Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness

Outstanding!!!! Smart, well crafted flick with a couple of twists I MOST CERTAINLY didn't see coming! Usually horror flicks are pretty damn predictable, but this was not! Instead of a bad dub job, we get subtitles, which I much prefer, except when it distracts me from the mondo Japanese cuties on the screen! Our star is some kind of gorgeous, and the other girls aren't too difficult to look at, either. The plot is nothing overly original or spectacular, but it's done well, you're in suspense all the way, there's red herrings aplenty, and the aforementioned twists hit hard, and you're saying "I'd have NEVER thought that would happen". The FX are so-so, but they don't distract at all, you're too into what's going on to worry about it. I know there's two sequels, and I'm going to be looking for them!!!!! 8/10 Excellent!!!!!

Misa Kuroi (Kimika Yoshino) comes to a new school and is challenged by kids dabbling in magic. Her skills in the dark art don't fail to impress the others, but a much more dangerous master seems to be around. Misa can't find out who it is. Soon after, a lot of the kids are trapped at school. All doors are locked, and then mysterious killings begin... Unfortunately, the first movie of the series contains a few blunt scenes of lesbian sex and molestation that should better be left to the tentacle monster flicks. The 3 sequels have hardly anything of this way of exploitation. Apart from that one little complaint, we have an effective teen horror movie here, cheaply shot in the narrow spaces of a few corridors and classrooms, but with vicious shocks and the bizarre surrealism of a nightmare. Voted 7/8/5/6 for part 1-4.

Misa Kuroi is the new mysterious girl at a Japanese High School, who knows about witchcraft and this, is what has drawn her to this place. Something evil is lurking and she's there to put an end to it. She gains respect from her fellow pupils when she confesses to being a witch, when she performs curse on a hated teacher and it works. However it all changes, when the teacher actually turns up in a very severe accident. She gets the blame, as gossip spreads that people close to her die. During an after school exam, Misa and twelve students get locked in for the night and their teacher has disappeared. When they try to escape, there seems to be some sort of force stopping them from leaving and trying to kill them off. There only chance rests on Misa, but trying to convince them to trust her is another matter.

We get a change of pace with this quirky, surrealistic, lurid and highly bold low-budget occult / supernatural / slasher J-horror film, which is inspired by Shinichi Koga's 70's Manga comics. Yes, there's no vengeful spirits here. The film basically exploits its risqué moments at every opportunity with candid lesbian acts (teacher and student relationship) that follow onto unpleasantly gruesome details in what you can call spicy camp.

Director Shimako Sato stylishly paints an edgy shocker with grisly set pieces worked into a claustrophobic atmosphere of dread, which hangs over the latter half of the film. The cheap feel to it all works to its advantage with its limited sets (basically all set in the school grounds), and the adept special effects and macabre make-up comes off extremely potent and well organised. While the majority of the pacing in the opening half slowly kicks off in first gear, it's not until just after the halfway mark where the tempo gets frenetic and the blood splatter hits the fans. Lurking within the haunting context is a cold and creepy tenor, which makes the inventive deaths incredibly blood curdling. The sweeping camera work that's dreamt up can capture some uncanny frames and lighting is kept rather under-lit to breath a really unsteady gloominess. In the background is a faintly effective and wistful music score. The story is nothing we haven't seen before, but it still comes off fresh and stable with its interesting idea, which silly overtones can feature and convoluted actions creep up. Nonetheless it keeps a disorientating and tense feeling on how things are going to turn out in the end.

There's not much of a background to the witch Misa in this story, as she's pretty much thrown right into this one and we got to accept it, even though this vagueness could frustrate. This would be the first of four chapters of this character. And the second entry (which is so-so and reminded of "The Terminator") would go onto be a prequel, which explained a lot about Misa's past and how she became to be a witch. The static script throws around plenty of witchcraft mumbo jumbo and lets the mystery unfold perfectly fine with few well-disguised red herrings and pawn-figures. The usual twists are also thrown in for good measure.

Performances range from brooding to flamboyant, but either way it always amused. Kimika Yoshino in the lead part brings a quiet determination in her strong performance as Misa. Naozumi Takahashi lives it up, in the part of the jealous, wannabe wizard student and Miho Kanno keeps it all innocent and soft as Misa's friend. A stellar Ryoka Yuzuki looks steamy, but strikes up a flinty barrier in her small part and Mio Takaki makes for a stoically steely turn as the teacher Shirai.

A dark, foreboding teen J-horror film in the area of black magic, which it's bumpy pacing can get just too causal. Well worth the peek for fans.

I have never read the 70's manga by Shinichi Koga, so I cannot say how well the film follows its source.

I first saw this a decade ago on a Japanese grocery store rental tape without subtitles, but this first film had such a straightforward minimal plot that a full translation wasn't really necessary to follow the story. After seeing it subtitled, I feel the same way I felt back then: It's a decent low budget splatter film with witchcraft elements which seems to have spent the bulk of its budget in about 3 minutes of CG SFX scenes at the end of the film. Almost the entire film takes place in the school, but the limited setting doesn't hurt the film.

It's a pretty decent low budget film, but as the director stated is basically more of a relationship film with a horror backdrop than a typical horror film. I liked Kimika Yoshino in the lead role and thought she wasn't bad for a gravure model turned first time actress. Miho Kanno plays her new friend who shows her around school. You may recognize her from her role a few years later as the first Tomie. Prolific actress/voice actress Ryouka Yuzuki (aka Kanori Kadomatsu / Ayumi Nagashii) plays a schoolgirl who is having a lesbian affair with the teacher played by Mio Takaki (an actress from a few Ultraman films). The lesbian affair and its resulting nudity seems to be an idea of the producers to appeal to the exploitation audience and really doesn't add anything to the film.

STORY: Misa Kuroi is a witch who battle the forces of darkness and tries to protect the innocent, not that she has too good a track record for saving her friends, as she readily admits. Unfortunately for her, the trail of deaths left in her path makes some see her as an evil occult murderer, when in fact she just goes where the danger happens to be. She's somewhat of a victim of circumstance in this regard. She transfers in to a new school where five local murders have made a pentagram of blood and now an evil cult plans to kill off 13 more hapless victims to bring Lucifer into the world to obtain his powers. A group of students has to stay after school to retake a test and is trapped inside, trying to escape what seems to be a certain and rather messy death at the hands of an unknown enemy. The resident 'goth' kid has read some books about magic and decides Misa's knowledge makes her the number one suspect.

Sadly, the subtitlers at Tokyo Shock have an issue with consistency as they use at least 2 or 3 noticeably different spellings for the 3rd line of the Eko Eko Azarak chant. Luckily, the DVD is packed with extras.

Version: Japanese, with English subtitles (by SBS)

With my knowledge of Japanese horror movies limited to the 'Ringu' and Takashi Miike's 'Audition', I caught this on SBS one night. I really liked 'Audition', but I found the Ring movies to be rather boring, so I watched this few expectations. When it was over, I was pretty impressed.

Misa Kuroi (Kimika Yoshino) is a witch, her secret means she gets transferred from school to school. Rumours constantly follow her - they say that people in her presence are prone to dying. Naturally, dark forces at work at her new school, and one night, Misa and twelve other students (that makes 13, get it?) are locked in the school. They will all die unless Misa can protect them.

Story wise, it isn't very original, but its still rather interesting. Horror wise, it is pretty good. Dealing with the occult and supernatural, 'Wizard of Darkness' is stylish and gory. Nice special effects, and what surprised me was the fact that there were good actors in what is essentially gory teen-horror.

It gets a bit Japanese at times, and if you've seen a few Japanese horror or action movies, you'll know what I'm talking about, e.g. unusual situations involving lesbians. If you don't like these movies, then maybe its best to avoid 'Wizard of Darkness, as it features unusual situations involving lesbians, among other things.

8/10 - Check it out if you like Japanese horror, or horror in general.