Here from 88 films is a Blu-Ray boxset bringing together the three films from the notorious Guts Of  A Virgin trilogy. The Japanese mid-1980s pictures blend often rape and torture touching softcore with horror and crime thriller elements, for intense, bizarre and quirky cinematic rides. This, I believe, is the first-ever release of these films in the UK- with each picture having its own disc, featuring a clean and bright scan, with new interviews with the director for two of the films.

All three pictures here were directed by Sendai, Miyagi-born Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu. Between the early 70’s and mid 90’s, he had twenty features to his name, and most of these seemingly sit in either the pink or exploitation genres. These go from Rabbit Sex: Joshigakusei shûdan bôkô jiken (1980),  horror action Batoru gâru: Tokyo Crisis Wars (1991), and adult drama Black Out Tokyo Elevator Panic (1993)

First, we have 1986’s Guts Of A Virgin ( aka Shoj o No Harawata, Entrails Of A Virgin). The film blends coerced and, at points, rather unpleasant softcore with brutal/ at times perverse horror—with some slight playful/ arty visual touches.

The film runs at the one hour and twelve-minute mark. We open with a photo shoot in the countryside, going from the edge of a mountain with a fake cardboard rainbow in the background, or under a waterfall. Where young model Rei (Saeko Kizuki) is being stretched, pulled, and placed in various positions by the cocky- loves himself photographer Asaoka(Daiki Katô)- this is intercut with footage of Asaoka pushing a young woman into sex, saying he’ll make her famous- she clearly not enjoying it, and a man( not sure who) been giving a blowjob as he lies in the grass.

On the shoot is an arrogant/letch-like boss Itomura(Osamu Tsuruoka )- who is moustached, and wears a tied scarf around his neck. And three young/ innocent assistants- one male and two female asstants, who are seemingly fairly new to the job. They wrap up the shoot, and all head off in a camper van- fairly soon hitting mist, and just as they drive through a forest they seem to hit something- possibly a human, but when they look to find what it was they find nothing.

The mists get worse & worse so they stop at a  lit but seeming abandoned house- and here we move into decidedly unpleasant & grim softcore- as the three women are sexually humiliated, and pushed into clearly uncomfortable/ coerced intercourse. This begins with  Rei being forcefully stripped to her underwear before being thrown around in wrestling. Outside a large naked, dirt-smeared, and large membered man is stalking waiting to get those inside to venture outside.

Katô and Tsuruoka truly play nasty chauvinistic workpieces- and you are waiting for them to get their comeuppance. The actress truly go through the ringer, as they are pulled/ pushed, picked up and thrown around.

There is nothing vaguely titillating about the softcore, and at points, it gets decidedly gruelling. When the gore kicks in it’s quite effective, at points perversely creative- with have head squeezed/ eye pop kill, decapitation via glass, spear through a body, hook through the neck and hung kill, and gory fisting which followed on from one of the characters masturbating with a severed arm.

Guts Of A Virgin mix of unpleasant sleazy and gore horror is effective- I guess it might have been nice if we’d kicked into the horror side of things quicker, though I understand why not- as you truly do despise/ hate the men after what they have done

On this first disc, we have Guts And Sex (18.29) which is an on-screen interview with Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu.  He’s a baseball-hatted and oxygen-tubed man in his elder years. He starts off talking about how he doesn’t really like Japanese films- much preferring American films. He talks about where the Gaira comes from, moving on to how he got into filmmaking in the 70’s around the time of the Vietnam War.  In the interviews last quarter he moves on to talk about the first Guts Of A Virgin film- how the studio was unsure if they’d be a market for its mixing of porn and horror, and how some of the film's practical effects were created. The disc is finished off with trailers and an image gallery.

Film number two in the set is Entrails of a Beautiful Woman ( aka Bijo No Harawata)- which is from 1986. It’s a blend of rape-bound Yakuza thriller &  demon ripping ‘n’ bodily fluid-spurting horror.  It runs at the hour and eight-minute mark, and once again the horror elements come towards the latter half of the film- though we do get some mean-spirited softcore and cringe-inducing violence beforehand.

The film opens in a fairly bizarre/ puzzling manner, as we see a sun-glassed & suited man chowing down on various pink-to-grey offal, with the camera panning around the tinny restaurant wall stopping on newspaper articles that cover their celebrated offal-based cuisine. 

He pays and heads out making his way to an off-street lock-up, there are three of his cackling to tattooed-back henchmen- they are surrounding a very innocent-looking teen  Yoshimi Itô (Seira Kitagawa). We find out she is there to try and find out what has happened to her sister, and soon enough she is told she has been sold off as a sex slave- disappearing off into adult underground.

They rip Yoshimi's clothes off- picking up & forcing her against a wall, as three of the man gang rape her. The deadpan formally offal-eating man in shades, who is the group’s boss, injects her with an experimental drug called Angle Rain- her limbs shudder, her breasts revibrate, some of her veins turn red, and her mouth cheeks blow out. She then becomes very randy with the gang going at the poor teen again.

She somehow escapes being found by twenty-something doctor Hiromi (Megumi Ozawa)- the teen blunts out what has happened to her before throwing herself off a building. So Hiromi decides to carry out revenge on the gang for the teen- be it sexual, or entrancing the henchmen to attack the other members of the gang.

As things unfold we find out the shade-wearing boss can’t get it up, the gang are always up to rape & torture women, and something huge/flesh-stripped starts attacking folks with its teeth-headed member.

The violence/ sexual attacks in the first half or so of the film are fairly unpleasant/ rape bound- we see people shot then metal poles pushed in wounds, and bodies strung up by chains as limbs are loped off & manic stabbings occur.

Entrails of a Beautiful Woman is another sickening slice of exploitation. As it shifts from rape-bound Yakuza unpleasantness to roaring and stomach-ripping demon gory-ness. 

On this disc, we have a second interview with Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu. Bleeding Love( 14.36)- this focuses on the third film not the second. He talks about having to edit out provocative words from one of the scenes, and the censoring of genitals in the film- which was done with clitter/ fake diamonds. He talks about the silhouetted sex scene, and touches on his early career.   The disc is finished off with trailers and an image gallery.

Lastly, we have the 1987 Rusted Body: Guts Of A Virgin III ( aka Gômon kifujin, Female Inquisitor). This is more of a straight pink film, with moments of torture- and a fair bit of wackness/bizarreness. It regards a gang led up by a highly sexually charged and large-breasted female boss- the gang kidnaps bankers, then pleasures/tortures them to get pin codes to huge fortunes.

The film drops straight into the sleaze- as we see our pendulous-breasted gang leader naked making her around a room- with her riding on a line of thread. On the floor is another woman with a large red vibrator within her, this is attached to the thread her mistress is riding.  

We then switch to another room- where we meet the other two members of the gang- an older bearded man, and a younger man with a danging glittering earring in one ear.  Tied to the ceiling is a man in a fair bit of pain- they are pushing him for a pin code- whipping/ dragging him about.  He won’t give it up…so the ladies step in the room, now in breast-uncovered leotards- they pull out one of his toenails, then a tooth, before going at his underpants-covered member with a pair of pliers.

As the film unfolds they set their sight on their next victim- with along the way the old man of the gang inventing a bed that kills folks if they orgasm. We get a woman's lower regions dipped in a bath of drunk eels which go up her two orifices, a man's member is tied so he can’t ejaculate with his scrotum filling to exploding, as well as a lot more consensual/ if wacky softcore action. 

The film runs for eight minutes over the hour mark. It has been entertaining/ depraved throughout, though there is a playful/ quirky tone that pops up ever so often, which makes the tonal shifts between torture and pleasure more effective. A good, if different end to the trilogy.

This disc just has trailers and an image gallery as extras, on this third/ final disc

If you have a penchant where sleaze meets violence ‘n’ horror with slightly arty/ playful twists then this boxset is for you. 88 Films presents us with three crisp, clean and well-defined prints and worthy/interesting interviews with the director