Deimos no Hanayome: Ran no Kumikyoku (1988)

... aka: 悪魔の花嫁 蘭の組曲

... aka: Bride of Deimos

... aka: Bride of Deimos: The Orchid Suite

Directed by:

Rintaro

A nice little 32-minute offering from Madhouse in conjunction with Toei and Akita Shoten Video, this is based on an extremely popular and long-running manga series written by Etsuko Ikeda (who also wrote the screenplay for this adaptation) and illustrated by Yuho Ashibe (who only receives an original animation design credit). The manga first debuted way back in 1974 in Princess magazine and, as the years passed, the series would move on to different publishing houses (including ComicsOne for English-language distribution) and withstand several hiatuses but new chapters were being made as late as 2014. However, as enduring and popular as the manga was, it only spawned this single short animated film to my knowledge.

Ethereal high school student / photographer Minako Ifu is attending the World Orchid Exhibition with her friend, aspiring botanist Hisamatsu. The two, and basically everyone else there, are in awe of the Grand Prix winner, "Blue Lady." The orchid enthusiast who submitted the "Blue Lady" is one Tôko Ôba, who seems to win the competition every single year. Curiously, Tôko never shows up to the ceremony to accept her award, nor will she do any exhibitions, interviews or press. No one has ever actually met her, nor seen her greenhouse, nor know the secrets behind her perfectly bloomed orchids. Hisamatsu, however, has managed to find her address.

After Minako and Hisamatsu have lunch, Hisamatsu is a no-show at school for three consecutive days. He also hasn't been home, prompting his parents to file a missing person's report. Seeing how she was the last person to see him, Minako decides to look into matters. Suspecting he has paid Tôko Ôba a visit, she gets her hands on the address and takes a train to the country to visit her and inquire about her friend's whereabouts.

On her walk through the country, Minako encounters Deimos, an underworld demon, and this is right when you can tell this anime was made exclusively for fans of the manga who are already well-acquainted with the story. There's no set-up or explanation behind their relationship here. It just is. Here's this teenage girl being accosted by a winged demon in a dark tunnel and the two are just having a casual conversation like it's nothing. Because Minako is a dead ringer for Deimos' lover, Venus, who's currently ensnared in a thorn patch in hell rotting away in her old body (and missing one of her eyes), Deimos wants to take Minako to hell with him so Venus' soul can be transferred to Minako's beautiful young body and they can continue their love affair. Minako basically says "No thanks!" and continues on to the Ôba house as if that was just a mild inconvenience.

Upon arriving at her destination, Minako encounters Tôko's conflicted brother Kaname, who claims her friend never showed up there and scares her away with a spider on a stick. Our heroine doesn't believe his story, especially after spotting Hisamatsu's notebook lying on the ground, and immediately goes to the police. She's able to talk Inspector Imamura into accompanying her back to the house. The brother and sister (who is crippled and in a wheelchair) show them around the place, give them drugged coffee and then kill the inspector by shooting an arrow into his neck. (One guess as to what goes into their "secret fertilizer mixture" to help their orchids grow so big and beautiful.) When Minako awakens, they send her on her way, but she returns after Deimos helps her realize she's been tricked.

On the down side, we've got narrative problems aplenty here. For starters, this has been put together in such a way that the Deimos character is not one bit relevant to the primary plot. In fact, this character could have been removed entirely and it wouldn't have made one bit of a difference. That said, this could have worked well enough as the second or third chapter in a potential Deimos series had this been preceded by a film or two that actually established the primary characters and their relationships. In this particular context, however, every scene with Deimos feels random and needlessly grafted on. The fact this ends on a "to be continued..." note when there IS no continuation in anime form, is also just plain annoying.

What ultimately bails this out as a singular piece of work and makes it enjoyable on its own terms is the artistry involved. It's imaginatively and stylishly directed, borderline surreal at times and quite beautiful to look at. There are also some interesting flashbacks explaining why the Ôba siblings do what they do. Stills are frequently used in place of actual animation as a cost saving technique, but they're blended in here fairly well.

This doesn't appear to have ever been officially released outside of Japan and the only version I could locate was the Japanese VHS copy released in 1988. Fan made English subtitles (which are actually very well done) are available.

★★1/2

Museo del horror (1964)

... aka: Museum of Horror

Directed by:

Rafael Baledón

A young woman walking home alone late at night is stalked and then ambushed by a caped, behatted, skull-faced fiend. After she passes out, he carries her into a cemetery and opens the lid on an above ground sarcophagus. Inside is a secret passageway. He takes her down below, carries her through a hallway with mummy-filled caskets lining the walls and then into a room that's hidden behind one of those caskets. There, he lies her down on a table, pulls a boiling cauldron over and then dumps molten wax all over the screaming woman's face. This extremely atmospheric opening credits sequence proves that there are few greater combinations in the horror world than high contrast black-and-white photography, proper night lighting and a little bit of swirling fog. Gorgeous. This latest victim turns out to be the third of such disappearances in the area in the past few months. The police are baffled as there are no witnesses and no clues thus far. However, there is something of a pattern: Each disappearance has been of an attractive young lady in her early 20s and each girl disappeared at around the same time of the evening near the same location.

We next meet numerous characters staying at a boarding house run by the gossipy Doña Leonor (Emma Roldán). There's Luis (Joaquín Cordero), who was once a promising actor until a crippling injury put an end to that career. He now manages a theater and gives tours at a wax museum. Reading about the disappearances in the paper, Luis comments that the missing girls, being young and all, probably either ran off with a guy or split town to go on a little adventure. Not interested at all in the conversation is the grouchy and misogynistic Professor Abramov (Carlos López Moctezuma), who goes on an angry rant about how he despises the "chronic chatter of women" and how "God made a mistake putting tongues in women's mouths!" And then there's Raúl (Julio Alemán), a nice, upstanding young doctor (or so that's what everybody thinks), and Leonor's daughter, Marta (Patricia Conde), a nice young nurse. Raúl, who's known Marta since childhood, is interested in pursuing a relationship with her but she's not quite sold on him.

All three male boarding house residents are set up as the prime suspects. Luis is hoping to secure a grant with his new exhibit on the heroines of art and theater. He has painstakingly molded each of the lifelike wax figures and his museum only features female characters because, in his own words, he holds women in such high esteem. Or does her? Raúl is up to some sketchy things himself. In a Burke and Hare-influenced twist, he pays a pair of drunk lowlifes (José Dupeyrón and Vicente Lara) to rob graves and bring him fresh "specimens" to conduct his secret experiments on. He also has a collection of human heads he keeps in vats of liquid hidden in the hospital morgue. As for the professor, who is seldom seen without a scowl on his face, we've already established what he thinks about women, but he also has a thing for taxidermy and is developing "a new technique for embalming" on top of that.

After getting dropped off at a nightclub (where all of the principle characters happen to be in attendance) by her "papi," prostitute Sonia (Sonia Infante) becomes victim #4 during her late night stroll. Only in this instance, there's a witness: One of Raúl's patients. When he goes to the boarding house to tell the doctor what he's just seen, someone shoots him in the back with a poison dart. That finally brings the police, headed by David Reynoso as the Commissioner, to the home. It's discovered that the poison used to kill the witness was curare and the only person to have a bottle of it on hand is the good professor. Still, that's not enough to pin blame on him. Despite the murder, bosomy blonde nightclub chanteuse Norma Ramos (Olivia Michel), who's sick of the cheap hotel she's been staying in, decides to rent a room there.

In an interesting twist, Marta rejects a marriage proposal from straight-laced Raúl and instead finds herself falling for Luis. While he's older, crippled, less financially secure and more emotionally complicated, there's just something about him she's drawn to. Of course, this infuriates Raúl, who accuses Marta of mistaking pity for him and his disability with love. He also informs her that everything he's done in life thus far he's done to set up a good life for the two of them as a couple (awfully presumptuous, ain't he?) and he's not going to give her up without a fight. However, both Raúl and the professor seem to be fighting off their desires for the attractive singer who's just moved in.

A seldom-viewed film, this was an unexpected surprise. It boasts good performances and a competently-structured (though ultimately predictable) mystery with well-drawn characters courtesy of writer José María Fernández Unsáin, who pinches ideas from a number of other films, namely The Lodger, The Body Snatcher and House of Wax. However, where this really shines is in the atmosphere and visuals, with Raúl Martínez Solares' great cinematography aiding the mood immensely.

While obviously a low budget production, director Baledón also adds just the right amount of visual embellishments. One standout sequence features one of the proposed victims losing it after venturing out into the underground catacombs as a flurry of images of decaying corpses flash on the screen. There's also a very interesting bit where the grave robbers hit a patrolman over the head with a shovel and then bury him alive, which then segues into a nightmare scene of cobweb-covered zombies rising from their tombs. The shots used for the latter are extremely creepy and look like they come from another film (or films), which makes me wonder just what film exactly. One source claims stock footage from Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) was used.

To my knowledge, this has never been officially released in America. 5th Dimension Films, Creature Feature Videos and DVD Party are just three of the websites that carry this with English subtitles, though I don't believe any of these releases has been sanctioned.

★★★