Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole (1988)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

just watch it!

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Am I Missing Something?

A painter takes to visiting the sewers to find inspiration for his art; there he discovers a beautiful but seriously ill mermaid who he takes home and places in a bathtub. As the mermaid's condition grows progressively worse, with tumours spreading all over her body, she implores the artist to make her the subject of his work, using the seven colours of pus from her sores as paint.Bodily fluids; worm vomiting; a dead foetus; graphic dismemberment: Mermaid in a Manhole certainly packs a lot of tasteless imagery into into its 63 minutes, but compared to the sadistic ultra-violence of director Hideshi Hino's earlier Guinea Pig movie, Flowers of Flesh and Blood, this one is a walk in the park: for the most part, Hino replaces realistic gore with messy, multi-coloured goop and absurd, misshapen growths that are too divorced from reality to be truly stomach churning. Even when the mermaid dies and the distraught artist maniacally chops up her body, finding a fully grown dead foetus inside her body, the fantastical nature of the story prevents matters from being too disturbing.That is, at least, until the film's ambiguous ending, which suggests that the mermaid never really existed and that the artist, driven insane through a sense of loss, has actually hacked up his heavily pregnant, terminally ill wife. Now that's a lot nastier than him chopping up a mythical creature, doncha think?

This is the 4th installment in the notorious "Guinea Pig" series and if you have seen any of them you know by now what you are getting yourself into.Unlike "Guinea Pig 1 & 2" this movie is actually a story about an artist who has just recently lost his wife. One day he decides to go into a sewer that he used to go in when he was a child. While down there he discovers a beautiful mermaid whom he saw many years before when a child. When he discovers that the mermaid is ill he decides to take her back and take care of her. This becomes more work then he bargained for. The mermaid starts getting puss pockets all over her body which ooze multiple colors. She then asks him to make a painting of her as she is dying, which he does without question. As the movie goes on, she gets more and more diseased and the artist doesn't know what to do.Well... this was quite an interesting film. Not exactly what I was expecting from the series. Not to say that it was not a good movie, because I thought it was rather good. I don't know what fans of the series would think of this film but it definitely has its ultra gore moments. One scene in particular with the mermaid vomiting worms. Very gross. 8/10

Need a disgusting fix? An artist who uses a sewer for inspiration finds a mermaid there on his most recent visit. Despite her having a small infection on her stomach, he takes her home, puts her in his tub, and paints pictures of her. As time goes on, she becomes more infected with boils and such all over her body. Needless to say there is much blood and pus (which doubles as paint, wouldn't ya know?). There's even a strange twist at the end. Anyway, the SFX are done fairly well for being a cheapie and are sure to disgust many viewers at one point or another. It wasn't a great movie by any means but was interesting to watch.

WARNING, may contain minor spoilersI watched this film mainly out of curiosity, given the reputation of the entire Guinea Pig series, and I must say that I am a bit disappointed. While I started really hoping to get totally sick, I wind up laughing at the screen halfway. The problem is that it is very easy to see pass the supposed blood and gore see paint and plastic. I can literately feel the little plastic hoses that squirt out those multi-coloured paint from the puss. When the mermaid's face is deformed by the disease, the face looked more like a plastic mask glue on the actress than something supposedly revolting. And it is obvious that the actress never did put the worms in her mouth, since you never actually see her barfing them out (the camera pans down away from her face at that point). It's really just a clever camera trick.But it isn't for the lack of trying. That are some genuinely shocking moments in the film, such as when the artist discovered what was inside the mermaid when he chopped up the mermaid after she died. So I am not saying that the film is not disgusting, but I found the low-budget and dated special effects to be laughable.Story-wise I did like that the film is short and not overly complicated. Obviously the main drawing point is the gore, but there's a pretty decent story as well about lost love, and life in general. And The ending just added an extra layer of mysteriousness into the mix, leaving the viewer thinking just what exactly has transpired.I still haven't figured it all out myself.