. On this occasion, an artist dealing with the death of somebody close him, takes a trip in to the local sewer. Down here he happens across an injured mermaid, whom he rescues and brings back up to his flat. Upon resting the mermaid in the bath, he begins to draw her picture. Making this the real auteur banger of the series that utilising the filmmakers interest in drawing.

Those who gravitate towards art and painting, an area I have limited knowledge on but has intrigued me as of late, will adore this film. A rare movie in which the process of painting drives the story. This is my Portrait of a Lady on Fire Cute, adorable and well intentioned as that romance was with some notable skills narratively speaking in the way the painting leads the story in to new places, the slow pacing put me to sleep and other than the powerful ending it was a rather dull affair wasted on myself. Guinea Pig 6: Mermaid in the Manhole is more my cup of tea.

What draws me to a movie like Mermaid in the Manhole is how wrongfooted you feel by it. Constantly, you wonder what line it’s going to walk between high art and low art. You've got this great gothic romance going on between the artist and his subject. Plus the Artist's tragedy in his past seeping in to the page. Tetsuo's monochrome is replaced by dayglo. All this grotesque puss spurting out the injured Mermaid. That could never be considered traditionally beautiful or respectable high art.

I couldn't even begin to tell you whether this movie is revolting or stunning aesthetically. However, the emotional impact it has is undeniably felt. At every stage it is a very self aware film following on from the exploitation classics Colour Me Blood Red and Bucket of Blood. You get the sense that filmmakers are cheekily mocking themselves, their image and their critics. Later, the yanks would jump on this series and do their very own American Guinea Pig. Not seen the US counterparts but looking forward to what they have to offer. There's even a potential 7th Japanese film, an unofficial sequel, which they lumped in to give a shit film a bigger chance. The less said about that one the better. It'll have you screaming at your screen, "Woman I know you're being tortured but can you scream less loudly!"

Guinea Pig 6 serves as my recommendation and my score is purely for this one. It is a rare experience that has to be seen. Be patient at the start because what you get here is something really special. An artwork which builds itself in front of you, right before your very eyes. Part way through it will hit you that you're on a journey to somewhere provocatively alluring. Right inside an artist's budding mind that transcends past, present, reality and fiction. The evidence of that plain field smack in that painting being drawn over the course of the movie. Unexpectedly, they managed to eventually write a film around the twisted set pieces. Why or how the sixth film of this silly series came about and went in this direction, remains unknown. But it did happen. It did happen.