Horrors of Malformed Men is a quite experimental movie by veteran director Ishii Teruo that has been inspired by the tales of famous mystery and horror author Edogawa Rampo who had himself been inspired by Western authors such as Edgar Allan Poe. This experimental movie at the pulse of its time combines several of these tales. The main issue is that this fusion isn't always fluid and leads to two completely contrasting parts.

The first half of the movie is a murder mystery tale. A medical student without any recollection of his past is trapped in a sinister asylum. He manages to escape when one of the guards attempts to murder him. The fugitive discovers the photograph of a recently deceased man from a prosperous family who looks exactly like him. The medical student decides to take the dead man's identity to find out the truth about his origins and escape from the police.

The second half of the movie is a supernatural horror tale. The medical student travels to the island of a mad scientist who transforms perfectly normal humans into hideous freaks to create a better society. He gets captured, manipulated and threatened by the scientist and attempts to escape the island and prevent the scientist's megalomanic plans.

It's probably a matter of prefence whether you prefer the first or the second half of the movie but they are so different from each other that few people will equally appreciate both parts. The first half is atmospheric, mysterious and surprising as it convinces with clever storytelling and intriguing characters. It recalls numerous European murder mystery films as especially the German Edgar Wallace films and the Italian giallo genre come to mind. The second half is much more brutal, experimental and frantic and ventures into experimental cinematography with hectic camera work, numerous flashbacks and colourful locations. It's a mixture of Japan's very own pink film genre of the sixties and American pre-war science-fiction and horror cinema somewhere between King Kong and Island of Lost Souls.

In the end, Horrors of Malformed Men is certainly daring, entertaining and unconventional. However, the script is all over the place and the conclusion might even be too unconventional for most open-minded cineasts. Ishii Teruo should have created two different movies here instead of putting together two ideas that don't gel.

I like a malformed man as much as the next guy... No, strike that, I like malformed men more than most guys, so I was eager to see this infamous flick after reading about it for years. Now that I've seen it, I can return to my usual state of mind, which is probably just a stone's throw away from where this film came from. Like some of its characters, the film itself is malformed and untidy. There is an extremely convoluted plot about a man pretending to be someone else, and so many loose ends a detective is required to turn up at the climax to explain what the hell is going on. In a deformed nutshell, the film is about a wacko, who looks a little like Jesus, who has isolated himself on a island in order to create a society of freaks. Somehow, his doing this enables him to "get back" at the "normal" people who have ridiculed him. His motivations don't make a lot of sense, but since he's a nut, they don't have to. The wacko takes well formed people and turned them into malformed people. For example, he creates his own male/female Siamese twins by fusing their asses together. The special make-up effects are mildly grotesque, never achieving any level of realism. It is most unfortunate and sad that Ishii didn't take the Todd Browning approach and use real freaks of nature. Perhaps the real freaks were busy working in Sideshow Alley or performing in traveling circuses; however you look at it, it's a missed opportunity of epic proportions. Although the film most closely resembles "Island of Lost Souls", it is too sloppy and too silly to be considered a Japanese equivalent to that masterpiece. Once again, I find myself liking Ishii the filmmaker more than Ishii's film. His sensibility is original and interesting, and his love of the macabre and sexually grotesque is to be be admired. This is certainly worth seeing, but be prepared for a lot of awkwardness and a very slow pace. And don't come expecting too many shocks because the real shock here is the lack of shocks.

The movie directed by Teruo Ishii was part of series of very radical erotic violence movies that he directed for Toei studio in the late '60s and early '70s.

The story is an edit on many novels written by Edogawa Ranpo (who got his name from Edgar Alan Poe), but gathered fans and has become a popular story since it was made. Kogoro Akechi is the main protagonist that appears in many of Ranpo's novels.

Kogoro Akechi has somewhat become like the Sherlock Homes of Japan. Becoming the focus of many mystery drama with even new stories invented like this one long after the death of his creator.

This is a pretty interesting story, and no wonder it still garners fan base. It's an improbably story, but it carries the essence of Ranpo's novel that contains strange and unusual situation, and characters. Actors, and acting are first rate, and has the over the top craziness that director Ishii is known for, that makes this movie worth watching.

It's not a mainstream movie by any means, but is an interesting movie from the '60s Japan.