Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor – Less Slaughterhouse, More Sideshow
Here I am at the end of a long review process. (No, I wasn’t taking a break.) I was in fact reviewing all six of the original Japanese, Guinea Pig series for you all.
We will begin with the last — and sixth — in the formal series (which is sort of like reviewing the Hellraiser Series starting with Hellworld, but here I am).
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor (ギニーピッグピーターの悪魔の女医さん). Let’s make an appointment!
White screen.
A European doll lies on a table.
A woman dressed in a black outfit from the 1920s slices the doll down the middle of its torso and blood comes running out gently. Then it comes gushing out onto the ceiling and wall, covering the woman dressed for her elegant ‘20s themed party.
We hear her speak and indeed it is a transsexual. She is washing her hands of the blood but apparently all the blood on the rest of her just disappeared due to the magic of illogical continuity.
She says “my patients call me Devil Woman Doctor. I am not a devil but I think they are.” (Cancel my appointment!)
Karte 1:
(Please note: “Karte” translates to a patient’s medical record or chart)
A family of four stands in a deserted land fill area. Two men and two women (one with a baby).
“Sick Family! Most disgraced family in Japan!” Yells Devil Woman Doctor (DWD for brevity sake) from a megaphone.
The family tries to remain composed (before they decompose?!)
“We have to keep enduring it or all the tolerance will have been a waste.” says the father figure. “No matter what she says or how she insults us, don’t get upset. Promise!“
“Useless Family! You are all bastards!” DWD screams at them from her megaphone.
Apparently the family’s brains will explode if they get angry and she’s stress testing them. With her help they could be cured.
“You bald piece of shit!” she yells on the megaphone at the bald man. He scowls and yells angrily as his head explodes.
Next is a lowly looking woman. “You, indigent!” (Lacking basics in life; poor). Her head explodes in flame.
Then the lady with the baby. “You… Pretty baby! Are you an ape’s baby?” The baby cries and its head explodes (taking it rather personally for an infant).
Final family member, the father criticizes the Devil Woman Doctor saying her methods don’t seem to be working. She calls him impotent and his head explodes now.
Random segway: a different woman who has severe heart failure is startled and her squib heart blasts open.
Zero seriousness at this later point in this acclaimed series. It’s full on parody mode playing it strictly for laughs. I’ll be judging this film as a black comedy from here on out.
Karte 2:
Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. He pours hot coffee over his head (obviously symbolizing the duality of man, hardy har). Then cream and sugar.
Devil Woman Doctor notes, “The right hand is becoming more violent.” The man hits himself repeatedly. She takes mercy on him by stabbing him with a fork in the right hand. His leg then starts acting up so she stabs that too.
Karte 3:
A stomach cancer with a human face talks like Quatto from Total Recall then bites the carrier’s hand who tries to silence him for being rude to Devil Woman Doctor.
She prescribes leaving the mafia and being a break dancing freak with your stomach face in the open. Make it a feature, not a bug.
Katre 4:
Tasting party for human flesh.
Pickled brain in soya sauce. Nice green garnishment on the top.
Jellied eye and cockroach.
A testicles, vagina, and hand salad. Yummy.
Human cadaver cut in half with cancerous intestine and feces running out of it.
The interviewer bothers the cleaning lady. “Why don’t you try some?“
“It’s not my taste. Maybe my father has eaten some during the war. But I never have.” And it’s the Devil Woman Doctor in disguise denying it’s her to confirm.
Karte: 5
A man, who, every time he washes himself meat falls off. He talks to a lady who works at a bathhouse.
She brings him home to care for him. They like each other.
She starts dressing him even though he’s basically a Frankenstein zombie.
Later they’re at a bar after being married for years. She looks great. He looks like a rotten corpse. He apologizes for using too much cologne to cover his stench.
Then at a meat market he gets sensitive about dinner plans as the meat on special is looking old, kind of like his face.
Middle aged now. She has thick glasses and he’s skeletal in part with no lips, only teeth. Nice makeup work here.
But that’s not his wife. It’s the tranny Doctor Devil Woman in disguise again. He’s talking with her searching for a cure. “All these flies around you. Here’s some bug spray.” she sprays all over his jacket.
They share a grabcake kiss. Grotesque albeit brief.
“Do you want to go home?“
“Cheque please.”
They’re getting turned on.
Karte: 6
DWD says she feels sorry for stray animals but watch out. Some are dangerous. She throws a kitten in a garbage can. That looked kind of real. Hope there was a pillow at the bottom of that can.
A woman walks down a public transit corridor. She finds a stray animal in a box. She lifts the blanket and it’s a bloody blob of something that looks like a set of organs, and it leaps into her hands. She screams and it chases her.
Eventually DWD catches it in a Tupperware container. “Everyone watch out for internal organs abandoned out on the street.” Huh?
Karte: 7
Man who sweats blood. He sits in a sauna bleeding out.
“I never get to be married with this body. Help me Doctor!“
She recommends he spew as much of it out as possible internally to drain it from his sweat pours. Many takes of blood vomit.
Karte: 8
DWD has a petit Freddy Kruger glove and says “Surgery is her favorite. She’s going to rip a tattoo off this man.” Animation of the tattoo has it bouncing all over his body.
She digs into his ass with her clawed hand.
Patient screams “Anesthesia?!“
“I can’t use anesthesia for this exciting surgery.” she replies.
The tattoo keeps moving?! She keeps stabbing into him and removing skin.
He suddenly leaps off the table and is 100% skinless like Frank outta Hellraiser. “No more tattoos to worry about.”
Karte: 9
Four male patients with bizarre conditions. One is decomposing inside. Another has elongated nipples (pretty funny) and stretchy penis. Another leaks air from his skin which he proves by exhaling his cigarette thru his skin. Final guy has a heart that moves around his body. To his throat to his nose, to his foot.
Decomposing guy vomits an egg. He breaks the egg and there’s vomit inside and also a multi-eyed cancer with no mouth that squawks like a bird. Stretchy guy shows his poo that’s squirming like a worm. “I’m afraid it’s going to bite my ass every time I take a shit.”
“There is nothing I can do for these patients.” the Doc concludes.
The grand finale, an iron maiden pie throwing at all the 9 kartes to the classical music of Mozart. Jekyll and Hide slam the nailed board into his own head. Very fake nails bending sideways mostly. Stomach cancer face gets nail pied. Some look realer than others, depending on the acting and the bendiness of the plastic nails. DWD nails the top of the corpse husband’s skull. It’s slightly amusing. The ones where two people nail board each other are funny too.
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor Uppers:
The Devil Woman Doctor is kind of attractive, easy on the eyes, and she’s not a bad actress, as she sadistically flicks the fork in the hand of her patient or knife fingers the raw nerves under the tattooed patient’s underflesh.
The humour has its dark moments, and I can only wonder how much more effective it would have been had they not gone full camp but at least did the effects with less parody. I got a few chuckles out of it but it wasn’t belly laughter. It was bizarre, semi-amusing, and sets a low bar for the rest of this series to hurdle over with ease.
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor Downers:
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor Downers:
The shame spiral after the first two Guinea Pig films (the pinnacles of the series) really hit an underworld dead end here by number 6 in the series. Out of gas, out of seriousness. Out of ideas. Just gross gags cheap laughs. This is a funhouse. Not a slaughterhouse. If you like camp, as I do on occasion, it’s a once and done watch. It’s interesting for a fleeting moment or two.
Overall, I cannot fully recommend this film as it didn’t tell a cohesive story. It was a series of vignettes. It was something akin to the superior (in terms of humour) 2000 British TV series Jam, that sports vivid portrayals of dream logic and scenarios. I’d recommend watching that instead of this.
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor was a whole lot of swings and whole lot of misses. It’s not an auspicious entry point into the Guinea Pig series. I’d say skip this one. Doctor’s orders.
AKA: Ginî piggu 4: Pîtâ no akuma no joi-san, Guinea Pig 4: Devil Woman Doctor, Guinea Pig: Peter’s Devil Woman Doctor, ギニーピッグ4 ピーターの悪魔の女医さん, ギニーピッグ ピーターの悪魔の女医さん
Directed by: Hajime Tabe
Written by: Hajime Tabe, Satoru Ogura
Produced by: Satoru Ogura
Cinematography by: Junichi Baba
Edited by: Yoshikazu Iwanami
Special Effects by: Hitoshi Matsuyama, Taishiro Kiya, Kazutsugu Kosugi, Katsuto Urano, Haruhito Watarai
Cast: Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Pîtâ, Naoto Takenaka, Kobuhei Hayashiya, Masami Hisamoto
Year: 1986
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 52min
Studio: Sai Enterprise, Orange Video House
Distribution: Sai Enterprise, Unearthed Films
