Masters
of Horror ran on Showtime back in the Winter of 2005/06. Each week,
a different filmmaker (representing the best in the genre) was given
carte blanche to conjure up a thriller reflecting his own brand of horror.
If you missed it, you weren’t alone. Most everybody missed it.
Showtime has yet to learn how to compete with HBO in the publicity game.
Fortunately, however, Anchor Bay Entertainment has been releasing
the entries on DVD.
The series did manage to deliver the goods. Dario Argento’s
Jenifer was his best effort of recent memory while John
Carpenter and Tobe Hooper reminded us why we genuflected
to them in the first place. The series featured a virtual Who’s
Who of talent, with everyone operating at the top of their game. And
get this... the series culminated with a new Takashi Miike
film. Well, it was supposed to anyway. 
Episode
13, Imprint, was scheduled for February 25 but Showtime execs
– apparently reeling from nausea – pulled the film replacing
it with a repeat of John McNaughton’s Haeckel’s
Tale.
All episodes in the series had been made with no restrictions imposed
by the producers. Nudity was commonplace, blood flowed freely and violence
was extreme throughout the run. But Miike managed to go far beyond...
into baby-killing, needle torture and misogyny. Showtime said hell no
we won’t go. Interestingly, British Bravo aired the episode uncut
on April 7 (Video Nasties be damned). It became available as an import
over the summer; Anchor Bay announced a September release.
The story, based on the novel Bookkee Kyoutee (Something Awful)
by Shimako Iwai, takes place in an unspecified time... but certainly
not the present. Since Japan did not allow American visitors until after
a treaty signed in 1854, the setting is most likely circa late 19th
century. Squirelly Billy Drago plays a journalist who’s come to
an Island of Prostitutes in search for his missing lover. Inside a sewage-of-a-brothel,
he befriends a disfigured whore (with a most unexpected birth defect)
who tells him – in graphic detail – about the final torturous
days of his beloved’s life.
The locale seems to be based on real-life Dejima Island, built by the
government in 1634 during a period of national isolationism. During
this time, only visitors from Holland and Portugal were allowed to enter
Japan (for trade purposes) and they were confined to Dejima. The government
populated the island with low-class prostitutes. These were called Rashamen
[a slang term, actually a breed of sheep used for sex during long sea
voyages]. Purposely, Miike’s costume design –
hairstyle and kimonos – are non-traditional yet exaggerated [designed
to appear exotic to foreigners], similar to that of Yuji Makiguchi’s
Rashamen (1977) which was set in the Meiji era.
Before seeing Imprint, I would have said that Don (Phantasm)
Coscarelli’s Incident On and Off a Mountain Road
was the standout. But now, I’d say if Season One has a best-in-show,
it’s Takashi Miike. Click
to see more photos from Takashi Miike's Imprint.
