Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

You won't be disappointed!

A Disappointing Continuation

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film has some beautiful imagery and a nice dreamlike quality at times. There is also much Japanese symbolism and dance. That sums up the recommendation. On the down side, nothing much happens in this movie. There are some crappy "Manimals" that look like something that escaped from a road show version of "The Lion King". There's a lot of crabs, a couple of bones, an adulterous wife chained in a dark cave with the decomposing corpse of her lover and an incestuous brother and sister who commit suicide by sitting on top of sky fireworks. Add to this a demented "scientist" who looks like a yard gnome and has Disney dreams of grandeur. You have been warned. I don't know what content got this filmed banned as the nudity is PG and the atrocities are stated and not shown. It was OK for a one time view but I can't see me sitting through this one again. Sayanara!

Well, my fellow reviewers are all quite right about this one. "Horrors of Malformed Men" is – to put it all in one sentence – bizarre, disturbing, unclassifiable and literally something you have to see with your own eyes in order to believe it. The story may perhaps be a little too convoluted, grotesque and overlong (especially during the first hour) for its own good, but the all the footage filmed on the island, during the last half hour or so, is simply stupendous and genuinely grueling cinema of the macabre. The screenplay is adapted from the writings of Rampo Edogawa, who clearly had a few mental issues, but probably he at his turn found some inspiration in H.G. Wells' novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and maybe even in Todd Browning's legendary horror classic "Freaks". Briefly summarizing the plot is quite a challenging ordeal, but I'll give it a shot anyway. A man awakens in a mental asylum with a mysterious lullaby tune stuck in his head and some vague recollections of a remote island. Via a girl working in a traveling circus, he infiltrates in a wealthy family living by the coast. That isn't too difficult since he looks exactly like the former man of the house who – incidentally, of course – just passed away a couple of days earlier. Very well, but now he still doesn't know why the mysterious island lures him so much. Eventually, it turns out his own father inhabits the island and practices his extremely peculiar hobby there. He deliberately operated on people, like kidnapped girls and former servants, and turned them into hideously deformed prisoners because – and here comes the kicker – his wife cheated on him. There are more controversial and perverted themes aplenty, like incestuous relationships, the mentally insane and multiple WWII references, but there's honestly so much going on during the finale you tend to overlook some details. Luckily, one of the more insignificant supportive characters clarifies a lot of events through marvelously kinky flashbacks near the end. "Horrors of Malformed Men" isn't good, but I can't help praising most of aspects about it! The first half is often dull and completely incomprehensible, but the island-plot is just too hypnotizing for fans of obscure late 60's/early 70's horror. And this puppy was banned during a couple of decades, so the "forbidden fruit" element makes it even more appealing. The island sequences, most of them flashbacks, are truly unforgettable, with nightmarish imagery and a constant grisly atmosphere. The faces and bodies of the titular malformed men will surely haunt my dreams for the next couple of nights, as they look really uncanny and menacing.Finishing with a little a slightly off-topic and unimportant note: "Horrors of Malformed Men" also feature a killing technique that I'm sure to have seen already in a James Bond movie. Only, I can't remember which Bond movie and thus don't know for sure in which film it was shown first. The scene goes like this: the hero and his love-interest lie asleep face to face whilst an assailant slowly positions himself in the attic and exactly above the couple. Then, via a piece of cord, he lowers down poison onto the lips of his target. In both films, the hero turns his head right on time and the poison kills the poor girl. If anyone knows in which James Bond movie this assassination method occurs, please PM me!

This infamous Japenese cult flick unfortunately doesn't live up to its lofty reputation. It has some worthy moments, but only a few in what is otherwise a painfully boring and poorly made affair. The confusing story involves a medical student searching for his origins based on the few memories he has from his childhood. He makes his way to the coast of the Japan Sea, where he discovers an obituary for a man who looks exactly like him. He then pretends to be the dead man resurrected, and eventually is brought to an island not far away where the dead man's father is purportedly conducting odd experiments on human beings. The entire story up to here is confusing, uninvolving, and honestly pretty stupid. Only when the protagonist arrives on the island with the titular malformed men does it contain a shred of interest. But only a shred. The mad scientist on the island, kind of the Japanese version of Dr. Moreau, is mutating human beings into freaks. These people, played by circus performers, are dressed in weird costumes and covered with icky makeup. Supposedly the film was meant to reflect the effects of an atomic bomb. I'm not really that sure that was meant, since I don't think any radiation poisoning resulted in a person turning silver. This seems to be where some of the film's fans find substance in the thing, but, really, that half-assed commentary isn't even close to as good as the half-assed commentary in the original Gojira, or, even more appropriate to this conversation, another Ishiro Honda film, Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People, which was made six years earlier than Horrors of Malformed Men. The malformed men are pretty cool, I must admit, but their appearance and participation in the film takes up around ten minutes of this 100 minute film, one tenth, by my estimation. I couldn't forgive the first half of the movie. And even moreso I can't forgive what comes after this, where the mad doctor tells his story in a prolonged, monochromatic flashback. I guess I should be thankful, because the stuff I couldn't understand about the plot earlier in the movie is explicated in such detail that I wanted to rip my hair out. But at least I finally got the plot. And worse, after the doctor has his ten minute flashback, another character has another ten minute flashback. The story is patently ridiculous, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It could have been fun, but it isn't. It's a crushing bore! It does end on a hilarious bit, but nothing could have saved this movie.

Well, where to begin? This notorious Japanese horror has finally surfaced and our first concern is what was so terrible that kept it banned for so long? Made just over 20 years after the atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima, some of this film looks as if some of the short-lived survivors might have made it to the set. Both the way the deformity issue is enthused over here and the clear connection with the bomb attack, make this a true horror. We begin with vivid scenes inside a mental institution but then the film settles down into a creepy mystery before cracking open about half an hour in, whence we find ourselves in the Mexican, Jodorowsky territory, and then worse. This film is not particularly well written and is uneven and occasionally rather silly but nevertheless this is still a work of some considerable power. A one off and a must see for those not easily shocked.