"With production values like these, who needs enemies?" Isn't that how the saying goes? I know what Asato Mari is capable of; I loved 2013's 'Bilocation' and found it to be flawlessly crafted. I can only assume that as with this title's companion piece in "Hino Hideshi's theater of horror," Nakamura Yoshihiro's 'Lizard baby,' Asato's 'Boy from hell' struggled with a lack of resources and a very tight production schedule that placed major upper limits on its potential. The root premise holds promise as a grieving mother, a successful surgeon, carries out a terrible deed to bring her young son back to life, only to find that nothing is quite as she had hoped. And I think there's a fair bit to like in these fifty minutes. Yet as this movie presents it is more than a little rough, and the lasting value to be had is middling at best.
The root story is quite good as grief turns to bloody madness, though the scene writing is a mixed bag as the wry dark humor sometimes just comes off as immature and ill-considered, and a lot of dialogue is altogether clunky and bad. Asato's direction is not so sure-footed here, and between that and the material, the acting is often too over the top for its own good as everyone seemed unsure of what tone to strike, or where on the spectrum their contribution should fall. The cast sure does try, though, especially Yamamoto Mirai. Some of the practical effects look pretty decent - namely scattered instances of blood or gore - but the more extraordinary an effect tries to be, or needs to be, the worse it looks, and this includes composite shots and rear projection. The fundamental image is so bare-faced and glaring to be all but painful on the eyes (especial bad news for some character designs and backgrounds that are abjectly cartoonish) and the audio is imbalanced, troubling the original music which in and of itself is pretty good.
There are fine ideas in this flick, and I can imagine easily enough how it might have looked if Asato and all others involved had all due opportunity to spread their wings and make 'The boy from hell' the best blast of horror storytelling that it could be. Unfortunately that's not what happened, and this more closely represents the purposefully schlocky, low-grade, transparently false nonsense that might air on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block as adult-oriented mimicry of live-action children's fare from the 60s or 70s. It doesn't look good, and with the apparent limitations on the production, it wears on one's patience quite quickly. I don't think the sum total is altogether rotten, but very simply, this is not a picture you need to spend any time with. There are better things to watch, and whatever you might want out of this, you can find it elsewhere.
