GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Geeky Randy Director Hideshi Hino brings his manga to screen as an installment in the notorious GUINEA PIG series, about a recently widowered painter who finds artistic inspiration in an unlikely location from an unlikely creature. For gorehounds and ONLY gorehounds. The special effects—albeit twisted—are undeniably impressive. Probably one of the only films that could make the viewer want to run to the bathroom and vomit—not counting hand-held-styled movies that causes motion sickness. Aside from the shameless nastiness, the story's originality should also be recognized because of how difficult it can be to pull off this type of horror without involving serial killers or monsters in the mix.*** (out of four)

Paul Andrews Za Ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo, or Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole as it's more commonly known amongst Enlish speaking audiences, starts in the Japanese sewer system where an artist (Shigeru Saiki) likes to go & paint things, for some reason I'm not aware of. One day he discovers a beautiful mermaid (Mari Somei), half Japanese woman, half fish. He decides to paint her but it quickly becomes apparent that spending all her time in the Japnese sewer system isn't doing the mermaids health any good & she starts to develop huge puss filled sacs of diseased flesh on her stomach. The artist takes her back to his place & sticks her in a bathtub filled with water, unfortunately this does not have the desired effect & the mermaids entire body becomes engulfed in these disgusting sacs of rotten flesh which eventually begin to burst. The artist becomes desperate as his beautiful mermaid is rotting away in front of his very eyes!This Japanese production was directed by Hideshi Hino & I'm not really sure what to make of it or who it's supposed to appeal to, the entire Guinea Pig series of films seem to exist for no other reason other than a pointless exercise to test the endurance levels of it's audience out. The script is far removed from reality although it does try to redeem itself with a really sick & unpleasant twist ending that seems to contradict itself. Za Ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo seems to exist for no other purpose other than to try & gross it's audience out at every available opportunity, which when I think about it isn't necessarily a bad thing by any means! It's hard to know what to make of it & as long as you know what your letting yourself in for I suppose it's quite good in a sick, perverse & bizarre sort of way. At only an hour or so in length it moves along at a fair pace & certainly grips the viewer as you want to know how this thing is going to end. The dialogue is sparse & little attempt is made at characterisation, but the filmmakers include just about enough to get by with.Director Hino doesn't do anything special in the film-making department, this thing has all the style & class of a TV soap opera. The gore is plentiful, the puss filled sores & sacs on the mermaids body really are gross, that is until they burst & start oozing blue, purple, green, yellow & white liquid when it becomes more comical. One thing this film uses are slimy worms, boy the filmmakers must have used 100's if not 1000's of the things! They start to slime & crawl their way out of the mermaids wounds & totally cover her, if you don't like slimy creepy crawlies then Za Ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo isn't for you as there's loads of them. The nasty climax features a total body dismemberment, severed limbs, hacked out foetus's, a popped out eye, scalp removal & plenty of internal organs. Most of it's pretty disgusting & Hino doesn't mind long lingering close-ups of the action.Technically the film looks cheap throughout, it's point & shoot stuff. The special make-up effects range from gross to absurd but most of the time they are well realised. I never comment on the acting on subtitled films but I'm sure the material doesn't lend itself too well for a great performance, that female buck toothed neighbour was highly annoying though.Za Ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no Naka no Ningyo is a strange film, I can't really say it's a good film but I can't say it's a bad one as I thought it was OK & took a certain amount of sick pleasure from it but I personally wouldn't want anyone I know to watch anything like this. Equal parts disgusting, strange & pointless. One more thing, that guy's carpet must have been rank by the end of the film! I mean he could have put some newspaper down or something, right?

Macholic *MINOR SPOILERS* Recently widowed painter spends all his time shifting through the local sewer to find motifs for his paintings. The sewer is build where the river dried up and he played at as a child, but the river's frogs and dragonflies are gone and now he is starring at dog cadavers, aborted fetuses and worms and he comes across a mermaid in the sewer, he met her as a child in the river. She stranded in the sewer when the river dried up. But the mermaid has a nasty infection, so he brings her home. She wants him to paint her and not spend time to treat her, so the infection grows worse, much, much worse! The viewer is treated to boils, pus, worms and blood. All very gross made, yet this is a very moving film as well, it is clearly the most artistic of the Guinea Pig movies, the ending is ambiguous, you have to see for yourself. This little gem of a movie is laden with atmosphere and symbolism, it has beauty midst its grossness. 8/10

RJC-99 Any hopes I had for "Mermaid" were soon awash in the gallons of pus and blood and ranks of maggots that oozed and sloshed and swarmed out of the poor thing's belly, which is already looking like a bubbling peanut-and-butter jelly sandwich by the 15 minute mark. And may I say: nice pustule make-up, guys. Even in closeup, with the straight razor lancing them, you'd swear those are real cankers. To quote from the script: "Aaaaaiiiieeeeee!"And that's it, alas. Hideshi Hino has a powerful imagination only hinted at here, in this little squiggly glistening exercise. The sewer sequence, with its monologue about memory and loss, and the Poe homage as the painter settles down to immortalize his dying mermaid suggest we're in for deeper treats. Nope: maggots, mainly. And OK already: you can hardly blame a gore film for being gory. But as readers of his horror manga know, Hino, like his heir apparent Junji Ito, can be a captivating storyteller. Here he's only skin deep.