Have i gone completely insane, spotlighting this one for a Pinocchio-inspired retrospective?
But then again we never talk about some good ol’ japanese cyberpunk body horror… and i guess today is no different because we’re talking about 964 Pinocchio.
Also called “Screams Of Blasphemy” for its UK release. Whatever.
And no, i still have no clue if the numbers in the title mean anything aside indicating that there were other 963 “pinocchio/sex slaves” manifactured before him, since he’s got that tattooed on his back, branded like an utility.
Honestly i wasn’t sure about including this one, but for variety’s sake, fuck it, i’m not reviewing Pinocchio In Space. Despite the obvious allure.
It’s the 90s, and Shinya Tsukamoto had already shocked the world with the first Tetsuo film 2 years prior, basically founding the japanese cyberpunk body horror, and in turn inspiring others to try their hand at experimental low budget post-human celluloid nightmares of infected steel flesh.
One of these was Shozin Fukui, whom actually worked on the original Tetsuo film and would be remembered mostly for √964 Pinocchio and 1996 Rubber’s Lover, despite him coming back to directing from 2006 up to 2009.
Pinocchio-meter:
Oh, yes, the story of 964 Pinocchio: Pinocchio is a memory wiped cyborg sex slave that’s thrown out by its creators/owners because he can’t mantain an erection.
At least on his groin, as he sports an unspeakable and untamed single “banana mohawk” (beats me whatever the fuck this hairstyle should be called) strand of hair on his head.
On the streets he is approached by a homeless girl called Himiko, whom may also be a discarded product thrown out by the same people that made Pinocchio, drawing maps of Tokyo for other memory-wiped people, and she takes him in, trying to have him learn how to speak, until he finally remembers everything and its metamorphosis begins….
Yeah, this is very loosely inspired by the actual Pinocchio, and has more do to with early Cronenberg in terms of style and themes, but oddly some surface elements remains, as we have a protagonist created by someone else (also a man-made being), him being pretty much a blank slate of a person, pretty much a grown man with the mind of a child, then undergoing a quest in order to (re)gain his humanity.
As Kenji Inafune infamously said (kinda) “it’s better than nothing”.
Real Boy Ratio:
And the vomit. I guess it’s indicative of something that Fukui’s thing for characters vomiting that can be counted up in minutes….could already be see in one of his short films, Gerorisuto.
Not a complete copy as here we can already see the focus is on the frailty of the human mind more than the corruption of the flesh into a bio-metal mass, and the bodily alterations being a direct result of corporations playing mass production Frankenstein, aiming to corner the market on sentient sex toys humanoids, for when a fleshlight doesn’t really do it anymore, and technology being the catalyst for the destruction and perversion of the mind.
It’s really no surprise that this feature debut from a staff member from the Tetsuo The Iron Man crew…. really feel like an imitation of Tsukamoto’s work, or more correctly. inspired by the same sources, which included seminal punk film like Burst City.
Though not identical in terms of direction, there are some cases where Fukui is clearly imitating or “ripping off” Tsukamoto’s Testuo, like the final long-running chase (and its camera work), the “metal nest” moving its iron tentacles, and the final metamorphosis of the main characters uniting into a new monstrous being, even though the context isn’t always identical and Fukui’s direction here is different…… the similarities are outright undeniable.
To be honest, while i don’t loathe 964 Pinocchio, i would say this is a minor film of the subgenre asin… it’s not a very good movie. It feels longer than it should (and it IS longer than it should, let’s be real), it has a decent premise with some wild ideas and themes that are not fully realized, at times it’s more a test of patience because the weird often feels more for its own sake and to pad out the runtime, instead of making the viewers engrossed or at least intrigued, and it’s hard to care too much for what are still pitiable characters.
Can’t say that having one of them vomit more than their body weight in an extended sequence helps. Just saying. Mileage may vary, to some degree.
I do like that it’s a proper japanese cyberpunk horror film, its cinematography (when its not shot in some dark tunnel where its almost all pitch black, which is quite often), and that it looks so low budget…which is definitely is, since in many shots of the city we have plenty of passerbyes unware they’re in a movie, so on the cheap and the sly it was made, indeed very punk, and helps of making it feel more realistic, more grounded, in a way, and while it’s not my favourite of this genre, at all, i do think it’s definitely it’s an interesting watch for all horror alumni (especially for those with an interest in body horror) to see in order to expand your knowledge on the subject matter and its early output by creators other than Tsukamoto. It’s unique enought to warrant (re)visitation.
Not a good movie but definitely falls in the “interesting” category, so weirdly enough, even if it requires more patience to sit through than it should, i do recommend watching 964 Pinocchio, especially if you can get it alongside the “follow up/prequel” – and arguably better – film by Shozin Fukui, Rubber’s Lover, in a DVD 2 pack titled “Cyberpunk Collection” by Unearthed Films (which is out of print, apparently), or get this one in the Blu-Ray by Media Blasters.
Sadly there’s no widely available release of this or Rubber’s Lover outsided of the US, not by Arrow Video, not by Third Window Films, nor by the Tartan Palisande (ex-Tartan Video), so i’d say it’s overdue. Please?
Wise Cafe (International) 