Chigireta ai no satsujin

Anyone else remember the look of those direct to VHS thrillers in the early 1990's? They were mostly directed in a flat, naturalistic style, with an occasional scene bathed in blue light to try and give the film a half-hearted film-noir look. This film, the third of the Evil Dead Trap films, has that look right on down to the big industrial fans in the background of one setting. Like most of its American counterparts, Evil Dead Trap 3 is a dull, obvious thriller. Unlike its American counterparts, this one does not even have the Japanese equivalent of Julie Strain to bust her top.

I saw the first two Evil Dead Trap movies as a college student in my early twenties. I thought they were great, stylish and bloody horror films. I re-watched them ten years later, in my early thirties, and found both films not as strong as I remembered and both severely suffering from endings that would not quit. For whatever reason (probably financial), until recently, I had never had a chance to view Evil Dead Trap 3.

To its credit, the third in the series (unrelated plots) does at least end at the right point and does not draw out its climax. That is about the only thing positive I can say for it. Gone is the gore from the first two films, which would not have bothered me if the film had been stylish. Nope, the visual style is flat, which would not have bothered me as much if the storyline had been intriguing. Nope, this film offers no surprises. I guessed the identity of the killer early on, and while, I will admit that I did not guess the complete twist, I still felt like I had been shortchanged.

The film's biggest problem is its inconsistent script. Much is made of a couple characters kendo skills, leading a viewer to expect a sword fight at the end, nope. The film begins with a mention of a poison extracted from dead bodies, but this is never followed through on. Even the student whose suicide begins the investigation is forgotten. What we have here plays like a sub-par, overlong episode of a CSI rip-off with a whiny lead actress who is unconvincing as a tough cop. There is little to recommend in Evil Dead Trap 3.

A corpse, having neither arms, legs, nor head, and harassed by shrieking seagulls, is washed up on the rock-clad shore somewhere in the Izumo Prefecture of one of the lesser Japanese islands, thus the horrible series of bodily dismemberments, spanning some decades, and which have young women as their victims, which policewoman Nami in this flick must follow up on, and which she thereupon finds herself immersed in, and leads her into abstract interiors with many rotating fan blades in pursuit of a serial killer the toxicity of whose ambition has filled whole freezers with cataloged limbs and appendages, trunks, and other fragments of human carnage.

Several times there are bodies are found near, in or around the seaside, and always where they can be got at by sea-gulls, which, like the pigeons which tear at Dr. Génessier's daughters face in Franju's Les Yeux sans visage (1959), symbolize madness.

Throughout the continental plate of dissolute magma which is the Japanese cinema runs a phosphoric radiance of morbidity, veins of deterioration, supernatural malaise, and splendid new devices of torment, Evil Dead Trap 3: Victimage of Exquisite Mutilation, it may be, is eclipsed by it's predecessors, as it is somewhat more lackadaisical but none the less, and although, like the first two films, is has no connexion with those flicks with which it shares it's title, is, as such, worthy to be dismissed as yet another untarnished diadem in the triplicate crown of J-Horror, whose threefold platforms include Dissension, Disarray, and Moral Leprosy.

Moreover, another anology about Japan, is that it is like some vast soup-ladle, infested with maggots, and dispensing it's putrifaction to the lower Sub-Asian Penensula . . .

The version I saw was picked up in a VHS emporium in New Dheli and had some warping due to somebody leaving it in a hot car on a summer's afternoon, after watching it I barfed curry pudding into a sack...

Unlike the Evil Dead Trap 1 and 2, this movie doesn't feature much blood and gore, and is more of a mystery/thriller than a horror movie.

Rookie detective (was she a rookie? Anyway she looked and acted like a rookie, fresh and enthusiastic) Nami investigates mysterious serial murder and chases the murderer across Japan.

To me, a major innovation of the film is the character of the main suspect, a high school teacher, who is deeply into Japanese tradition, in two ways. One, he is a Kendo instructor at the school. Kendo is the Japanese version of fencing, based of course on samurai art of fighting. The kendo scenes are cool and look very real, like the bout between the guy and Nami. Two, he is a practitioner of the ancient Japanese religion of Shinto. He is from Izumo, which is an important place in Japanese mythology: when the gods first descended from heaven to build the nation of Japan, they are supposed to have landed there.

Because of this intriguing character, and the freshness of the female protagonist, the movie holds our attention even though the plot isn't particularly strong.

By the way, the appearance of great Yamada Tatsuo (of "Crazy Thunder Road") as Nami's fellow detective and partner is also welcome.

All in all, a decent thriller movie. Also, it gives a nice view of Japan as it follows Nami chasing the murderer across the country.