Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies — A Self-Aware Schlock That Destroys Its Own Legacy
Mid Night 25 Presents. Also known as Midnight 25 Video which was the home media company that released the third entry into the series, Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies (ギニーピッグ3 戦慄! 死なない男, Ginī Piggu 3: Senritsu! Shinanai Otoko) on VHS in the ‘80s.
A disingenuous white man in a suit sits at a table with books and a globe. His English is dubbed over in Japanese, which is hilarious.
“Hello Everyone, I am Rick Steinberger. Today I would like to show you a videofilm. Recent development of science is marvelous. However, there are many mysterious things which we cannot explicate even by the ultramodern technology. Eg. Why the dinosaurs became extinct? Why migratory birds travel thousands of miles? Why UFOs do not show themselves in their true colors to humans on Earth although they’ve been observed many times? Why there are different human races? No one can answer these questions. Of course, not even scientists like us. Today, I would like to introduce to you a most mysterious matter for which we have no explanation. It was an unbelievable horrible and cruel incident that happened to one ordinary person who lived in Tokyo. Well, everybody, let’s have a look at the film together and experience this dreadful story in all its reality as captured on film. Remember I repeat again. Reality as captured on film.”
Cartridge music, VHS video anime, and Manga. Calendars and photos of a Japanese girl. Then the sound of an X-ACTO knife being extended one click at a time is heard. The TV is snowing. A man tries to cut his wrist, but it hurts and he sucks the blood and instantly puts a tissue on his wound. He takes a punk record out and plays it.
Hacker programmer screen starts to spit out old school code.
Later, Suicide Guy, is in a suit and tie. His boss says he sucks at his job in front of a hot girl that likes him. He tells him that his whole existence in the company is a “bad joke.“
He returns from his boss’s office, and some handsomer guy is asking the girl he likes out on a date. She accepts in secret.
We find out this suicidal man is named Hideshi (same name as the Director, Hideshi Hino of Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood; suspiciously not part of this part 3 in the Guinea Pig series). This is not a coincidence I gather. Is it a message to him? Hideshi, the suicidal bored man character, he’s asked to redo two colleagues work for them. The punk music plays in his mind. Later still, he then wanders the Tokyo streets and asks himself philosophically and practically “what are you doing here?“
We are interrupted again by Rick Steinberger. “Hello, it’s me again. Even people who are graduates from the same school have different abilities. Some people can accomplish anything; others can succeed at nothing. The main character of this story is a cheerful but ordinary student. He succeeded in passing an entrance exam for a computer school he had always dreamed of joining. But the work was boring and uninspiring. In addition, his mind was starting to be disturbed by the very old and traditional Japanese human relationship between employee and the company. It was now affecting him physically and mentally. He was absent from the company and locked himself in his room for four days now. He left his room only once. What will happen to him?”
Gee. This sounds like a real ‘Hikikomori.’ ChatGPT that term for your multi-cultural edification.
Rick Steinberger continues, “We shall see in this film. Now everybody, let’s have a look at it together.”
We cut to a sexy teenage scene from a Manga anime, then to a folksy Japanese dance who wear a jacket on their backs, “The White Furies.” Never heard of them. Let’s look them up…
Google AI Overview reveals: In Japanese folklore and religion, the concept of “white furies” is most closely associated with the kitsune, or magical foxes, specifically the benevolent messengers of the Shinto deity Inari.
Messengers of Inari: White kitsune (byakko) serve Inari, the god of rice, prosperity, and agriculture. These foxes are not Inari themselves but are so intertwined with the deity that they often appear in their place at shrines.
Symbol of good fortune: Unlike other, more mischievous yokai foxes, the white kitsune is a powerful symbol of good luck and is believed to ward off evil. Many Shinto shrines feature white fox statues as guardians.
Interesting! Perhaps the owners of this project felt spiritually vulnerable after all the darkness this series has brought and is feeling karmically insecure. Is this why the divergence to ‘dark comedy’ from the initial ruthless parts 1 & 2 (both to be reviewed next)? What caused this series to drive itself off the realism cliff and into schlock, I wonder? Who’s driving this ship, anyways?
We see a random black man being interviewed by a Japanese man on a TV. This wayward student who locked himself in his room for four days ‘couchee coos’ their visage on the TV. “This is stupid.” he says and turns off the TV.
He starts to go into a bizarre routine with his feet, as two people talking. This is giving me some real vibe of The Room as it’s becoming somewhat biographical in tenor of the director of Part 2. It’s practically a hit piece accusing him of being suicidal and can’t get a girl. That’s who would like such murderous sadism as Part 2. The name of the character is “Hideshi” which is the same as the director’s name of Flowers of Flesh and Blood makes me wonder about all this.
In black and white we see Hideshi mope around his room going slowly crazy of nihilism/purposelessness. Is someone watching him on a closed-circuit security cam? It suddenly shifts back to colour?! (Okay.) Just in time to see Hideshi slice deeply into his wrist (wrong way for suicide, i.e. not length wise hand to forearm). But it’s deep and looks painful as fuck, with the scalpel. It goes very deep into his wrist as he twists it clockwise and counter over and over. I feel it!
For him, he feels great relief and anxious sadness in concentric waves of emotion.
“Bleeding has stopped. I feel no pain.”
He pokes the slit in his wrist. “I feel no pain. But why?”
He then stabs his arms with a knife, and it goes right through a very realistic arm. He pulls it out of his arm again, slowly and his fingers move. Great illusion! I’ve never seen such a realistic practical effect.
“Am I a man who never dies? No. No! I should die! I should die!”
In an intense, should I, shouldn’t I moment, he cuts off his hand from his wrist. Then tosses it away like Luke Skywalker tossing away his lightsabre. (Bro, you’re losing me here).
Then he brutally slits his throat, deeply, and realistically with his knife. Blood exits his mouth. (Alright I’m still watching but my suspension of disbelief is partly under ice water.)
“Immortal man. Strange but interesting.” he says to himself. Yeah, not really.
It’s a sad joke. The man who wants to die, lives forever, physically. An irony of the depressive Japanese young man. But a far cry from the intense realism of 1 and 2 and feels like a retraction of those works of virtuoso realism, intentionally distancing himself from those works. Ashamed. An excuse as if to say, “I am a depressive artist who made parts 1 & 2 but now I will reveal I made them out of personal weakness. I am small and my ignorance is great. Please forgive me. I’m suicidal.” Something like that. From the extreme sadism of 1 & 2 we get this limp wristed masochism.
He imagines the three women he works with in his office all of them confessing they won’t marry him and they ask, “Why don’t you die? Now! Now!”
He calls for help. They say they cannot help him.
Out of delusion and desperation he calls the cool guy who was hitting on his would-be girlfriend from the office earlier. He’s with that same girl in bed together. They do a weird E.T. finger-to-finger touch together and literally say “E-T.” This series has a weird interest in Steven Spielberg, post-Flower of Flesh and Blood. Here with the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial reference. In Part 5 (see Guinea Pig: Android of Notre Dame – Cruelty in Search of Meaning) we had a bizarre electro wave macabre version of Close Encounters of a Third Kind referenced with Dr. Karazawa playing the tune. This along with that funny opening with Rick Steinberger, this whole He Never Dies film could have gone a whole lot darker direction and frankly would have been more interesting than this rather uninspired 3rd letdown of a film. The series should have stuck to the sadism, which is its stronger suit. Someone got the call to pull the chicken switch on this series, methinks. This film went ‘straight to video’ but the comic edge to it is just not authentic to the spirit of the first two. So, the real legend stops with two films only. Kind of like Hellraiser. Two great ones and then hit and miss.
Hideshi convinces him to come over with gardening tools at night. That’s like Jeffrey Dahmer level of innocuous right there. “I just spoiled some meat in my room, nothing to worry about. Come on in.”
The couple comes over. He disembowels himself and frightens his friend into shock and is only a head when his would have been girlfriend of his fantasies shows up.
Then back we go to Rick Springfield; I mean Rick Steinberger. His presence feels like a flex against the intent of the original production to subvert its natural cruelty and make it a schlock driven joke. This is a very suspicious movie; about as subtle as an Epstein suicide note.
You know this whole film reminds me of Franz Kafka’s Prometheus where he offers four alternatives to Prometheus instead of “everlasting punishment.” Somewhere the gods eventually lose interest in “torture forever” for stealing from the gods. I feel this is a similar refute. Somehow Dionysus broke into this series and changed the DNA of it from snuff to schlock. Revisionist and subversive to its original intent, to say the very least.
Director Masayuki Kusumi deserves to have this film go straight to video and not in the underground way. But in the chain it to the rock to be picked apart by vultures way. Yes, forever.
Not recommended. One and a half stars out of five.
He Never Dies Uppers:
I like the practical gore effects. It is, as always in this series, top-flight realism in terms of human mutilation. But the rest of the story is absolutely intent on undermining that realism like a prank against Part 2. This has a real Star Wars subversive feel to it; like it’s actively trying to pervert the purity of earlier, better, films.
There are no other uppers.
He Never Dies Downers:
The fact that Rick Steineberger never dies is an interesting note and that he’s the master of ceremonies really comes off like this was an attempt to Franz Kafka-esque the Prometheus attempt of the original two Guinea Pig movies (super ironic if you’re familiar with the term ‘Kafkaesque’). Why is he the M.C.? How can a bookend character not die himself in a movie series such as this. It’s a taunt. A flex. Life over death as a philosophical debasement of the original intent of the first two.
For the record, I love schlock, in its place and in its lane. The Guinea Pig series became impure. And that doesn’t feel very Japanese to me. Nor does it feel entirely authentic to the nature of the project.
On top of that the performances were not great. The direction was weak outside the graphic scenes. And the story was too one-note with no arc but a simple prank on a guy who stole his imaginary girlfriend.
Was this meant to be a hit piece against anyone who liked the first two films? I feel like it might have been an attempt by ‘someone’ to take a piss out of the first two films.
Overall, I was disappointed with this film. The graphics were not aided by the story. I actually have to say this is the weakest film in the series. Again, it is not recommended. Stars given are for the effects only.
AKA: ギニーピッグ3 戦慄! 死なない男,Ginī Piggu 3: Senritsu! Shinanai Otoko,Guinea Pig: He Never Dies,Guinea Pig 3: Shudder! The Man Who Never Dies
Directed by: Masayuki Kusumi
Written by: Masayuki Kusumi
Edited by: Kosumo Sutajio
Produced by: Otsuki Satoru
Cinematography: Yukiwo Kaneko
Music by: Masayuki Kusumi
Special Effects by: Murano Kōichi
Cast: Masahiro Satō, WAHAHA Group, Keisuke Araki, EVE, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Hiroko Nakayama, Nobuko Watanabe, Rie Shibata
Year: 1986
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 41min
Studio: Japan Home Video
Distributor: Midnight 25,Sai Enterprise, Orange Video House, Japan Home Video, Unearthed Films
