(aka Za Ginipiggu 6 - Peter no akuma no joi-san)
Review © Sven, 2005.

Directed by Hajime Tabe, 1990, 52 min. Starring Peter, Eve, Masami Hisamoto, and Masahiro Satô.

You've probably heard it all before: Guinea Pig movies are the most disgusting bunch of flicks you'll ever bump into. Avoid, avoid at all costs if you are faint of heart and/or weak of stomach! And while I must admit that this most certainly applies to at least some of the Guinea Pig flicks, it's actually a bit misleading. As you may know, the series went into a completely new direction after the first two notorious, gruesome entries - from then on putting an emphasis on storylines and even comedy rather than pure gore. At times, it worked - at other times, it didn't. Devil Woman Doctor kind of hangs in between.

Directed and written by debutant Hajime Tabe, Devil Woman Doctor stars Japan's most famous transvestite, Peter (real name: Shinnosuke Ikehata), who'd previously played parts in quality movies such as Akira Kurosawa's Ran, and Shuyi Teriyama's Les Fruits De La Passion (the keyword being 'quality' here). In this sixth Guinea Pig entry, Peter plays the so-called Devil Woman Doctor. Now, whether this person is actually female or has an actual doctor's degree is seriously doubtful, but there's definitely a devilish thing about him/her (well, you decide). This movie being Hajime Tabe's first effort, it also appeared to be his last one - and the last Guinea Pig movie, too. Whether this is entirely coincidental or not - I don't know. However, Devil Woman Doctor sure is a far cry from any of the other Guinea Pig movies, so it probably was wise to stop making them altogether, if you ask me.

The rest of the cast, I should mention, has some familiar folks among them. For instance, we see the return of both Eve and Masahiro Satô, who had starred in He Never Dies as, respectively, Kyoko and Yoshio, while Masami Hisamoto had previously played the part of the nosy neighbour in Mermaid In A Manhole.

Devil Woman Doctor probably has most in common with the He Never Dies, the third Guinea Pig movie, as both set out to give their audience some good laughs. However, while He Never Dies had all the clever jokes and the bizarre story, Devil Woman Doctor falls short. An overall storyline is obviously missing, as this movie mainly consists of a wide range of bizarre ideas that are all presented in seperate segments, each lasting for only a few minutes at most. On the one hand, this keeps the movie interesting (plus, when a scene is particularly bad or boring, there's always the reassuring thought that it's going to be over soon). However, the constantly switching subject matter makes watching this movie almost exhausting at times - it's hard to really get into it.

Synopsis

As you'd probably guessed by now, the Devil Woman Doctor is far from your average doctor. However, that does not keep a good number of people with incredibly weird diseases from visiting him/her, presumably hoping to find a cure. After a brief and, admittedly alienating introduction (Doc cuts a doll open, after which a massive amount of blood squirts out of it), you expect the tone to be set. This is true to some extent, as the blood and guts ratio certainly is high - however, we quickly turn to the comedy side of gore, and Devil Woman Doctor gets only goofier and wackier along the way.

On finishing the previously mentioned intro, we're introduced to a family with the oddest disease you've ever heard of (but that's just because you haven't seen the rest of the movie yet). Their heads apparently explode when they get upset - hooray, our first case! And of course, the Doc gives the oddball family exactly the kind of treatment you'd expect from a Guinea Pig doctor. Harsh words, insults and random name-calling make the family lose their temper - case closed. The next patient is a girl that suffers from a heart disease that could easily be called odd, namely 'Hereditary Heart Blast Disease' - which basically means that her heart will explode from even the slightest shock that she experiences. Need I say more?

I'll just stop telling about all the bizarre goings-on right now though, as I wouldn't want to spoil all the fun. I can assure you that Devil Woman Doctor continues in the exact same fashion for the rest of its running time, so if this sounds like it's your bag, by all means, watch this movie.

The most disappointing thing about Devil Woman Doctor is probably the fact that it is, at its core, nothing more than camp - in fact, the word was probably invented to describe this movie. If only it were the least bit disgusting, the least bit scary, or the least bit involving, it could have been a much better movie. As for now, it's Bad Taste meets Faces Of Death (minus the mondo) meets, well, Guinea Pig - done badly.

The fact that Devil Woman Doctor doesn't take itself all too seriously, is almost painfully obvious. Props and special effects are done particularly bad in some scenes, which surely adds to the overall sense of a whacked-out, bad taste, zero talent production. As a result, you'd almost feel offended at times, watching such a steaming pile of juvenile nonsense (iron pie, anyone?). However, the fun that went into making this production is so apparent that it almost drips off of it - and that's a good thing. Now, even if most of the crew had no talent whatsoever (and well, they probably didn't), they should at least be given some credit for doing all their best to make this movie at least enjoyable. And Devil Woman Doctor is enjoyable, although it's more like a guilty pleasure - even then, this flick falls into a category of its own. There's good movies, bad movies, and guilty pleasures. And there's Devil Woman Doctor. A film that can be thorougly enjoyed if you have close to no expectations - I suggest you go and see it with a bunch of friends, preferrably some who have no taste in movies. There's worse ways to spend 52 minutes. Probably.

Snowblood Apple Rating for this film:
Entertainment value: 5/10
Violence: goofy/10
Scares: 0/10
Sex: 1/10, and a transvestite doctor
Devil Doctor Woman Doctor Doman Woctor Wevil Docan Detor: it's all so confusing !
Corny special effects: "What's that supposed to be ?"
Devil Woman Doctors: 0
Devil Transvestite Quacks: 1

*** Whacked-out, talentless fun that provides a frustrating end to the series ***

Films in a similar style: He Never Dies

(A huge Snowblood Apple thank you to the delightful Rhett Rushing at Unearthed Films, the owners of the exclusive rights to the entire Guinea Pig series, for kindly allowing us to use images from the films on these pages)

Devil Woman Doctor Wallpaper
please note: the actual papers do not have the Snowblood Apple logo on them.

You can download this wallpaper here: [800x600] [1024x768]

You can download this wallpaper here: [800x600] [1024x768]

You can download this wallpaper here: [800x600] [1024x768]
Wallpaper credit: Sven, 2005

Links

For external links, please see either the Guinea Pig Series page, or the central links page, both of which have lots of lovely links for your delectation...