Horrors of Malformed Men

Dir. Teruo Ishii 99 Minutes

Japan

1969

Starring: Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa, Teruko Yumi, Mitsuko Aoi

***1/2/***** Teruo Ishii's Horrors of Malformed Men is a fascinating film, resistant to lulling its audience into any type of sense of stylistic security and becoming a mesh of Gothic horror, surreal imagery, kaleidoscopic psychedelia, absurdist humor, and plot twists veering on the exploitation. And the plot never settles for any one arc either. The film starts with medical student Hirosuke locked up in an asylum despite being sane, and upon his escape he becomes intrigued by a photo of a recently deceased man in a newspaper who greatly resembles him. His investigation leads him to an island where he meets Jogoro, the father of the doppelgänger, and Hirosuke learns of his plot to create a species of malformed beings from normal humans while also discovering a secret about his own past.

Whipping between the doppleganger plot to its Dr. Moreau denouement (with some moments that feel as if they would later influence Oldboy), Ishii keeps things movie along both narratively and visually, with tripping sequences and a marvelous, constantly intriguing mood. It is a strange film, and certainly not something that will be to all tastes, but Horrors of Malformed Men is such a odd, engaging, and sometimes downright creepy (the physicality of Jogoro is so strangely haunting) that even if the pieces do not always come together into a steady whole it is too unique to not be drawn in.

October 18th, 2019