If you’ve ever wondered what the inside of the skull looks like, then this is the film for you. Likewise if you’re looking for several new recipes with which to nauseate your friends.
This little-known gem of Japanese serial killer cinema starts with a murder scene, crawling with cops. When the morgue attendants arrive, with the senior saying “Oh, the corpse doesn’t look as gruesome as some. It’s my trainee’s first day” you know that both you and the trainee are in for a surprise. Said surprise follows very shortly, in the form of a stewpot that prompts a dozen cops to explode out of the apartment yunting in a serious and determined fashion.
One of the delights of this film is the occasional one-liners at the most inappropriate times, such as when one of the older cops leans in to a colleague who’s barely holding his stomach together and whispers “It tastes like cheese…” This sort of robust humour occurs sporadically, and makes for a sharp bark of laughter that allows you to inhale for the next spate of breath-holding.
There are one or two inconsistencies, it’s true. I’d imagine, for example, that no matter how strong the arm, a knife would have great difficulty sawing the top off a skull, at least without making a mess of the brain. And one of the characters does have the top of her head drop off a little too conveniently, unless she’d been sawing at it earlier. But overall the plot is surprisingly consistent, if not coherent, and provides lots of action for even the most demanding of viewers (such as me).
So there’s grue, and plenty of it. There’s wacky Japanese in-the-face-of-weird-murders humour. There’s a convoluted sexual sub-plot involving the lead cop, a tart, a doctor, and a serial killer (who incidentally possesses the hooded eyes and lazy pout of James Spader. He also has a fairly stoic attitude to self-harm). There’s brains, and leather, and water. There’s belief and disbelief, there’s a set of suspects, and most importantly there’s murder and mystery.
Just eat your dinner before you watch…