Movie review: Guts of a Beauty

Gaira’s second film Guts Trilogy offers more softcore sex, misogyny and violence…

How do you follow a movie as Intestines of a virgin? It will come as no surprise that Japanese writer and director Kazuo ‘Gaira’ Komizu took the logical route and came up with The innards of a beautywhich also bore the equally charming name Entrails of a beautiful woman. Even those who haven’t seen the first film should have a good idea of ​​what to expect given the title and box art of this new Blu-ray release, namely lots of sex and sadism. Like its predecessor, this translates to a cocktail of three parts sex and one part violence, and once again the film leans more toward Japanese pink cinema than horror in the traditional sense.

The innards of a beauty is a sequel in name only, following a gang of low-level Yakuza who kidnap, rape, and drug women and then—in their own words—“sell them to Africa.” The drug in question is an ill-defined supersmack called “angel rain,” which sends users into a state of sexual frenzy that, in the context of the film, essentially makes them appear to be enjoying rape. The story begins with the hapless Yoshimi (Seira Kitagawa) searching for her missing sister only to find herself the victim of the Yakuza’s horrific plan, getting shot with angel rain. Yoshimi manages to escape and makes her way to a hospital, where she recounts her story to a doctor named Hiromi (Megumi Ozawa) before committing suicide. Hiromi takes it upon herself to investigate, using the tried-and-true method of sleeping with and then hypnotizing her prey. Inevitably, she suffers the same terrible fate, but she rises from the dead as a kind of hermaphrodite, an inside-out zombie with an enormous penis, and kills the perpetrators in various, extremely unpleasant ways.

While many directors working in the pink mold have managed to successfully fuse drama and softcore, the subgenre of “splatter-eros” is often a more difficult and often disturbing mix, with the combination of sex and violent horror often resulting in many rape scenes. While Gaira entertains by The innards of a beauty remarkably surreal and over-the-top, it unfortunately never manages to escape the same pitfall, something that will understandably make it unenjoyable for most viewers, even more so than Intestines of a virginwho benefited greatly from a hint of gonzo silliness.

To Gaira’s credit, the story this time around is relatively ambitious compared to the generic setup of Virginand the drug subplot, though never further developed, is interesting and reminiscent of the much better Naked Blood. He also tries to create some good characters this time around, even going so far as to make one of the villains vaguely sympathetic. Unfortunately, every time the story starts to engage the viewer, he throws in another pointless five-minute sex scene. This is a major annoyance, because while some of the sexual sequences are entertainingly perverse, most of them make for uncomfortable viewing due to the film’s use of the drug to make rape seem consensual, and generally only serve to slow things down and take up more of the film’s already short running time. There’s not quite as much optical censorship this time around, with Gaira opting for the old “strategically placed” limb approach instead, which at least leads to some unintended hilarity.

The innards of a beauty has in its main advantage that it is a significant step forward compared to Virgin on the production side, with what appears to have been a larger budget and a variety of sets and locations, it feels less theatrical, and it certainly looks better than ever in this new Blu-ray release. There’s also a higher level of horror and gore, and while it’s generally saved for the last twenty minutes, most of it is much more effective and less cartoonish than in the first film. The monstrous makeup is actually quite impressive and disgusting, and this is probably the only film to feature a killer creature that not only has a giant fanged penis, but also a grotesque vaginal gape, both of which are used to sickening effect. Gaira packs in a fair number of outrageously gore set pieces, usually with a rather horrifying sexual edge, and this gives the film a definite boost, although he undermines any tension by generally jumping straight into another sex scene – after the third extended masturbation scene or torrent of bodily fluids, the film becomes rather repetitive, not helped by some terrible acting and a comically inappropriate soundtrack.

A worthy, if even more problematic sequel, The innards of a beauty is a certain kind of film for a certain kind of audience, and in that regard it delivers exactly what it promises. This is about the furthest thing from exploitation cinema, and while Gaira spends far too much time on the film’s rose-tinted aspects, he throws in just enough “money shots” of the right kind to keep genre fans entertained for the gore.

Gaira’s Guts Trilogy will be released on Blu-ray on October 7, 2024 by 88 Films.