This entry into the Guinea Pig series was the first film to be shot after Japan Home Video controversially took over the franchise. It signaled an interesting departure from the past format of the films, moving away from the realism of the snuff-like Devil’s Experiment and Flower of Flesh & Blood to more plot-driven character studies. The later movies still maintained the levels of hyper-gore and depravity which were the hallmark of the series, but they certainly lost a large amount of the impact that the first few entries had.

He Never Dies involves a dejected young man whose depression and loneliness has gotten out of hand. After a particularly bad day at the office, he locks himself in his apartment. When no one from work calls after a number of days, and it is clear that everyone has forgotten about him, he begins to experiment with suicide. When he finally gets up the gusto to actually attempt it, he slits his wrist and finds that there is no pain or much bleeding at all! He soon realizes that nothing can hurt him, and as boredom overtakes him, begins to push the boundaries of his own mortality and the limits of his own flesh & blood.

I was really surprised with this short film, but unfortunately not in positive way. It isn’t particularly sick or shocking and the story is frankly quite ridiculous. I guess that every TV anthology series has a low-point, and considering the reputation of the Guinea Pig trademark, this one is definitely in the bottom of the valley. It’s actually just down-right silly.

The tongue-in-cheek atmosphere of this film is a marked deviation from the serious tone set by the other films, and atypical of some of the later episodes in the series as well. It doesn’t work on a number of levels, and I can imagine it was not received particularly well when it was released alongside its nasty brethren. Except for the lead character, the acting (although never really a strongpoint of the series) is pretty unconvincing and when it’s played for laughs it rarely succeeds. It is hard to find the same sort of slapstick humor in self-mutilation as a guy falling down a manhole, or running into a telephone pole – which is obviously the aim. Maybe some of you will find some perverse sick laughs here, but I can’t help but feel it’s mostly ill-advised. The few that do work would probably be attributed to the sympathy created by the lead character, Hideshi, who does portray a pretty convincing down-on-his-luck chap in a few of the more inspired scenes.

The gore factor is pretty low-key for a Guinea Pig production, but some moments are admittedly cringe-worthy. The suicide attempts may hit close-to-home with some and are often realistic, and the later scenes of mutilation get nicely over-the-top, in a Peter Jackson-esque way. Otherwise, I was not awfully impressed. I am probably a bit jaded after the extreme nature of the other films, though, and my expectations were perhaps a little lofty.

Anyway, the bottom line in whether or not you appreciate this is your tolerance for the ridiculous, in light of the series’ over-arching concept. I felt the laughs were poorly played out, and were often unsatisfactorily juvenile. The gore is frequently pretty sweet, but down-played by the aforementioned humor factor. I would recommend a watch as a supplement to the entire series, but don’t get too foamy-at-the-mouth as it’s a far cry from its ghastly sister episodes.