Guinea Pig 6: Mermaid in a Manhole (1988)
AKA: Gini Piggu: Manhoru No Naka No Ningyo
Year: 1988
Directed by: Hideshi Hino
Starring: Shigeru Saiki (Painter), Mari Somei (Mermaid)
Country: Japan, Asian Cinema
Language: Japanese (English Subtitles)
Runtime: 00:57:16
Genres: Gore-Gruesome-Splatter, Violence Against-Relationships with Animals, Insects, Scars-Body Modification, Violence against Women
Plot – Spoilers:
There’s no humour in this final Guinea Pig flick but a lot more gore and splatter compared to the last few.
A painter is holed up in his room painting his memories and dwelling on boyhood nostalgia. He rarely steps out, but when he does, it’s usually to explore a sewer accessible through a manhole and which used to be a river back when he was a boy. A nosy couple who live in the floor below him are curious about him, and in particular, his wife who is believed to have left recently.
On one occasion while rummaging around in the tunnel, he comes across a mermaid whom he remembers having met as a boy in the river that ran through there. She too remembers him and he is filled with an overwhelming feeling of love and takes her home, housing her in a newly ordered tub.
For some reason, his destiny is to paint her and she constantly reminds him of this, even when he tries to nurse her after she develops a weird disease.
Thank you for posting this one. It’s my favorite in the series and I kind of consider it a tragic romance with a horror twist despite the gore. I have a hard time finding the subs in the US. 🙁
This is the full movie, uncut.
Wish I could download it though…
Out of the Japanese guinea pig shorts, this was the only one I really liked enough to re-watch. It was both sad and disgusting. It was dis-touching.
It was watchable but it felt a bit ‘other-worldly’ if that makes sense. Not humanly realistic so it doesn’t feel quite as raw.
Reads like a poem. tied for me with the fourth in the series but for very different reasons. the mermaids got some nice bazoingas too
that was so lovely. so sad. I love the metaphor. and the worms, nice touch.
I find this one quite romantic ngl.
Makes me feel nostalgic.
With the bigger budget and better director, this could actually be a decent horror movie. shall we call it Mermaid & Moran?
I liked how they let that little clue at the end that begs the question “was it real or fantasy?”. I was smelling the plotwist early in the movie but yet they kind of leave it to the viewer imagination.
in my opinion, concept wise, this is the best guinea pig film! theres more than one plot twist and i think that makes it really awesome! im honestly a gore freak so it upsets me that there isnt THAT much gore but yeah i think concept wise this was a really amazing film! i like that it leaves it up to the viewers interpretation and makes you question what REALLY happened. for me personally i like to think about movies like this from a realistic point of view so i think that he really was schizophrenic and killed his sick pregnant wife in a psychotic break most likely. i did really really enjoy the sick gore scenes where it showed her just like completely dismembered as well as the parts where he seen her as a mermaid so she was just puking up the most disgusting shit youve ever seen. it makes you feel sick a little and its hard for me to find movies that do that so i really appreciated this one! i also like that theres a romantic aspect behind it all. the fact that he loved her enough to respect her last wishes even though it must of been hard for him to watch her gradually get worse and worse and all he could do was sit there and paint her. then he had to do the hardest thing anyone could ever do, he had to take his loved ones life unwillingly. but he loved her enough to put his feelings aside and kill her. its said that despite the fact that it wasnt a mermaid and instead his wife, his wife still asked him to kill her considering she was going to die anyways because she was so sick, and she felt like there was no point in living anyways since her baby was dead inside of her. i think its a really gruesome romantic interesting concept and i will def rewatch this sometime in the future!
And i thought i was a horror fanatic 1988 sum dark practical effects man
Nice ending definitely a mind bender
What the hell did i just watched the producer must be sick
What an odd gem of a movie. Beautiful and grotesque with a twist of love