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Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood, 1985, dir. Hideshi Hino

The second installment of the series brings a name on board that can actually carry a decent amount of weight: Hideshi Hino. The infamous horror mangaka, who not only definitely penned this but according to everything I can find also directed it, brings more plot into this film than the first. This time the torture of the "guinea pig" in the film is preceded by a bit recounting the capture of the woman, and endcapped with a demented monologue from the *** killer in the samurai costume. Although the effects in this installment are phenomenal and are some of the most realistic gore I have ever seen, it is more obvious from the way they have been shot this around that they are indeed special effects. It helps, too, that there is a making-of just as long as the film itself. Even knowing that these are fake, though, the ideas and images presented are still terribly disgusting, and should be enough to make all but the hardened at least squirm a little. Overall I found this one a better film than the first because as the script by Hino, a veteran writer, has a poetic quality to its horrors, which end up being a kind of ultimate, horrific creation through deconstruction of a human being, as if some post-modern strains of theory were taken to their worst ends possible.