Immediately after watching this, my friends turned to me and asked, “What the hell did you just make us watch???”  *sheepish grin*  I can’t blame them really. Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf is just bloody disgusting but in this can’t stop looking at a car crash kind of way.

Hailing from Japan, this 2001 film takes two different Edogawa Rampo stories and turns them into one long violent body part drenched orgy.  The movie starts with a dwarf carrying a severed arm.  (Coincidentally, that is the ONLY reason I rented Blind Beast.  I saw the words “dwarf with severed arm” somewhere and knew I simply HAD to watch.  I’m an extremely simple and easy to please girl at times.)  So yeah, dwarf scurrying around carrying severed limbs.  Got it?  NOW add to the storyline, a blind artist/serial killer who kidnaps women, keeps them locked up in a chamber of horrific mannequin body parts, does things with them I’d rather not mention, and who has evaded the police for long enough to make me wonder what kind of police task Japan has.  The guy’s BLIND.  And he hangs out with a dwarf.  How freakin’ hard is it to find him??  Next, just for fun, throw in a beautiful singer/dancer…..a wicked stepmother…..a private investigator who sees everything but tells nothing…..and there you have your movie.  Confused yet?

I can’t say the storyline flows but then again that might be the fault of cultural differences and idiosyncracies lost in translation.  I can say the movie went on for much longer than it should have (and it’s only 95 minutes).  The novelty of the dwarf/serial killer/blind guy relationship wears off pretty quickly, as do the images meant to shock and appall.  From my various readings about Blind Beast, it seems it was part of a movement called “ero-guro” (erotic-grotesque) so I must commend director Teruo Ishii on accurately portraying this.

The piece de resistance?  The blind artist/serial killer’s warped fantasy play which was immaculately staged, vivid with color and darkness and entirely beautiful in an “I’m a homicidal maniac” kind of way.  It’s also seemed a much more natural ending for the movie than the actual one.

So should you watch?  I liked the movie but unless you’re specifically a fan of the genre or just a fan of the eclectically weird, I’d stay away.