User reviews

Mermaid in a Manhole is the fourth entry in the more than infamous Japanese Guinea Pig series which tries to be as shocking as a film can be. This kind of trash can be made only in Japan. Mermaid is directed by Hideshi Hino, a man behind the most infamous part of the series, Guinea Pig 2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood. Mermaid is not as sick as the first two entries in the series, but Mermaid is still very very disgusting and "shocking" as the young painter finds a wounded and beautiful mermaid from a sewer and takes her home and places into tub. He begins to paint her as she is unconscious in the tub, but soon she begins to have some very severe symptoms of "melting" as pus filled and exploding vesicles appear on her skin and soon she is FILLED with crawling worms and disgusting excretions and secretions as her slow death comes more and more near..So this doesn't make much sense and all the film has to offer are shocks and a need for barf bag.

The scenes of wet and pus spurting mayhem are disgusting enough, but what I really had difficulties to sit through were the scenes of thousands of slithery worms which are definitely real and plenty, and the girl has them in her mouth, too! What kind of an actress would agree to act in such a role? I'm not actually scared of worms or don't hate them, but there are so many hundreds of them and they are filled with blood and pus and they appear ANYWHERE from the girl's body and they are very lively and active so I simply couldn't watch the film without some disgust reactions, even though I watched the whole thing and didn't use any fast forward. So I definitely can recommend this, if you're looking for something very disgusting and despisable!

There are no cinematic merits in this film (or other Guinea Pig films), although the scene in the sewer is pretty haunting, so that is perhaps the only cinematic merit of the film! Either horror fans like these or then not. Others will puke trying to watch these, that's for sure! Try to show Mermaid to your girlfriend or sister and count seconds how much she can take! It is impossible to give stars for these films, because there are nothing but scenes of disgust and loathing. If you're a fan of Japanese extreme horror and sicko cinema, then Guinea Pigs are worth tracking down as a curiosity, but they are by no means great or noteworthy films, no matter how hard core horror fan one thinks he is. I watched this film (and most of the whole series) as a curiosity and 'cause I'm interested in Orient cinema in its all forms, excluding s/m cinema and other of its kind. As a marginal cinema fanatic, I give Mermaid 5 stars out of ten even though it is pretty useless to give stars for these. At least this is the most disgusting film I've ever seen!

Guinea Pig III: Mermaid in a Sewer (Hideshi Hino, 1988)

Mermaid in a Sewer, one of the four Guinea Pig films directed by Hino, is the only one that rivals The Flower of Flesh and Blood in notoriety and popularity. Unlike its more graphic and brutal cousin, Mermaid in a Sewer (often translated as Mermaid in a Manhole, Mermaid in the Bathtub, or any other number of similar titles) actually has a plot to it. An artist (Shigeru Saiki), obviously modeled on Hino himself (Hino's style is unmistakable), draws his inspiration from things he sees and finds in his local sewer system. One day, what he finds among the muck and stench is... a mermaid (Mari Somei). Yes, a mermaid. A very attractive one at that (and one is forced to wonder what, exactly, would motivate an actress to play a part like this...). We find out, after the two have conversed a bit and he's done a preliminary sketch, that she is wounded. He takes her home (how he gets her there without anyone noticing is beyond me) and installs her in his bathtub in order to take care of her.

You can see where this is going, I'm sure. Wound + sewer = bad, bad things.

I'd comment on the acting, dialogue, etc. if I actually understood Japanese. Sometimes watching films in foreign languages with no subtitles is good for the soul, I guess (though anyone who happens to have a script from either 2 or 3 in English who'd be willing to send a copy my way would be remembered in my will, and not with a debt). The couple who lives downstairs from the artist (Masami Hisamoto, Tsuyoshi Toshishige) pop up every now and then to give what would seem a comic turn to the film, which only adds to the disgust and horror. If you get nightmares easily, this is not a film you ever want to see. As Joaquin Phoenix said in what was one of only a handful of lines in _8mm_ that's actually worth remembering, "there are some things you can't un-see." I could never pop this tape into the cassette player again, and certain images would remain as fresh in my mind as they are right now. It's that bad. *** 1/2

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)

This is a rather strange entry in the Guinea Pig franchise but one that is a must see after a while because in the beginning it looks rather childish and stupid but slowly it turns into a squirmfest to end in a gorefest.

When a painter wants to return to a sewer were he has been before entering the manhole to go into the sewer he comes across a girl laying in the filthy water. Coming closer he notices that it is a mermaid. Somehwo he has seen her before but by getting closer he sees that she has some kind of infection. He picks her up and takes her home to place her in a bath. She do ask to be painted by him and to use the colored puss coming out of her infection. Until then it's a bit ridiculous but the painter gets addicted to her and when the infection gets worse and she almost dies the worms come in.

It's from that point that this horror flick turns into a gruesome flick. First out of the puss do come the worms but if that's not enough she starts vomiting worms being alive and it's not faked. Naturally the mermaid do dies and the painter can't take it anymore and starts to cut her up. At the end we do have a twist and this gory flick is over.

It's a rather good entry into the franchise because it do has it flows. The worms can make viewers decide to turn it off but for people into Japanese stuff this is your thing.

Gore 3/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

A painter named Hayashi(Shigeru Saiki)finds a wounded mermaid(Mari Somei)and saves her.He takes her home and puts her into his bathtub where she keeps decomposing,the spreading disease spurting blood and pus.Hideshi Hino's "Guinea Pig 4:Mermaid in the Manhole" is easily one of the most disgusting horror movies I have ever seen.The make-up effects made by Nobuaki Koga are incredibly revolting.The character of Hayashi is pretty sympathetic and the film has a mood of a very sad romance.The mermaid represents painter's wife and "all the beautiful things" he has lost,so she is bound to rot and vanish too."Mermaid in the Manhole" works as a piece of extreme art,so anyone who loves Japanese horror should give it a look.However if you're easily offended avoid this one like the plague.

It is hard to describe the viewing experience for this movie. Even if you have seen the other Guinea Pig series movies, this one is on another level of disturbing. Where the first three are gory, they are also just straightforward dismemberment stories. They are simple and shocking, but no really new ground from hundreds of other horror movies. Mermaid in a Manhole is a different story. It focuses on disease and decay. It captures the lead character's descent into insanity. Then, once the viewer has gone through all this for the first two-thirds of the movie, we move to the dismemberment.

I like the psychological angle of this story and I think it makes this installment much better than the first two, but it is hard to watch and appreciate. To some degree, it reminds me of Nekromantik in that the story is intriguing and pushes the viewer to think about what is happening, but the images are so terrible that it is hard to want to.

I saw this in the middle of the night, and it wasn't subtitled. Still, I figured out what it was about, despite the fact that I don't speak it's language. It's about what appears to be a painter who rescues an injured woman who begins to rot and spew pus. As she dies, he uses her goop as paint. The film's ending is depressing as it appears that he wasn't playing with a full deck.

The overall tone of the film is bad enough without the bizarre situation, but the fact that the film literally doesn't race makes the outcome more of an effective idea that could be better implemented with a little less patience. Still, when the screen isn't drenched with guts and pus, it's pretty to look at. This is, i guess, a part of some strange series of films in Japan that deal with special effects gore and realism. This works in both areas, but also happens to have a little more to offer.

"Mermaid in a Manhole" is one of the stronger entries in the "Guinea Pig" Series. Basic premise: Artist finds sick mermaid in a sewer, takes her home and as she begins to deteriorate physically, uses her blood/pus/bodily fluids as paint for his painting. Off the wall story-line, decent gore effects, this installment of the "Guinea Pig" series is better than most. It's definitely pretty out there and gross, but after hearing about this series for years it still didn't quite live up to all the hype. Unearthed did a great job with the transfer, everything is crisp and clear, but this is another situation where I think a grainier, older looking copy may have actually added to the viewing experience. The DVD copy is SO clear that the pus/blood oozing from the mermaid almost looks like neon paint, which actually detracts slightly from the overall effect - but that's just a slight gripe on my part.

Definitely worth a look for the "extreme" horror viewer, definitely not for casual horror movie goers. 7/10

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.

Hideshi Hino is famous in Japan for his violent graphic manga. He tends to touch on disease, holocaust, and WWII flashbacks. It shows here.

Hino decided to make a GP film with an actual story. You have to wonder however if the artist in this story is a self-portrait. If so, I wonder if Hino has TOO MANY dark secrets.

The main reason for this film, it seems, is to see how far it can go. Can we let the Mermaid get sicker just to keep painting? And did the FX guy get top pay?

The grainy film and sub par editing add to the nightmare. Do NOT let your kids see this.

Wow.

I have rarely seen a film that manages to be intensely disgusting and poetically beautiful at the same time. Despite the reputation of the Ginipiggu films, this wasn't the most intense gore I've ever seen... Fulci's "Paura nella città dei morti viventi" is more disturbing, if not more graphic, and certainly far more violent. Fulci's film doesn't come close to the visual poetry that "Mermaid" exhibits in places, nor does it delve into the places in the soul that this film did.

Confused yet?

The basic story of "Mermaid": a Japanese artist has a penchant for lurking in a sewer near his home. We find out that this is because a beautiful mermaid lived in the river that once flowed where the sewer now sits. While skulking in the sewer one day, he finds the mermaid. She's been living in the darkness for decades, having become stranded when the city was built. The painter visits her repeatedly, and one day notices a horrible infection beginning on her abdomen. He realizes that she's gotten this infection from being trapped in the sewer for so long, and so he takes her home to care for her and paint her.

The mermaid is the embodiment of the painter's childhood dreams, his innocence, and his joy. The infection is the decay of his own being, his psyche itself. As the film progresses, so does the infection, slowly disfiguring the mermaid until she comes to resemble ground beef covered with tumors that ooze multi-colored pus and occasionally give rise to masses of worms. She won't die, though, until he finishes his painting of her. She does die (which is an obvious outcome from the early part of the film -- but not the *ending*), and she does so slowly, painfully, horribly, and very graphically. If the thought of a boil-covered, bleeding woman lying in a bathtub filled with her own blood (and other fluids) while vomiting up blood and worms seems unpalatable to you, do NOT watch this film. I could easily see some of the scenes inducing a reversal of peristalsis in many viewers. I've seen some intense horror flicks and some very "realistic" gore, but there were definitely some nauseating and difficult moments for me in "Mermaid".

There's also a scene wherein the mermaid has died and we see flowing paint obscure the paintings that the artist has rendered from his childhood memories as he dismembers her body, ostensibly for disposal. If I told any more, though, I'd be giving away the ending... and that wouldn't be fair.

If you've got the stomach for it, I would highly recommend this film. The acting is solid (the dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles), and the production values are quite good for a straight-to-video effort. This was a top ten seller in Japan for two months when it first came out, and with good reason. In many ways, this is a really excellent film, and it balances loathing and almost Poe-like horror with a certain inner beauty. I'm not generally a big fan of Japanese horror, but I haven't seen anything else that manages such a fine balancing act.

"Mermaid in a Manhole" is available in the US only through Unearthed Films. It's worth the effort and expense to get hold of a copy.

The film's cinematography is done in a way that induces thoughts of soap operas. You know, that "overly polished, but attempting to look like real life" style. It is quite a change from the typical "movie" style that the opening credits are done in. I'll have to give it another watch to see how I really feel about that.

The plot of Mermaid in a Manhole is that a lonely man, simply called The Artist, has recently lost his wife and is seeking inspiration for his paintings. His secret place is a sewer which used to be a lush river, whose banks he used to hang out on during his childhood. One day, his beloved pet/animal friend is dead and he frantically seeks to use it (I'm not sure what the animal was, by the way… it looked too big for a rat, but too mangy for much else) as artistic inspiration, when he encounters a mermaid. He becomes enthralled and obsessed with said mermaid, and decides to take her home – you see, she has some sort of funky flesh-eating infection, and he believes he can cure it. Also, by taking her home with him, he can just sit and paint her all day.

Mermaid in a Manhole is a very quiet film. I mean that in a couple ways – first, while there is a lot of dialogue in parts, in most parts, there is silence with only the environmental sounds as the backdrop to the scenes. It's quite nice, and adds to the realism that the film was going for. The cast is very small, which also aids to the quiet of the film. In fact, you don't really see more than those four characters until the end.

Now, with the above stated, I have to say that the amount of over-acting in this film is astounding. Most of the over-acting comes from The Artist (Shigerui Saiki). The man can overdo it with the best of them. The nosy neighbor does her fair share, as well. The Mermaid (Mari Somei) and The Artist appear to communicate telepathically – actually, The Mermaid appears to do all of her communicating telepathically and hams up her voice-overs just as well as the other two. In fact, I think the only one who doesn't ham it up in this is the boyfriend/husband/brother (their relationship is unclear) of the nosy neighbor – and this is possibly because he has so few lines.

Though Mermaid in a Manhole is included in the Japanese splatter library of film, it's really not as gory or disgusting as you would think. Sure, it's not for the weak-stomached, what with its bleeding/worm spewing flesh eating mermaid virus, or the pus paint in seven colors. But, I certainly have seen much worse.

If you want something that is extremely cheesy and fairly entertaining, with subtitles, I would recommend it. It's certainly not a bad film, but it definitely isn't good.

This is a sick movie. A young painter finds a dying mermaid in the sewer and he takes her home. Then the mayhem begins... This is actually a real movie compared to the previous "Guinea Pig"-movies. It´s not so sick an it got a certain cinematic style. Still I wouldn´t recommend it to anyone but hardcore-Japanese-splatter-movie-fans. I give it 5 out of 10.

The Za ginipiggu aren't exactly very deep or original movies, since mostly they are purely about seeing people being tortured, dismembered and eventually getting killed but "Za ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no naka no ningyo" has something extra to it, due to its bizarre but yet also intriguing story.

The movie does actually has a plot and story to it. It's a weird one but a story nevertheless, that besides is actually quite intriguing because it's so unusual. It's about a lonely artist finding a mermaid in the sewer, whom he decides to take home with him when she falls ill to continue to paint her. Her condition however only worsens when she starts to develop sores all over her body.

The Za ginipiggu-series is known for its gore and its attempts to shock with it and I feel that this movie is so far (still have to watch the other sequels) being the most successful with it. Even though it doesn't feature any torture sequences or other graphic moments like the previous movies featured, it still is the movie that grossed me out the most. It's a truly disgusting movie to watch.

Graphically it's a good looking movie with all of its effects. Still the production values are being obviously fairly low and also the actors far from impress.

Don't miss out this movie once you get into the unusual Za ginipiggu-series.

7/10

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I think during the 80's, while Cronenberg and the like were showing their special effects skills, some daring Japanese directors were ready to show their might on the screen and it led to these films. All of them were put together to showcase nothing more than special effects with almost no story line whatsoever. Except this little gem!! I have to say, these films are definitely heavy on the gore, and they are way good at the special effects. They definitely caught me off guard when I saw them without knowing what I was sitting down to watch. But that's where it ends, special effects for gross out factors (which the Japanese do very well). But again, this one is a bit different than the others, so don't just write it off like perhaps "Flower of Flesh and Blood" or "Devil's Experiment".

First off, this has the artist element, as the crazy man who paints the scum and filth inside of a sewer would. And it has a very strange feeling almost from the get go. An almost bizarre art house quiet despair right from the get go. You can almost smell the rotting filth just by watching it. And that's exactly how I can explain this film, as if you watch an animal get hit by a car and watch it die, and subsequently rot to a bloody mess on the side of the road. But that's only an allegory to what the movie looks like, as the movie is perhaps an allegory to a deeper meaning.

While this film is certainly vile, and has loads of gross out factors from stem to stern, it has a certain humanity to it. Almost a beautiful love to it. And that is where this movie stands out from the others.

If you've seen the others and haven't seen this one, then definitely watch it. If you've wanted to see them, and haven't yet, definitely watch this one. If you like gross out gore cinema, then definitely watch this one. If you're weak in the stomach, then steer very far away from any of these films.