Za Ginipiggu 4: Manhoru No Naka No Ningyo (1988)

Genres - Horror  |   Sub-Genres - Sadistic Horror  |   Run Time - 63 min.  |   Countries - Japan  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Robert Firsching

A real surprise for fans of the notorious series, this fourth installment is a literate, even poetic piece of Sadean grotesquerie from director/artist Hideshi Hino. Shigeru Saikai stars as Hayashi, an artist who gets his inspiration from a sewer near his home. One day, as he is wandering around the tunnels, he is surprised to see a mermaid (Tsuyoshi Toshishige) caught in the muck. Hayashi takes the mermaid home and keeps her in his bathtub, intending to paint her portrait. But she begins to rot -- slowly at first, then more completely until her agony is excruciating. She begs Hayashi to kill her, but to paint her sorrow first. He does so, capturing her pain on his canvas until the final moments. Hino's film is a departure from the previous episodes (despite telling an admittedly nauseating story in graphic detail) in that it has a heart. More psychological splatterpunk than straight horror, Za Ginipiggu 4 is touching in a most peculiar way, and is not generally considered part of the series. The next installment, Za Ginipiggu 5: Peter No Akuma No Joi-san (1992), was an even bigger surprise -- a comedy.

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Keywords

artist, decadence, inspiration, mermaid