Page 29 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

16 Nightmare Japan

for importing the very same Guinea Pig film that spawned Charlie
Sheen’s misguided campaign. According to the prosecution in the
Berthoud case, although the film did not consist of footage from a
homicide, it nevertheless fell ‘into the category of a snuff video’ (‘The
Christopher Berthoud Case’ 2003: para 1). In a rhetorical gesture that
raises a myriad of compelling questions about the dynamics of film
spectatorship and the power of cinema as a medium for representing
‘reality’, the prosecution elaborated by stating that: ‘This [the central
protagonist/victim] is not an Asian girl alive being murdered, but
something that is so well simulated that that is the impression it creates’
(para 1). Mr. Berthoud, perhaps wary of the film’s potential dramatic and
emotional impact, elected to accept whatever judgment the court deemed
appropriate rather than subject the jury to ‘the anxiety of having to watch
the shocking footage’ (para 3).
The Guinea Pig films have also inspired some legal and ethical
debate in Japan, where, according to one of the series’ primary
distributors, the films were wildly successful upon their release,
outselling ‘most mainstream Hollywood releases two months in a row’
(Biro 2003: para 5). Perhaps the most pronounced example of the Guinea
Pig series achieving an extensive degree of notoriety in Japan occurred
following the so-called ‘otaku murders’ of four young girls. During these
killings, Miyazaki Tsutomo, a recluse with a vast collection of violent
videos, allegedly re-enacted some of the more graphic scenes from
Flowers of Flesh and Blood. Despite attempts by the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government to cite the Guinea Pig series as an example of an
entertainment industry in need of restraint, much of the blame was
targeted towards Japanese culture itself for ‘creating a society that bred
such a [violent] mentality’ (para 6).
This socially self-reflective stance is particularly interesting,
especially if one understands the Guinea Pig films as not only innovative
works of horror cinema that challenge and redefine many of the genre’s
narrative and visual conventions, but also as texts in which the depiction
of splattered and splattering physiognomies both provides a critical
commentary upon, and aesthetically intervenes with, a transforming
Japanese body politic. Through a critical survey of these controversial