Horror Of Malformed Man — Horror Of Malformed Man(Blu Ray)
Released in 1969 Horror Of Malformed Man was directed by prolific & fairly genre varied Tokyo based Teruo Ishii- who started directing in 1950’s going onto release films into the late 1990’s. His filmography moved from early superhero films, through to crime dramas, onto historic romances, though to tacky Sci-fi. Onto action crime thrillers, though to historic & erotic torture films, onto later drama & more straight ahead horror. And really Horror Of Malformed Man is pretty much what you’d expect from such as director- as it liberally dips into a few film genres going from horror, surrealism, fantasy, thriller, eroticism, and modern dance performance.
From the outset the film is seemingly trying to unbalance & unsettle the watcher as much as possible- we move from the opening credits of feasting insects. Onto the introduction of our lead character- trainee doctor Hirosuke Hitomi- whose is stuck in a mixed-sex mental asylum- that’s full of naked, sweaty & deranged inmates. Fairly soon he breaks out after hearing a women singing a song from his past- from here on we have a murder at the circus, the doctor-impersonating a dead millionaire, all manner of strange servants & inter-relationships. All building up to visit to a extremely strange island that’s inhabited by bizarrely animal cross-breds/ malformed men & women. The films finished off with crazed end titles, that see disembodied body parts floating in fiery coastal skies.
It’s a film that certainly keeps you on your feet, twisting & turning in both its narrative and plot. For the most part it’s an enjoyable odd & wholly distinctive film- my only criticisms with the film is it’s last quarter or so, when the unpredictable pace/vibe switches to lengthy- almost Scooby- Doo explanation/ flashback sequence- which seems to drag on way too long. Maybe this was put in on the instruction of the producers to try & make sense of the madness, but for me it did rather lessen the impact of the whole film- though we do of course end on the already mentioned floating body parts in coastal skies.
Moving onto discussing this new edition of the film, and we’ll start talking about the new 2k scan of the film- this looks frankly wonderful with such crisp colors, great skin definition, and excellent picture depth- really it’s one of the best transfer I’ve seen of a film from the 1960’s. Extra wise we get a mix of new & old stuff from the previous DVD reissue of the film a few years back on Synapse Films –we get a new commentary track from Japanese cinema expert/ author Tom Mes, this is somewhat dry & clunky- though Mes does admit that pretty much everything that could have been said about the film in the other commentary track on the film, and the booklet write-up. Talking of the other commentary track that’s from US-based oriental Cinephile Mark Schilling- this is from the Synapse Films reissue of the film, and is much more balanced & interesting, though from time-to-time he does have to be prompted by whoever organized the track. Other extras include a new thirteen-minute interview with screenwriter Masahiro Kakefuda- who worked with Ishii on a fairly wide range of his exploitation titles- this gives a nice insight into the working of the studios the film were produced in. Other extras are brought over from the old Synapse Films included a twenty-two-minute doc/ interview with Filmmakers Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo the Iron Man) and Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler discussing the film carrel of Ishii. And a ten or so minute footage of Mark Schilling visiting the Far East Film Festival.
In conclusion it’s great to finally have a Blu Ray of this most unbalancing oriental treat of a film- for fans of odd cinema Horror Of Malformed Man really is a must, as you really won’t have seen anything quite like it, and of course it's topped off by the great new Arrow transfer.