Hentai byôtô: SM shinryo-shitsu (1989)

... aka: 変態病棟 ＳＭ診療室

... aka: Pervert Ward: S&M Clinic

Directed by:

Hisayasu Satô

Watching every genre film from a certain time period is occasionally going to take you down some pretty dark alleys, and director Hisayasu Satô's particular alley is darker than most. Meaning, this disturbing, discomforting and psychologically heavy shocker, which is violent, sexually explicit (though not quite pornographic due to Japanese censorship laws) and filled with truly bizarre kinks and fetishes, is unlikely to appeal to many viewers out there.

"Psychological counselor" Dr. Yasukazu Mizumura (Kazuhiro Sano) puts his patients through bizarre "therapy" that involves making them listen to experimental, discordant "alpha wave" music and sounds while staring at their reflections in a mirror and having conversations with themselves. He also secretly records these sessions to both analyze and get off to later. His wife, Ryoko (Kiyomi Itô), is starting to get sick of his demented ways, particular his insistence on her participating in rough, kinky sex ("Isn't that what a wife is for, huh?") He has a particularly strange fetish for fresh fruit, which he likes to chew up and spit in her face before taping an apple core over her mouth (?) while he chains her up and abuses her. Their sex usually involves such erotic acts as slapping, strangulation, snapping rubber bands on her back, eyeball licking (!) and violently jabbing her privates with a sharp instrument (!!) However, Ryoko didn't sign up for any of this when she married covert sadist Yasukazu and was only indulging him for the sake of their marriage. Now fed up, she finally builds up the courage to leave him.

Exactly a week after Ryoko disappears, a woman who looks exactly like her and calling herself Kei Shirakawa (also played by Itô) shows up at the psychiatrist's clinic looking for insight into some strange dreams she's been having. Since Ryoko made mention of having an identical twin sister who'd been adopted out as an infant and is still out there somewhere, Rei may be her or may be a mentally-disturbed / schizophrenic or vengeance-seeking Ryoko back to play some kind of sadistic game. Dr. Mizumura isn't entirely sure himself. Because her handwriting is different, she's a nymphomaniac (propositioning him a mere minute after they first meet) and has a taste for sadomasochism (she stabs her own hand with a pen during their first meeting), he suspects it may be the twin but decides to go along with her either way.

Kei is quickly able to seduce the doctor right on the patient's couch during a sex session that involves snapping bra straps, giving her a wedgie, ass smacking, sodomizing her with her high heel shoe and, apparently doc's favorite activity, jabbing her in the crotch with a pen. Afterward, he's not willing to let the girl go home and instead chloroforms her and makes her his sexual slave. He gives her an injection of some experimental hallucinogenic drug, dresses her in some kinky, spiked leather outfit, ties her to a bed, has her mouth pried open with some kind of contraption, squirts grapefruit juice all over her and then does his patented pen routine again. Later torture involves being threatened with eye gouging and being wrapped in plastic and repeatedly dunked in a bathtub.

Kei reveals that she and her sister were once conjoined twins until they were separated and now she gets turned on any time she's near a scalpel. In fact, before she met this doctor, she regularly used to masturbate with one (!) Her ultimate goal turns out to be having the doctor ejaculate inside of her so she can become pregnant with Siamese twins. This would double the whammy as far as her scalpel fetish is concerned because she'd have to be cut open with one during the C-section and then her offspring would also have to be separated via scalpel. Additional revelations are made about the psychiatrist and a traumatic occurrence from his youth.

So what does it all mean? I'm not entirely sure, but there's a lot of interesting stuff to ponder in this 55-minute film. One thing that automatically leaps out at us is the near-constant use of various reflections; reflections in glass, reflections in mirrors, characters seeing their reflections on screens, watching themselves have sex in mirrors and looking themselves right in the eyes as they unload their secret desires. Sometimes self-reflections are distorted as if seen through a funhouse mirror, there are POV shots from inside mirrors and TV screens and, at one point, the female lead has a mirrored box slipped over her head, forcing her to stare at a fractured version of her own face as she's being tortured.

Childhood trauma suffered by both the doctor and the twin have been the primary driving force in shaping their twisted adult sexual fantasies. The lengthy sex / torture scenes are going to cause more discomfort than arousal for most viewers and the settings are all cold, lonely, orderly and isolating; like everything is taking place in some kind of endless black void. Though this isn't always easy to sit through - I'd even say it's sometimes downright grueling to sit through - it's still pretty fascinating, with convincing performances (particularly from the female lead) and strong, stylish and compelling visuals and direction from Satô on what was obviously a tiny budget.

I was unable to track down any legitimate DVD or VHS release for this title, though at one time it was streamable on the now defunct pinkueiga.com website. That same widescreen copy is also probably the source copy for the DVD-R a few bootleg outlets currently carry.

★★★

Asesino nocturno (1987)

... aka: Night Killer

Directed by:

Fernando Durán (Rojas)

A Mexi slasher / detective story that's about as bland, forgettable and generic as its title. A limping man in a hat and trench coat shows up at a sleazy hotel, gets a hooker, takes her upstairs to a room and then stabs her to death with a scalpel. The psycho responsible is revealed to be a police forensics science doctor / mortician named Dr. Losca (Gregorio Casal). Considering his position and seeing how he's the one examining the bodies, he has the capability of covering up his own crimes yet the script disappointingly doesn't really go there, which could have be interesting. Because another hooker - Caramilo - discovered her friend's corpse and saw him coming and going at the hotel, she becomes the next target and is put under police surveillance in case the killer should come after her. Sadly for her, she sends her posted officer out to run an errand, which gives the psycho enough time to pick her lock, sneak into her room and slash her throat. When the officer returns to the hotel, he's also killed.

Police Comandante Alfredo Reyna (Andrés García) is on the case... and he has a comic sidekick (Pedro Infante Jr.) who keeps going on and on and on about "las putas!" The two trail a potential suspect who picks up a hooker, drives her out into the country and pulls a scalpel out. He's yanked out of the car by the hair and punched several times in the gut but he's not the guy they're looking for but merely a second maniac who likes to pick up hookers and threaten them with scalpels (?!) Later that night at a bar, we get to listen to a mariachi band perform for several minutes while everyone sits around chain smoking and looking bored. After they close for the night, an obnoxious and very drunk barfly refuses to listen to her girlfriends and decides to drive herself home. When she hops in her car, the killer's waiting for her in the backseat and slashes her throat.

Alfredo's superior Victor (Alfredo Gutiérrez 'El Turco') is starting to come down hard on him as the victims pile up. They think they've found the psycho when someone shoots at them when they're out patrolling but the man is killed during a car chase after he flips his vehicle and it blows up. Soon after, the killer goes to a massage parlor and kills another girl there. Dr. Losca's assistant becomes suspicious of him and, when he calls him out, he gets stabbed to death with an embalming needle. This helps lead to a series of events that spells the killer's downfall. As he's loading the body in his trunk in the hospital parking garage, a police officer catches him and calls it in. Losca knocks him out, puts him in a body bag, drives him out into the country and throws him into a deep ravine along with the other body.

As for psycho-analyzing the nut, he has black-and-white flashbacks to his traumatic childhood. His kindly though depressed father (also played by Casal) is in a wheelchair while his mother is either a prostitute or just a garden variety "puta" who frequently goes out to bars, gets drunk and brings strange men home to fuck. And going by her loud laughing and moaning while she's getting busy, she doesn't appear to care what her hubby and son think about it. After little Dr. Losca walks in on her in bed with one of her tricks, she slaps him in the face until he's spitting up blood. The dad then blows his brains out and he finds the body.

Edna Bolkan (GRAVE ROBBERS), playing Garcia's love interest Dr. Edna Montez, is given next to nothing to do here until the very end. She has a few comic scenes with her TV-and-junk-food-obsessed maid, Sara (Nena Delgado), goes jogging and then takes a shower, where a below-the-waist camera shot shows her removing her panties yet wearing another pair underneath of that. She finally becomes involved in an attempt to trap the killer using herself as a decoy, which is comically botched when the officers posted outside her home decide to go to the mad doctor's apartment to try to find him, leaving her and Sara all alone!

When a cheap slasher skimps on blood, gore and nudity, has static camerawork, more scenes of police officers standing around talking than slashing and no element of mystery or surprise whatsoever as the killer is revealed right away, it kind of defeats the purpose, eh? As a result, this one comes off as dull and only manages to become a little atmospheric during the very last scene.

The director started out as an assistant director and co-director in the early 60s before moving up to primary director by the end of the decade. He made around 100 films from 1969 to 2008, including the difficult to find horror / western Hot Snake (1976) and THE SHERIFF'S STRANGE SON (1982). There was a VHS release through Mex-America Video Corporation and several DVD releases, including one from Baja Films. None of these have English subtitles.

★1/2