1 out of 5

Director: Masayuki Kasumi

Rating the Guinea Pig flicks has been sort of a shrug-worthy affair, because none of them are really that great – especially post the historical “shock” value of the initial two entries – but the third film is especially grating and boring because it is such a notable dive in production quality and can’t seem to figure out how to pitch itself.  However, for those horror viewers who love the genre (i.e. Saw) but still cover their eyes when grisly things be happening, ‘He Never Dies’ is probably the easiest foray into GP, allowing one to say they’ve dabbled in the franchise and keep a brave face.  4 (Devil Doctor Woman) is equally ungraphic (or rather the effects are so poor that grandma can watch without flinching), but its general weirdness of tone and tip-toe into gross-out territory makes it slightly less palatable than 3, which is just silly and stupid through and through.

It was also the first of the 6 films to attempt more of a story, but similar to 5 and 6, it has no idea what to do with itself once the narrative is established, and so just wanders about for around an hour.  Which is really too bad because it has the most potential for using its theme to do something original, exploring, very lightly, the Japanese workforce mentality and repressed sexuality.  Via flashbacks or expose-style shots of the lead character’s workplace, we see that he’s hated and made fun of by everyone , and that his friend is boinking the girl he likes.  Nothing left to do but… start cutting yourself.  Shinsuke Araki (who I’m choosing as the actor for the lead character ’cause IMDB lists him first) plays the lead role with an appropriate lack of emotion, and I’m fine with the GP series shifting to a more comedic, slapstick style because I have no affection for the series, but as Araki discovers that hurting himself seemingly has no effect – no pain, he doesn’t die – I was expecting the film to progress to more and more violent extremes of trying to off himself (which would’ve at least sort of? stuck with the commentary), but instead Araki decides to call up his buddy and use his newfound ‘powers’ to try to scare him.

This is no more or less interesting or good or bad than any of the other GPs, I guess, but out of the 2 ‘funny’ entries in the series, DDW is at least willfully dumb through and through, whereas He Never Dies feels like it just gives up at some point.  And the effects are fecking horrible.  Whatever you want to say about snuff and gore, part of the ‘impressiveness’ of the overkill of GP2 is how much time they spent on the prosthetics, whereas the GP extras shows that, starting with this flick, they pretty much went for just-tack-the-fake-arm-on-and-go, none of the time-consuming painting and detailing that they seemed to employ previously to go for realism.  You can say that this fits with the dumb aesthetic of ‘Never Dies,’ but again, that’s part of the problem – it wants to be grisly, but never is.  So it really just never achieves a single goddamn thing beyond being disappointing, which is tough for a series that already hits a pretty low bar with each entry.