Before films like Ringu (1998), Ju-On: The Curse (2000), and Audition (1999), horror in Japan looked completely different. Shot on tiny budgets with small casts, short runtimes, and massive amounts of gore, it was a splatter-film lover’s paradise. The most notorious films to come out of this era were the Guinea Pig series, which spanned six films from 1985 to 1988. They were nasty movies, more like effects reels than actual movies.
That series wasn’t alone; Entrails of a Virgin (1986), Guzoo (1986), and Biotherapy (1986) were in the same category. Another film cut from the same cloth, Cyclops (1987), has now been released on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray by Visual Vengeance.
A secret team of scientists has taken medical experimentation to a whole new level, implanting embryos into human hosts in the hopes of creating an entirely new form of life. But when their latest subject takes her own life before she can give birth, their twisted experiment quickly begins to fall apart.
Desperate to keep their work alive, the scientists head into the city with a hideously malformed cyclops mutant in tow, in search of their next unwilling victim. Before long, an unsuspecting young woman finds herself caught in their nightmarish scheme, becoming the latest subject in a gruesome experiment where science, madness, and medical horror collide.
At just 52 minutes, Cyclops strings you along slowly, only to blow your mind in the final 15 minutes. The practical effects are astonishing and far more believable than anything done with a computer.
Director Joji Iida paces the film in a way that’s frustrating, but when he’s ready to let it roll, your jaw will drop. The body horror is on par with what was being released at the same time in other parts of the world.
Cyclops was never officially released in North America on any format, but a bootleg did make the rounds during the era of tape trading. This release features a new 2K transfer from the original 16mm camera elements, delivering a pretty stunning, colorful piece of Japanese film history.
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Also included are “No Compliance,” a new interview with the director; “Not In The Way You Expect: The Films of Joji ‘George’ Iida” video essay; “All the Monsters Are Here: The Japanese DTV Market of the Mid-80s” video essay; an image gallery; Koji Yamamura sketch gallery; Visual Vengeance trailers; a folded mini-poster featuring original pressbook art; a reversible sleeve featuring original Japanese VHS art; and optional English subtitles.
The first pressing includes “Stick Your Own” VHS stickers, the 16-page liner notes booklet “The Creation of Cyclops,” the 8-page liner notes booklet “A (Short) Horror Trip,” and a limited-edition slipcase featuring art by The Dude.
It’s a pretty impressive package for a film made for Japan’s DTV market, one that could have been lost to time but was rescued for all of us to finally see.
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