Directed by Yasuzo Masumura in 1969 and based on a novel by famed Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo, Blind Beast introduces us to Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), a talented blind sculptor who lives in a bizarre warehouse with his mother (Noriko Sengoku) that is filled with his strange works of art, each one dedicated to one of the five senses.

When Michio meets a gorgeous model named Aki (Mako Madori) he takes quite a liking to her and decides to kidnap her and bring her back to the warehouse where his studio is based, intent on using her to sculpt the perfect female body. As Michio's obsession with exploring all of his available senses reaches new heights, Aki wants nothing more than to escape and get as far away from him as she can. As she's forced to spend more time with him, however, she starts to not only come around to his increasingly kinky exploits, but even seems able to outdo him as she too begins to enjoy both his artistic endeavors and penchant for indulging her every whim.

A visually wild trip of a film, Blind Beast owes a lot of its success to its completely bizarre set design. With so much of the movie taking place inside Michio's warehouse studio, it's to Masumura and company's credit that they made it as striking a location as they did. With the whole place covered in Michio's sculptures, almost all of which are based on and/or dedicated to the female form, it makes for a truly strange sight, given it's adorned with a plethora of sculpted breasts, lips, hips and butts of various shapes and sizes. The whole things winds up with an oddly compelling atmosphere that is occasionally nightmarish, sometimes quite erotic and mostly just really strange.

Either way, however, it works. Blind Beast proves a wholly original picture and a film like no other. Frequently infused with doses of very dark humor and plenty of unexpectedly moving dramatic moments, this is an atypical horror picture to be sure but one that will not be easily forgotten. The production values are strong across the board and the score from Hikaru Hayashi proves to be the perfect way to accentuate all of the strangeness inherent in the equally impressive visuals.

Of course, much of this would be for naught if the performances weren't up to par, but all three of the main actors do really good work in this picture. Eiji Funakoshi is wonderfully twisted in his delivery, bringing Michio to life in grand fashion in a performance that manages to be amazingly intense without chewing the scenery. He and the beautiful Mako Madori share an interesting on screen chemistry together and its quite impressive to watch Madori shift her character from meek and mild into something far more aggressive and controlling as the story progresses. Noriko Sengoku is also very good here in her important supporting role as Michio's bizarre mother. All three do great work in this picture, it's hard not to walk away impressed by the (sometimes very bold and brazen!) performances in the film.

Video:

Blind Beast arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.35.1 widescreen and it looks good though not reference quality. With the feature taking up 25GBs of space on the 50GB disc, grain can look a little clunky in spots despite the fact that the film is given a pretty solid bit rate. Colors look good and black levels are strong, though sometimes do look a little closer to dark grey than true black. Skin tones are fine and the picture shows no problematic edge enhancement, noise reduction or compression artifacts. Detail, depth and texture are all decent without approaching perfection. Overall, this looks quite good, while still leaving room for improvement.