Biotherapy

"Biotherapy" is a fairly nasty Japanese gorefest about a group of Japanese scientists stalked and viciously butchered by a creepy-looking alien.This relatively unknown ultra low-budget splatter film is rather well-made and captivating.The gore effects by Osamu Miki are effective and suitably nasty for example the scene where a scientist has his eye pulled out is extremely graphic.There is also incredibly bloody moment in which a female scientist is sadistically murdered by having broken test tubes jammed into her body and the blood is spraying everywhere."Biotherapy" is not as sickening as Daisuke Yamanouchi's "Red Room" series or Tamakichi Anaru's ultra-nasty "Women's Flesh",but it certainly provides plenty of red stuff for fans of crazy Japanese splatter.Give it a look,if you can find it.8 out of 10.

I had been meaning to get a copy of BIOTHERAPY for a while, but kept pushing it to the "bottom of the list" as other films that I had been looking for took priority. Well, I finally got my hands on this one, and honestly, I can't say that I was all that impressed. This one is also in Japanese with no subs/dubs, so here's what I gathered from it:

Some kind of alien-thing is going around killing a bunch of scientists...that's pretty much it. Since this film clocks in at just barely over a half hour, plot is not really a main concern in this one.

When I researched BIOTHERAPY a while back, it had been described as a "notorious splatterfest" and other equally intriguing descriptions. Honestly, it's not bad in terms of gore, and there's an eyeball removal scent that's among the best that I've seen, but other than that, the gore in BIOTHERAPY is no heavier or more outstanding than any other Japanese "extreme" splatter film. Maybe I've been watching too much of this trash lately and have become jaded - but BIOTHERAPY was nothing exceptional to me. Recommended to extreme J-splatter fans only - anyone else shouldn't bother. A pretty generous 6/10 because it did deliver some red stuff, and the eyeball scene was noteworthy...

Biotherapy is a horror/sci-fi shocker that clocks in just short of an hour. That's right, short so you know a lot of logic is bound to get pulled out of the story like an eyeball from a screaming scientist. The story is that some scientists at the Hirose Research Institute of Biology have developed a GT (glutamyltransferase, if you're interested) serum derived from meteors which speeds up biological growth. As it turns out, not everyone is cool on this serum: an ugly alien-like thing, described as a "miraijin" or time traveller, in the film and probably played by the director's big brother, has been sent to retrieve the serum and cause the most unnecessarily gory violent deaths to those who developed it. Why? At under an hour do you care? Actually, since no edition of this film has any kind of English subtitles, all of the time traveller's dialog was made much harder to understand since it was overdubbed with this cheesy echoplexed "demonic" voice that has been used in Japanese TV and films for, like, ever. Let's just assume that our time traveller friend objected to the scientific and moral ramifications of the serum's use or, heck, maybe he just wanted to tear various limbs and innards from a gang of earthfolk. It's all about the same thing, isn't it?

Gore-wise, Biotherapy has some pretty nifty scenes and did win a special effects award from, of all sources, the manga magazine Young Jump. I've seen comparisons to the Guinea Pig series and, yes it does have its share of entrailsectomies, tonguesectomies, and eyesectomies but this is misleading. If anything, Biotherapy owes a lot to slashers and specifically Friday the 13th; the time traveller wears a mask to cover his face and always breathes heavily a la Jason as he is stalking his victims (and in an unintentionally humorous touch, his appearance is signaled with a lightning-like flash and a synth drum beat). There is one scene in which a character is stabbed in the chest with several test tubes and blood, geyser-like, pumps out of her chest. This is the type of scene I was looking for (and failed to get) in Commando's death by pipe impalement scene.

In all, not an entirely bad film to check out if you can but there are better things you can do instead of watching it. Like watching half of a better film.

Biotherapy is a cheesy Japanese horror that has the cliché story that might have been repeated a few times, but with scientists, sadly, the unoriginal story isn't enough, we get this very cheesy alien disguise, who appears to wear clothes, which we should explain which planet where aliens dress like human, all we got is a big fat ignorance from the director, he clearly was making a bad movie right on set and we're supposed to have that feeling, but basically Plan 9 is the best worst movie is the feeling I'm having, at least that film was fun. This was not. This is just a terrible movie with a dull story that has been used several times. We get it.

Biotherapy might have been a good horror short but it's just a brainless gore fest where the alien goes on a rampage and kills people without any explanation. Why is the alien killing people? Where did the alien come from? It's best for the director to not answer these questions because he's more brainless than this movie.

Biotherapy has some of the worst special effects on screen. Every creep who watches this just loves how bad the FX is. We can see the freaking pixels around the alien's hands. Biotherapy has a really irritating sound queue that loops over and over until you will go almostly insane. Biotherapy is pretty much a lost Japanese horror film and deserves that treatment.

Kashima's only movie is most definitely worth the view, and makes you wonder what would have become of his future works if he would have made any. The character development is high, special effects are okay, gore everywhere and a pleasant atmosphere as threat is hiding elin every frame of the picture. It looks like something I could have written myself, so that's very comical to see such mirror reflection.