is a film made by controversial Japanese director

Kōji Wakamatsu was a Japanese film director who directed such pink films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film '' In the Realm of the Senses'' (1976). He has been called "the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre," an ...

in 1967. Wakamatsu's most famous film, it is based on the mass murder spree of

Richard Speck Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 – December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago, residence via stabbing, strangulation, strangling, slashing their throats, or a combina ...

in 1966.

Plot

The film opens with a young man looking at

pornographic magazines Pornographic magazines or erotic magazines, sometimes known as adult magazines or sex magazines, are magazines that contain content of an explicitly sexual nature. Publications of this kind may contain images of attractive naked subjects, as is ...

and practicing his shooting near the ocean. During nighttime, in a nurses' rooming house, four nurses spy on two other nurses having sex. In the chaos, one of the

voyeurs Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". A ...

invites the young man, standing nearby outside, into the house to watch with them. However, the man suddenly shoots and kills one of the girls mid-coitus, terrifying the nurses. When one nurse attempts to escape, he chases after her. Hallucinating that the nurses are laughing at him, he shoots the nurse, killing her. Another nurse tries to appease the man by having sex with him. However, after another hallucination of the nurses mocking him, he shoots her in the

anus In mammals, invertebrates and most fish, the anus (: anuses or ani; from Latin, 'ring' or 'circle') is the external body orifice at the ''exit'' end of the digestive tract (bowel), i.e. the opposite end from the mouth. Its function is to facil ...

, killing her. The Head Nurse begs him to spare the remaining nurses at the expense of her own life. She wonders why the man is killing them, She suggests he targeted them because of a hatred of nurses or

sexual frustration Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. Sex, SEX or sexual may also refer to: *Sexual intercourse, a sexual activity Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Sex'' (1920 ...

. She also reveals that she has a son in Katsuura, before begging the killer to spare her. She attempts to appeal to the societal honor towards nurses, whom she calls "angels in white dresses", and has another nurse dress up in her nurse outfit. In response, the killer ties both the Head Nurse and the outfitted nurse up, before

flaying Flaying is a method of slow and painful torture and/or execution in which skin is removed from the body. Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact. Scope A dead animal may be flayed when preparing it to be used ...

the latter alive. The Head Nurse frantically begs for her life, even revealing that she lied about having a son, before tearfully accepting her death. The man calls her an "angel whore" before shooting and killing her. The sole remaining nurse asks why the man killed the other nurses. When he replies that he did so to "decorate" her with their blood, she responds that he could have simply used his own blood. To prove so, she bites his finger, releasing his blood. Satisfied, the man spares her. After he reveals he is from near the ocean, she sings the song "Song of the Conch" as the two have sex. The film ends with shots of the man and the survivor nurse running across the oceanside, before fondling each other in the middle of the other nurses' corpses, which are arranged in a star formation resembling the Japanese flag. The nurse is gone, leaving the sleeping man, by the time the police raid the rooming house. In the tradition of Wakamatsu's other Pinku eiga, there is much sexuality and nudity. However most of the actual murders take place off screen. Like other examples in Wakamatsu's work, the plot simplicity often feels like a "sadistic haiku".

Cast

Jūrō Kara was a Japanese avant-garde playwright, theatre director, author, actor, and songwriter. He was at the forefront of the ''Angura'' ("underground") theatre movement in Japan. Career Graduating from Meiji University, Kara formed his own theatre t ...

as The Handsome Boy * Keiko Koyanagi as The Head Nurse * Miki Hayashi as Nurse A * Shoko Kidowaki as Nurse B * Makiko Saegusa as Nurse C * Kyoko Yoyoi as Nurse D * Michiko Sakamoto as The Young Girl * Gusaku Satô as Riot Policeman * Shûzô Tanaka as Riot Policeman * Matajûrô Arafune as Riot Policeman * Kentarô Aichi as Riot Policeman

Production

The film was shot in black and white in just three days, probably much of it improvised and because of the low budget, many of the actresses were not professionals.

Criticism

Like many films of this nature, ''Violated Angels'' was called anti-feminist and misogynistic by some critics. In ''Film As A Subversive Art'', a book on underground cinema,

Amos Vogel Amos Vogel ( Vogelbaum; April 18, 1921 – April 24, 2012) was a New York City cineaste and curator. Biography Vogel was born in Vienna, Austria. He fled Austria with his parents after the Nazi '' Anschluß'' in 1938 and at first studied animal h ...

praises Wakamatsu's artistic talent, yet pans the film for its "...anti-feminist sadism which is not based on any ideological explanation and finally contributes misanthropic flavour to his work."

Notes

References

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External links

* * 1967 films 1960s Japanese films 1960s pornographic films Films directed by Kōji Wakamatsu Pink films Pornographic horror films {{porn-film-stub