fertilecelluloid Review of The Sinners of Hell

The Sinners of Hell (1960)

Groundbreaking, genre-creating masterpiece

[8/10 · 19 October 2006]

Nobuo Nakagawa directed a handful of horror/ghost pictures, but this is the most interesting of them all. A young man (Shigeru Amachi), indirectly responsible for a number of deaths, is sent to Hell for punishment. The Hell depicted here is the Buddhist version crossed with the Catholic version. Pools of fire. Torture. Lost souls doomed to walk in endless circles. Bodies flayed. Dismemberment. Flesh ripped from bones. The whole nine yards. The last half hour possesses an authentic level of hysteria as our "hero" attempts to extricate himself from the madness. Like "Kaidan" and even the "Female Convict - Scorpion" pics, this has a strong theatrical feel and is lit like an avant garde stage play. That this was made in 1960 is quite extraordinary for it foreshadows the extremes of cinema to come such as Japan's own "Guinea Pig" as well as 1964's "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" (from Brazil) and 1967's "Tonight I'll Possess Your Corpse" (also from Brazil). A groundbreaking, genre-creating masterpiece that is definitely a product of a more naive but less conservative era.