Review: Devil Doctor Woman
Devil Doctor Woman (original Japanese title Za ginipiggu 6: Peter no akuma no joi-san) is the sixth entry in the infamous Guinea Pig series, and without doubt the silliest of the bunch. Many of the films in the series are cruel and grueling to watch, but this one is closer in spirit to He Never Dies!, and much less gory than even that one. If Monty Python had ever decided to make a horror movie, I think they would have come up with something close to Devil Doctor Woman.
DDW isn't a coherent movie, but a series of vignettes or, as the film calls them, "kartes." The main protagonist (?) in each is a drag queen with outrageous hair and wearing some of the widest shoulder pads ever seen in a video. This bizarre character works as a "doctor without a license," called in on situations in which "normal medical science cannot be applied." The film opens with the "doctor" treating a family afflicted with the dread Exploding Brain Disease; if they get emotionally upset, we're told, their cerebral fluid boils and "erupts like a pressure cooker," causing their heads to explode. Treatment consists of the devil doctor hurling insults at them until their heads do, indeed, explode. Even a tiny infant in this bunch turns out to have an incendiary cerebellum, revealed when the doctor tells it that its mother had "anal sex with an ape."
And we're off and running.
The doctor also treats a victim of multiple personality disorder who just can't get through a cup of coffee at a restaurant. With the doctor's efforts, though, this unfortunate patient finds his niche in life, entertaining village children with a Jekyll-and-Hyde mime show. So successful is he that the doctor herself informs us that if (s)he only had "a buttplug and a jar of mayonnaise," she would enjoy a romp with the fellow.
We're also treated to the first-ever human flesh recipe tasting contest in Japan. This is some of the silliest stuff in the flick, as we're shown such gourmet treats as eyeball-and-cockroach consomme and a literal chef salad. This segment is done as a news report, and particularly funny is the reporters reaction upon sampling a bit of liver with cancer in curry sauce. In case you haven't guessed by now, there's a steady stream of gross-out jokes in this flick. There's also just a tiny bit of social commentary, as in the segment where the patient is a whiny-voiced "gangsta from the street, yo" suffering from Human Face Carbuncle (right); the carbuncle is more talented and polite than the gangsta, of course.
The best bit in the flick, though, may well be the story of the man with Zombie Rot Syndrome and his unflinchingly loyal wife. She sticks by him even as he turns into a walking pile of gray ground beef... and he still winds up cheating on her after a drinking bout at an udon bar with the devil doctor woman — but not before she first provides zombie-hubby with a package of rug deodorizer to mask his ripeness.
The flick concludes with a unique take on the classic comedy pie fight... but in this case, there are iron pies being tossed about. An iron pie is a round black piece of wood studded with rubber nails and a packet of stage blood in the middle. The whole cast gets into the act, and it becomes abundantly apparent during this sequence just how much fun everyone had making this twisted, twisted video.
To be clear, this isn't something that everyone is going to enjoy. Devil Doctor Woman seems targeted at a very small audience; those who find humor in the grotesquely farcical. It's for horror hounds looking for something that doesn't even come close to taking itself seriously. If you know and enjoy Monty Python's bizarre Salad Days skit, you'll probably enjoy this video as well. If you don't know that skit, you can check it out. If you like it, get your hands on a copy of Devil Doctor Woman. If you don't, well... don't.
