Blind Beast

Yasuzo Masumura strips the erotic thriller down to three people and one set, and pushes it much further than expected. A blind sculptor kidnaps a model to be the subject of his ultimate work, and their captor-captive relationship curdles into a folie a deux that ends in genuine horror. The studio, a room lined with giant sculpted body parts, is unforgettable.

It is closer to art film than exploitation, a chamber piece about obsession and sensation that gets progressively more disturbing. Masumura controls the escalation with real precision.

Perverse, claustrophobic and unsettling. Not easily forgotten.