Japan has long had a history of bizarre torture films which feature young, often beautiful women being abused and mutilated by the men in their lives. This genre of film-making reached its zenith with the notoriously nasty GUINEA PIG series of the 1980s, but it had its origins in films like THE EMBRYO HUNTS IN SECRET, a dated, black and white, but still strong movie. It's a near plotless thing about a man who ties his girlfriend to a bed and proceeds to whip and torture her with a razor blade. There are occasional surrealistic psychological touches, which are well done, and some random flashbacks to another couple exhibiting the same behaviour (the man's parents, perhaps). It doesn't make much sense and it's rather tamer than later torture flicks, but it's still strong stuff for its day and the subject matter is nothing but nihilistic.
Review of The Embryo Hunts in Secret
