The Saddest Labyrinth of Grim Life

 

Jun Hayami's  Beauty Labyrinth of Razors has been somewhat of an untouchable, Holy Grail publication for me. It is said that Creation Books released a version of it limited to 69 copies, but I've been unable to acquire it because I refuse to pay the current eBay asking price of $400. My primary objection to handing over four hundred bucks is a story that the work is partially censored for "highly objectionable content". Creation Books has been sheepish about all aspects of the book's release, so the truth of their edition remains elusive.

 

Fortunately, thanks to the amazing akatako.net, I've finally acquired the original, totally uncut Japanese edition of the book.

Expecting unbridled extremity, I was a little disappointed in the content, but now that I've perused it several times, looking for clues to its infamy, I can confidently say that it is one of the saddest, darkest, most wretched tomes of true horror I've seen in many a blue moon.

 

It is a collection of close to a dozen tales of heinous behavior directed mostly towards women. Men are depicted as lecherous, foul beasts, and Hayami's world view is bleak and anxiety-ridden. Although the women suffer terribly, the men often end up as crushed, gaping shells of viscera.

Some of the art is detailed and some of it is spare and simple. Various pieces feel like they've been hijacked from Panorama of Hell, Hideshi Hino's earth-shattering last word on grim.

If you've already exposed yourself -- God help you! -- to Japan's Guro genre, some of the content of Razors will not be unfamiliar. Although artists such as Waita Uziga, Horihone Saizou, Kaneyama Shim, and Shintaro Kago have produced equally graphic, incendiary content, few of their works have bled from the soul as furiously as this one (with the exception of the same artist's Maggot Hole, An Ugly Daughter Like Me, and Hentai Shounen.

 

Sometimes we don't understand why we take the journey, but we are mindful of the need to at least consider what represents a destination.

Not a manga or even Japanese, Joseph Scott Morgan's Blood Beneath My Feet is a fine companion piece to Razors. 

Exploring mortality from a coroner's cold perspective, it finds literary salvation in steaming human fluids and splattered DNA.

Morgan writes with the direct poetry of Jim Thompson and the candor of Selby Jr. and Bukowski.

RIP, Tony Scott

Film director and producer Tony Scott stepped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California yesterday at noon. His body was fished from the mud beneath three hours later.

His death stunned me. Only last week, I watched and listened to his commentary on Unstoppable, his last released film. It left me with the usual impression that Mr. Scott loved his work and brought the best out of people. In all his behind-the-scenes materials, Scott always came off as jovial and wise and forthcoming.

I wasn't a huge fan of his bigger hits like Top Gun, but I loved many of his films including True Romance (his best, in my opinion), Revenge, and The Hunger. Man on Fire had great pulp elements, too.

Seems he may have had inoperable brain cancer. He left behind two sons and a wife. There has been some on-line criticism of his decision to take his own life. People should consider that no man can walk in another man's shoes. What Mr. Scott did was his decision only, and he's entitled to that. Whatever was plaguing him is plaguing him no more.

Although some of the man's films suffered from style over substance syndrome (I'm looking at you, Domino), Scott was a master craftsman, and, as I've mentioned on this blog before, he managed to bring a great deal of pulp perversion and subversion to Hollywood pedigree films.

After watching any one of his works, I always felt that he gave each project 100% effort. Like many other filmmakers who have toiled in the Hollywood trenches for decades, Scott's work was not showing signs of lethargy. He clearly maintained the energy of his young, artistic self.

Ironically, the bridge he jumped off is the same bridge that William Peterson threw himself off of in William Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA. Peterson survived, because his action is revealed to be a bungee jump. Mr. Scott's action was a permanent one.

I visited the bridge and drove across it early this morning. It was an eerie but important act for me. I'll miss this guy. So will many others, I'm sure.

RIP, Tony.

The Dark Brilliance of Senno Naiff

The work of Japanese manga/guro artist Senno Naiff exceeds the exceptional.

These scans, taken from Shoujou Pandora and Sister only hint at the darkness to be found in his work.

Artists like Naiff, Junji Ito, and Horihone Saizoua occupy a rarified plateau in the world of dark and  intensely troubling art.

Explorations of their work always bring surprises, so please take the plunge.

Hideshi Hino's work surely influenced Naiff. This illustration bears Hino's hallmarks.

Ultimately, Naiff reworks his influences and produces work so terribly unique like this.

Island Orgasms on BluRay

 Merian C. Cooper, the King Kong producer, needed another picture while Kong was enduring rewrites, and animation was being finalized by Willis O'Brien. They bought the rights to Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game (one of the earliest 'hunting humans' concepts on literary record) and shot it on Kong's sets, used Kong's leading lady, Fay Wray, and even completed filming before Kong.

The film, a true treasure, has been remade several times, and it's inspired a torrent of other films right up to the recent Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, its icky, bland cousin.

Despite its now much-abused concept, it still stands as a masterpiece to me, a tale of grand adventure, jaw-dropping discoveries, and exotic, forbidden bastions. It resembles Ernest B. Schoedsack's Kong (he directed a couple of scenes here, altho the director credited with most of the work was Irving Pichel), but it feels more like Erle C. Kenton's Island of Lost Souls, made the same year (1932). Its style is formal, its sets are lush and evocative, and it layers in a good deal of lurid grotesquerie. Note the severed heads hanging in the trophy room and out in the corridors of the maniacal Zaroff's hideaway.

Plot is straightforward. Sole survivor of a wrecked ship (Joel McCrea) finds himself on an unchartered island that has become a human game reserve for Zaroff (Leslie Banks), a crazed hunter who's gotten bored chasing things on four legs. McCrea, a hunter himself, becomes Zaroff's target after the men differ on principles -- to put it mildly. Wray, the survivor of a previous beaching on the island, rides shotgun with McCrea as he creates elaborate traps for Zaroff and ducks his sharp arrows.

 Flicker Alley's Blu-Ray of The Most Dangerous Game is a must for any cinephile's collection, and a double-must for those who choose to combine vicarious island intrigue with suspense cinema. The transfer is probably the best we'll ever get, and though it's slightly below Criterion standards, the difference is marginal, so Flicker Alley should raise a glass of Fosters and make a toast to a job well done.  Watching this on a big TV blew me back against the cushions of my sofa. Sound is very crisp, there's little evidence of electronic image tinkering, and the accompanying liner notes are awash with terrific tidbits such as: the film cost $150K.

 These past few years have been a a golden era for restorations with classics such as Kong, The Island of Lost Souls, and The Most Dangerous Game arriving on Blu-Ray. My cup of gratitude runneth over.

Not inconsequential is the second feature included on a separate BR disk in this package. It is the 1928 Gow, The Head Hunter, an early example of 'mondo' cinema that arrived in picture palaces a few years after Nanook of the North and Congorilla. Made by man-of-adventure Edward A. Salisbury, it's a fairly modest look at "primitive cultures", but that didn't stop it from being cleverly exploited for decades to come.

My love of islands and everything they evoke has been well served again this month by this superb BluRay release.

The only other thing that's come within a whistle of the above for its ability to provide sheer pleasure is Mike Dash's extraordinary Batavia's Graveyard, a tome so amazing, so unexpected, and so disturbing, I'm determined to utter nothing of its fearful contents.  

Triangles and Joy

 For the last couple of days, it's been bothering me that my mostly negative review of Oliver Stone's Savages has led the charge on this blog. Such nonsense keeps me awake at night. A little obsessive-compulsive I guess, but that fact doesn't make it any easier to tolerate.

Best to address the issue by posting art from a book I love, have loved, will love forever, Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs. Not only are the words inside completely hypnotic and entirely magical, but this art is the stuff of dreams (and nightmares) for me.

When I was a kid, I dreampt frequently about being chased by a little man with a triangular head. Mr. Triangle never managed to catch me (if he had, I probably wouldn't be writing this!), but he had a tenacity about him that scared me silly, and made me afraid to close my eyes. Most of the time, he was waiting for me in the area of the yard we called the sideway. The sideway, which was beside the house (obviously), was an enclosed space reserved for money-producing hobbies such as collecting empty beer bottles, collecting old newspapers, and stashing black and white pictures of breasts and vaginas (with that hobby I din't make jack) I wouldn't stash them openly up the sideway; I'd slip them under an abandoned lawn mower that my father kept in an asbestos shed. Now and then, the lawn mower would become the focus of my father's tools. Half an hour after that, I'd become the focus of some harsh questions.

 In my dreams, Triangle lurked behind my rows of beer bottles, his oily eyes tracking me as I entered the area with a fresh wheelbarrow full of bottles. Usually, he wouldn't wait for me to stack them. Nope, the cunt would jump out and take after me like a locomotive. I'd scramble for the fence and swing myself over it, his face and its bad breath just inches from my heels. The chase would take up most of my night's sleep, or so it seemed, and when I'd finally snap awake, I'd be elated to discover that I was dreaming.

The ice cream-eating Mr. Triangle on the cover of the Ace edition of Carroll's novel doesn't look like he'd come after me. He looks friendly. Hell, I'd love to eat an ice cream with him.

If you haven't read the book, I envy you your first time.

 Another fantastic read is Marcel Pagnol's My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle. Both were made into beautiful movies, and both capture growing up at a particular time in a very particular place. Pagnol's childhood was no Angela's Ashes, so don't expect beatings, Catholic guilt, poverty, and brutal father figures. But do expect a superb tome that captures the magic of childhood adventure, the special gift we call friendship, and the disappointment of discovering that those you most admire are human just like you.

Read the books, see the movies, or see the movies, read the books. You can't go wrong with these exceptional poems to joy. Joy doesn't always live long, but when we experience it, we're grateful it stopped by.  

Oliver Stone's SAVAGES

 Oliver Stone used to make tight, economical, sharply written films such as Salvador, Talk Radio, and Wall Street; they're my favorites of his. I enjoyed JFK, Platoon, and Natural Born Killers, too, but Salvador and Talk Radio remain, for me, his most powerful, fat-free films. They had something relevant to say about the soul, about the enemies within ourselves.

His newie, Savages, set in Laguna Beach (where I reside for most of the year), is a tale about two successful dope dealers, the woman they both love, and a Mexican cartel that threatens to ruin their piece of paradise. Trailers sell the film as a return to previous form for Stone, impactful, fresh, and rife with simmering surface detail. For the most part, they lie. The surface detail is there, though, and that's about it.

Despite Stone's insistence on playing with looks (hot, cold, black and white) and fabricating a 60's aesthetic in a Laguna that still exists if you squint a lot, the source material (from a novel) feels much too familiar to engage one's curiosity. Breaking Bad has been doing this stuff for four seasons, and tonight it will do it again for a fifth. Stone's biggest miscalculation with Savages is its protagonists: They're dull and cliched. One is a fella who, while not supervising marijuana crops, builds schools for the poor in foreign lands. His partner is a guy who isn't afraid to pull a gun to solve a problem. The girl they both love is a mentally delayed flower child who's a crashing bore with a hot body for two. When it seems that the three may have to leave the country in a hurry, her idea of saying goodbye to California is going shopping. Granted, this may be an authentic portrait of a certain type of Californian female, but do we have to witness such vapidity? Aren't characters supposed to be compelling?  Even worse, the bitch narrates, and what you'd expect from someone whose underworked brain has turned to mush is what you get. It's nausea-inducing.

 It's hard to imagine anybody concluding that the script for this should have millions of dollars thrown at it. The situations are stock, the resolution is typical, and the taste it leaves in your mouth will be familiar to anyone who's suffered through recent Stone efforts such as Any Given Sunday, World Trade Center, Alexander, and the hideous Wall Street sequel.  

For gore fans, there's a recreation (without the flesh-tearing) of the video that did the rounds a year ago of two Mexican drug couriers having their heads shaved off with a chainsaw. Other than that, Savages already exists as pieces of your video collection. Best to rent Breaking Bad, a show that's achieved greatness with  characters we give more than two shits about; even better, we're fascinated by their human journey, and human traits we recognize in ourselves.

I recognized people I once met but would never want to meet again in Savages. That's not a good thing.

As the far superior Cannibal Holocaust once asked its audience, this film also asks: Who are the real savages? In this case, who cares! 

Very Special People (I Mean It!)

Let's can it with the "everybody's special" bullshit. It's patronizing and nauseating. SPECIAL once signified something extraordinary that distinguished one thing from another. If you had one leg, but managed to hop your way around, you were special. If you ate glass instead of hamburgers, you were special. And if you were born looking totally hideous and eating through your ear, that made you special. Winning a race doesn't make you special. Neither does existing. If you figure out a way to exist forever, that'll make you special. Try it.

Frederick Drimmer, the author of Very Special People, knows a thing or two about special people, and wrote a very fine book about them. It's my kind of book, and perhaps your kind of book, too. I know a person or three who will dig it as much I did.

And as I am presently preparing a feature film, Circus of Dread, on this very subject starring Bill Oberst and Domiziano Arcangeli, my interest and fascination level is off the bloody meter.

What makes this book about human oddities unique is its straightforward focus on the day-to-day lives of over a hundred extraordinary human beings such as Kobelkoff: The Human Trunk, Carl Unthan: The Armless Fiddler, The Two-Headed Tocci Brothers, Swan and Bates: Two Giants in Love, Zip and Other Pinheads, General Tomb Thumb, Tommy Jacobsen: The Armlessd Pianist, and Robert Wadlow: The Alton Giant.

Writer Drimmer first saw folks of this persuasion in the circus, and sourced documents and letters from all over the world before beginning work on this love letter to being different and "special".

Today, extraordinary people like these do exist, but they are more likely to turn up on youtube or theync.com than your local midway. Unfortunate, really. The recent story of Indonesia's smoking baby provided some oldtime thrills, although a follow-up piece on the lad by the 'Vanguard' documentary program (highly recommended series, by the way) reported that he's quit smoking and has returned to childhood. He's still a weighty blighter, but his days of chain smoking are behind him.

Let's be under no illusion that, if the old freak show were still in operation, there'd be no freaks to fill it. On the contrary, human birth defects are alive and well, and if you factor in the damage that big business is doing to native environments (Chevron's polluting of Ecuadorian rain forests, for example), many generations of birth defects are assured.

Recently, my brother sent me a link to a gallery of photos of people suffering from "Treacher Collins", a syndrome that creates a distinct appearance. Notable characteristics are an underdeveloped jaw, missing cheekbones, eyes slanted downwards, and ears not properly formed or missing.

It is the Google image gallery that has replaced the circus and the sideshow as a showcase for exotic human beings who are but only a step away from those who are not so special.

In Very Special People - The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities, Frederick Dimmer opens with a terrific quote from William Lindsay Gresham:

"On their faces was a strangely luminous smile.
I know now what it indicates --
they had met tragedy and fought it to a standstill;
they had taken a handicap
and turned it inside out,
making it work for them;
with courage and patience
they had built themselves a life."

The Rising Of Deadite Press

 Today I want to write about a certain joy I'm experiencing knowing that the old Leisure Books horror stable has, to some extent, been replaced by Deadite Press.

I was a member of Leisure's horror book club, and got small orgasms when their monthly box of books lobbed against my door. It's not often that horror comes to you in a surprise package like the one Leisure used to send. For their troubles, I paid them about twelve bucks a month. Hardly a fortune considering the work that goes into a book. I wasn't a fan of all the Leisure authors, and I must admit I read a dozen pages of some books and abandoned them. That was rare, though.

When it comes to horror, some themes just don't float my boat these days. I take a dim view of voodoo stories and voodoo rituals. Fuck off with that. I'm almost beyond being convinced to read another haunted house story. They've been done to death -- literally. Perhaps that's why writers keep writing them. It's arrogance. A belief that their haunted house story will be a fresh one. I'm sure it can be done, but it's hard to work up the energy to read another. New zombie stories are still appearing on bookshelves. I avoid them. Zero interest. Vampires? Time to lay them to rest for a while. Twilight pussified the genre while broadening one side of its audience. The side with vaginas and braces.

If you're on the fringes of or deep inside the horror community, you probably know about the demise of Leisure and the company's shabby treatment of its writers. Film distributors treat their filmmakers like this pretty much all the time, so Leisure's disrespect for writers didn't seem too shocking to me. Terrible, yes, and unforgivable, of course, but not shocking to someone who's been fucked upside-down and sideways by film distributors. Some Leisure authors such as Brian Keene, Bryan Smith, and JF Gonzalez extricated themselves and their book rights from Leisure and fled to Deadite; others are still untangling the mess Leisure left them in. There are rumors, however, that Amazon may offer refuge and some outstanding checks. I wish these folks well.

Deadite Press is an imprint of Eraserhead Press, the home of the Bizarro genre, and base of Bizarro Central. Deadite is releasing both new books and re-releasing older books. Some of Leisure's old horror titles are turning up on Deadite in refined versions with vivid new covers and in trade paperback size. As far as I know, Deadite doesn't have a monthly book club set-up, but their books are very reasonably priced and can be accessed via a link on their site. The link usually carries you through to Amazon. Titles I've purchased recently have been Like Porno For Psychos (Wraith James White), Genital Grinder (Ryan Harding), Hero (JF Gonzalez/White), The Cage (Brian Keene), The Dark ones (Bryan Smith), All You Can Eat (Shane McKenzie), and Take the Long Way Home (Keene).

The presentation of their books and cover art is really impressive and provocative; you get the impression that the folks behind Deadite really do give a flying fuck about what they're doing. Their love shows.  I've yet to see any crappy art like the shit poor old Ray Garten had to endure with Leisure's release of Bestial and Ravenous. Masterton's Blind Panic got fucked up the nasal passage, too. Gary A. Braunbeck's Coffin County paperback had a cover that was conceptually strong but poorly executed. It would hardly have jumped off the shelf at you.

To be fair, Leisure, under editor Don D'Auria, did a lot of things right, too, by getting behind some terrific writers and bestowing some books with potent cover art. Now, some of these guys and gals might argue that Leisure got close enough behind them to slip an unwanted penis (at least financially) into any available orifice, but it needs to be said that Leisure did create a profile for authors like Keene, Smith, Gonzalez, and Wrath James White, a profile that's enabled them to soldier forth into brighter theaters of literary combat. Sad really that it all had to end in a sweaty clusterfuck. Still, these four and others have migrated to Deadite and word from them has been that Deadite are good people whose definition of getting behind you involves check writing, promotion, and timely sales reports instead of fiscal rape.

 

Leisure's very impressive cover art for Lee's The Golem.

 

The not-so-striking art for Braunbeck's Coffin County.

I hope anybody who gives two hoots about horror gives Deadite a decent shot. I don't work for them, have no professional affiliation with them (not yet, anyway!), and don't receive free books for review. I just wanna see 'em doing well... because, if they're doing well, you're getting good horror at a bargain price. That's nothing to blow snot at.

When Mario Bava Stalked 12 Melbourne Drive-ins

When I crept out at 5:30 am on that fateful Thursday morning to retrieve the newspaper on my favorite day of the week, the day the movies changed, I was transfixed by this ad mat, and snipped it right away so I could possess it. I still do, obviously.

I was ten, so I didn't know who Mario Bava was, but to see him described as "Mr. Horror" in the black insert beside the title was enough excitement for me. My mission for that Thursday night was to convince my mother to take me to see Baron Blood (surely the best name for a horror film ever!) at Village's Clayton 1 drive-in. My biggest challenge would come from my knowing that my mother hated horror films, and had no stomach for blood, gore, or monsters, so I'd need to tell a few white lies and stretch the truth all the way to the nearest full moon in order to achieve my goal.

"It looks like something bloody," was mum's first assessment of the ad mat. "What terrible thing is it about?"

I started spinning my lies immediately. "It's about a guy looking for a castle. See, there's no blood, it's just that his name's Baron Blood."

Mum was unconvinced, and read the paragraph about Bava being 'Mr. Horror'. "No, I don't think so. It's a horror film. It even says it was banned."

I looked aghast.

She continued: "You don't need to be seeing banned films. Isn't there something else on?"

I tapped the paragraph. "It says his other films were banned. This is a nice one."

"It doesn't look nice. It looks terrible."

Each lie I launched was immediately shot down. "No, it's not terrible. Lots of kids are going to see it."

Mum placed her hands on her hips and dumped the cloth she was using to dry the dishes. Our conversation was taking place in the kitchen and I'd offered to wash the dishes in order to soften her up. She said with a scowl: "What OTHER kids are going to see this? I want their names and phone numbers. I'm going to call their parents."

I became sheepish. "Just kids. Other kids. They're allowed to see it."

"Are they ten years old, too?"

"Yes."

"Do they have parents?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. Like you, they have school to think about... unless their parents are letting them run wild."

Shit! Mum was very big on disparaging parents who let their kids "run wild". It was her way of telling me that parents who let kids see bloody horror movies had lost control of them.  She didn't want to be in that category.

"Can't we see it? I'll wash dishes for the next month."

"You should be doing that, anyway, you're the oldest."

"I'll mow the lawns twice a week."

"They don't need mowing that often. Pick another movie."

I was going down in flames. "There aren't any others."

"There are lots of other movies! Better sorts of movies."

"But they're no good."

Mum looked at the ad mat again. "What's this rot rated?" I hated when she referred to my loves as "rot".

"It's rated 'M'."

Yes, 'M' for mature, and you're not that."

"I'm allowed to see it. If I ride my bike there, I can still get in."

My mum looked mortified. "You won't be riding your bike there! And we didn't buy you that bike so you'd take it to gory movies."

"It's my bike. It doesn't mind where it goes."

"Well, I do. And it's not taking you to see rubbish like this." 

"Then fine! I'm never cutting the lawn again, or doing dishes, or setting the table, or taking a bath."

"Then you'd better get yourself a job and a house and move out."

"I will!" I announced with unsecured  confidence. "And I'll see any scary movie I want."

A week later, my father picked up the newspaper and noticed that a film called Duel (with Dennis Weaver, one of his favorite actors) was playing at the local drive-in, the Clayton 1, with some other "rubbish", as he referred to it, called Baron Blood. He asked me, which wasn't common, if I wanted to see Duel with him. Stuttering like a horny jackhammer, I said "Yes."

"Why don't you call information and find out what film's playing first," he said.

I called information and was told Baron Blood would screen first.

Now, it was time to launch my last white lie like a sleek cruise missile.

"Duel is playing first," I told him.

"Good," he said, looking over the newspaper. "I don't want a late night."

The impossible happens now and then. The planet's line up. And some missiles are not shot down.

It was not easy for my father to contain his rage when he was greeted with Baron Blood. He said he'd have a word to the drive-in manager, but that never happened -- not then, anyway. He did get my mum to complain to Village Theatres on Monday for dispensing erroneous program information. I don't think they had anything to say. They hadn't done anything wrong.

As for me, I loved the heck out of the first film I ever saw from 'Mr. Horror', and I drooled at the grotesquerie on display. I wasn't quite sure what made this Italian horror film different, but I knew that my horizons had been broadened.

Dad thoroughly enjoyed watching Dennis outwitting the truck, and we both cheered when the demonic rig disappeared over the cliff and burst into flames.

As we drove home together, Dad lit a Marlboro, cracked open the window, and found for himself a reason to smile. "I don't think your mum would've been too happy sitting through the first film."

I nodded. I waited. Then I said: "Did you like it much?"

He said without hesitation. "It was a bit different."

And he was right. On that one thing and not many other things, we agreed.

Dad died last year. RIP, Dad, I miss those precious moments when mutual agreement brought us closer.

Note: the above ad mat was for Baron Blood's first week, when it didn't play with 

Duel; in the second week, it played with Duel.

Zoom In: Sex Apartments

 Of all the 'Roman Pornos' that Impulse Pictures/Synapse has released so far, Zoom In: Sex Apartments is the jewel in the crown. Bearing atypical hallmarks of originality, it serves as a reason to celebrate dark art, not find fault with its morality.

Director Naosuke Kurosawa, working with cinematographer Masaru Mori, takes Nikkatsu's trademark rape/murder subject matter and presents it as a frenzy of almost giallo-like surrealism.

Yoko Azusa, who starred as a burgeoning rapist in Yasaharu Hasebe's Assault - Jack The Ripper  four years earlier, plays the mysterious role of a suspected rapist. Betrayed five years prior by the film's female lead, Erina Miyai, a woman married to a professional cyclist (!), Azusa reconnects with her carnally and becomes involved in a spate of unusual crimes. Adding spice to the film's sexual violence is a fire theme: The rapist torches the vaginas of the women he's raped, and goes several steps beyond said item in one memorable scene.

To be frank, the story isn't big on logic and the lead female's inability to put two and two together is frustrating. Despite both these deficits, however, Kurosawa's treatment of the material excuses his sins (for me, anyway).

These Nikkatsu pictures existed to excite audiences with their erotic audacity; they were never meant to be realistic, and they were never meant to be much more than reliable programmers for the studio that switched its focus from mainstream product to erotica with a sucker punch. Occasionally, as in the case of flicks such as Assault - Jack The Ripper,   Secret Chronicle - She Beast Market, Beautiful Girl Hunter, and the film currently under discussion, Nikkatsu produced some remarkable works that transcended their genre requirements.

I'm keen to know when exactly Joseph Ellison's grimy Don't Go in the House ('80) was released in Japan because this Zoom In entry smells of that film's delightfully foul embers both tonally and visually. The rape/burning scenes in both films are downbeat and nihilistic, leaving us with no hope for the human race.  The callous indifference both killers have for their victims is uncannily similar in both pictures also. This nihilism is both disturbing and exhilarating, making it essential art.  

Giallos were clearly an influence on Kurosawa, and the cutting style employed in Argento's early work (Deep Red, Tenebrae, Suspiria) is slavishly imitated here.

At the other end of the spectrum are the films this one clearly influenced; the most obvious is Billy Tang's Cat III shocker Red To Kill, surely one of the most maligned and Roman Porno-esque of the former colony's horror flicks. Kurosawa's focus here on the concrete edifices where the mayhem takes place is carbon copied by Tang in Red. Most obviously, Red's chilling, driving score sounds like a direct bit of thievery from Zoom In. The visual characterization of the rapist here is also echoed in Red, and leaves me convinced that that film's writers saw a tape of this film and were more than impressed with its potent credentials.

Zoom In -Sex Apartments (original Japanese title: 'Zoom In: Rape Apartments') achieves a heightened place in the pink pantheon because it's consistently inventive, audacious in its conceits, and unabashedly vile. It's not a terribly graphic film and the nudity is restrained, but it's a ballsy exercise by a director with an arthouse approach to his material that made me reflect on Koji Wakamatsu's best works such as Dark Story of a Japanese Rapist, The Man Who Assaulted 13 People aka Serial Rapist, and Go Go Second Time Virgin. There's not a celluloid moment here where Kurosawa isn't exploring a strange or powerful idea. They don't all work, but they make for engaging cinema.

 For years, the film has been available as a decent boot, but now is the time to throw that away and support Impulse's stellar presentation with flawless subs, terrific liner notes by Jasper Sharp, and an insert of the original poster art.

I have no idea where Impulse is going next with these releases apart from the imminent release of The True Story of a Woman in Jail: Continues, a must-have sequel. Personally, I'd like to see them forging ahead with darker material like this and other unreleased (with English subs) Nikkatsu product such as the above-mentioned Secret Chronicle - She Beast Market, Zoom Up - Rape Site, Zoom Up - Rape Report, White Rose Campus - Then, Everybody Gets Raped, Raping, Rape, and Sex Hunter.

Yes, yes, yes, as monotonous as these titles sound to the uninitiated, they are all blisteringly unique efforts.

For now, rejoice in the fact that Zoom In -Sex Apartments is available to own and has never looked better.