Are you familiar with the term Pinku? According to Wikipedia “Pink film (Pinku eiga or Pink eiga) is a broad cinematic term used to categorize a wide variety of Japanese films with adult content. This encompasses everything from dramas to action thrillers and exploitation films (a.k.a. pinky violence), and softcore pornographic (romance pornography or roman poruno) features. The term is often mistakenly used to apply only to sex films. However, the so-called pink movie is part of an ongoing (and evolving) cycle of films rather than a specific genre”. You would think going on this long tangent about Pinku films that I was going to review one; but I am not. I watched two films from director Hisayasu Sato this weekend and the one I will not be reviewing was classified as Pinku. This director seems to be primarily a Pinku director. Here are just a few of his other titles; Rape: For Real, Naked Action: College Girl Rape Edition, Serial Rape: Perverted Experiment, Rapist with Handcuff: Defile!, Office Lady Rape: Devouring the Giant Tits. I’m sensing a trend there. I really can not bring myself to review his 1995 film Rafureshia as that would involve thinking about it. Rafureshia opens with a father eating his daughter out. She swims across the sea to the city and is than raped by three men. Than she is “saved” by a man who rapes her. The parallel story sees a married couple eating a meal with the hubby’s mother. Mom is attempting to jerk her son off, the daughter is relaying a fantasy while masturbating and the son is completely disinterested. Apparently Rafureshia was intended to be a comedy. Hilarious?! No more Pinku for me unless it is of the 60s or 70s variety. Now for our feature presentation; Splatter: Naked Blood the little film with the bad reputation. But is it warranted? Could be. *Some spoilers ahead.
Three young women volunteer to be guinea pigs for a chemical contraceptive. The doctor Yuki Kure is conducting the experiment. Yuki Kure is a widow with a seventeen year old named Eiji. Eiji plans to conduct his own experiment on the trio of women. He has concocted a potion he calls My Son that turns pain into happiness. He just wants the world to be all sunshine and lollipops. He injects My Son into his mother’s contraceptive solution. Madness and gore ensue!
Splatter: Naked Blood starts out fairly innocently and has a simple storyline. The girls have lunch together after the experiment and discuss the things that give them the most pleasure. For one woman it is eating, for another it is vanity and for Rika Mikami an insomniac and introvert it is a life of solitude without human interaction. Eiji begins to follow the girls around with his camera. He first follows Rika who notices him immediately and calls him on it. The two become friends. The girl who hates people becomes Eiji’s love interest. Eiji’s father died before he was born; more accurately he disappeared before he was born. Since you will be treated to the odd little scene in which dad disappears I will not divulge. Eiji is an awkward kid who has no friends that we meet; besides his new friend Rika. He is a bit of a sad sack really, but I guess that is why he wants to create a pharmaceutical that turns pain into happiness. It does not quite work like he expects although pain does in fact become happiness but happiness also becomes painful. Very, very, very painful!!
Splatter: Naked Blood takes a decidedly nasty turn once the effects of My Son kick in. It is the woman who starts eating herself that is the real humdinger. A scene where our little glutton sticks a fork in her eye pulls it out and than eats it was pretty brutal and very graphic; it was not the worst of it in my opinion. There are two other body parts eaten that were far more difficult to stomach. My bologna has a first name it’s L-A-B-I-A. I won’t spoil what happens to vanity girl or any of the other characters as I thought the other violent business would be pretty tolerable for most horror fans. I will add that there is a pretty nice opened stomach effect that a grown man crawls into. Splatter: Naked Blood has a nasty reputation which is not unjustified. There is not a non-stop barrage of violent images by any means, but the moments included will not be easy to erase from the mind. As ridiculous as the scenes might be they are pretty hard to watch. I actually thought the gore effects were quite well done.
There is nothing particularly spiffy about the visuals in Splatter: Naked Blood other than the gore. It is a pretty plain film really. Rika’s apartment has no trinkets, knickknacks, pictures or anything else one would expect in the apartment of a 20ish year old woman. She has one cushy reclining chair, a cactus and a kitchen table that has just one chair at it. She doesn’t even have stuff on her kitchen counter. Rika has a sleeping device that is pretty far out. She has goggles she puts on and a second set that she puts on her cactus. Rika seems to be at one with the cactus?! There is one bizarre psychedelic sex and cactus scene that is totally far out man! It is pretty hilarious too, very lava lamp-esque. Eiji’s room is almost as bare as Rika’s. His computer is on the floor and he has a small selection of sciencey stuff sitting around. Of course there is the ever so important picture of his father he keeps on his bedside table. They show the picture often; hence his reasoning for calling his happy potion My Son. How exactly did he come up with his My Son concoction? Sadly, we don’t get to see him in mad scientist mode. I thought the cast were good especially Yumika Hayashi who played the gluttonous girl. Hayashi really throws herself into the whole passion thing. I completely believed she was rapturously enjoying eating herself.
What a shame more of Sato’s stuff isn’t like Splatter: Naked Blood; I quite enjoyed this film. I should add that I did dig his segment in Rampo Noir (Imomushi). Splatter: Naked Blood doesn’t overstay its welcome At 76 minutes; it has some nasty gore, weirdness, nudity, sex, laughs, nifty sound effects and a neato soundtrack. Be warned, the gore is nasty, but if that is your thing Splatter: Naked Blood is highly recommended.
Dungeon Rating: 4/5
Directed By: Hisayasu Sato
Starring: Misa Aika, Yumika Hayashi, Mika Kirihara, Sadao Abe, Masumi Nakao, Tadashi Shiraishi, Seiya Hiramatsu
GOREGIRL'S DUNGEON 