 Splatter has always been something of a mixed bag, but this one had some originality to bring to the mix. While it did deliver on the gore, it was a bit more sporadic and carefully-deployed and certainly not what the whole story depended upon. NAKED BLOOD (1996) Dir. Hisayasu Sato, Japan, 76 mins Ah, Japan. Probably the country that we’ve most visited within the five or more years of Film Gutter – there’s just something about films from that neck of the woods that can go very, very out there. And it’s back again for a film I’ve wanted to see for a long time in Naked Blood, another one of those 90’s splatter offerings that proliferated in the country at the time on the back of the infamous Guinea Pig movies and many more. It makes sense in a way – there was certainly a strong market at the time, looking for plenty of the crimson stuff, and these movies were not expensive to make. In fact I’d imagine most of the time, money and effort goes into the effects side of things in some of these cases. Anyway, let’s zoom in on today’s particular offering, shall we? The story in Naked Blood follows Eiji, a talented young amateur scientist with a mother working in contraceptives. His father, who died a long time ago, was also a high-level scientist, so genius obviously runs in the family. And Eiji uses his smarts to develop a new sort of painkiller than floods the brain with endorphins whenever it feels pain – which he strangely dubs ‘my son’ – and he’s so determined to test it, he slips some secretly into three injections his mother is about to give. Eiji is dead set on capturing the results on his video camera, so he follows the three woman who have had his concoction around, striking up a particular relationship with Rika – a young woman who doesn’t sleep do to a medical condition. Sadly things are about to go deeply south, as the painkiller has rather unexpected side-effects, with those dosed up about to discover that pain and pleasure are effectively the same thing… I can’t even remember where I first read about this one, but the concept of it always lodged in my brain, and the final delivery of it is pretty damn good for me. I can’t claim this one really rocked my world, but there were a lot more interesting concepts than I expected to go alongside some of the more stomach-churning moments. And it certainly delivers on that latter front – there were a good few scenes here that left me feeling a little bit woozy. The relationship that develops between Eiji and Rika was the bit that really caught me out – it was really intriguing and dark, and strangely enough had a cactus at the very heart of it. And only in Japanese cinema could I write that sentence… Overall, I’d have to say it’s one of the better splatter movies I’ve seen. It has a lot more ideas behind it than many, and if anything the plot feels a little crammed in rather than having the same thin quality of numerous films of the stripe, which all too often pad runtime with excessive gore. While it has its flaws – the acting isn’t always all that, there’s numerous bits of the science that feel pretty half-baked and it is also a bit slow to get rolling. However this one had a bit of heart, and certainly went outside of the realms I would normally have expected, including some fabulously weird dream sequences. I’d say this is a movie worth your time – that’s especially true if you like splatter, but if you’re a fan of the more bizarre elements of Japanese cinema you could likely have some fun with this one too. RATING: 7.5/10. Splatter has always been something of a mixed bag, but this one had some originality to bring to the mix. While it did deliver on the gore, it was a bit more sporadic and carefully-deployed and certainly not what the whole story depended upon. I preferred it to many movies in the subgenre, and it did enough to keep me on my toes and leave me guessing as to where it would finish off. This one scores a highly creditable 7.5/10 from me.   |
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