Yôkai hantâ: Hiruko

Unlike every other Tsukamoto film I've been able to hunt down (the two TETSUOs, GEMINI, and ROD BOY,) this film seems to be nothing more than a silly popcorn film. Nothing wrong with that, certainly, although it does raise some interesting questions about Tsukamoto's style as a director. The sped up POV running towards a character thing he did in both TETSUOs, for example, looks like an EVIL DEAD rip off here, despite the device having a completely different effect in the Tetsuo films.

This feels less like a Tsukamoto work than anything else he's done, even the slowly paced art film GEMINI. Beyond that, it's basically a straight horror flick: characters find themselves in a bad situation, and spend the entire film's running time trying to get out of it and/or fix it. The elements aren't original by any stretch of the imagination (there's even a crusty, crazy old man who knows more than he's telling,) but Tsukamoto's handling of them still feels new. When someone is attacked by a goblin, the victim flashes to a peaceful, serene, but nonetheless threatening dreamworld, which (as we discover) more often than not leads to suicide.

Much, much fluffier than anything else the man's done, and curious for his fans, although the uninitiated will just see a straight horror flick, albeit one better done than most. Fun stuff.

This has the stiff direction and sterile feeling typical of many Japanese films, pretty deadly for a horror movie, especially one that's intended to have a number of wacky and wild moments. The story is extremely confusing, missing even token explanations for many things; it's like it expects us to be familiar with the story from its original source. When it's not boring, it's extremely bewildering. Some of the special effects aren't bad for what was a low budget, but they tend to be derivative of other (and better) horror and science fiction movies. See how many such references to other movies you can spot, if you should decide to see this movie despite what I've said.

I found a copy of this film without the benefit of English subtitling, but was able to figure out the story... vaguely, anyway. I have been a fan of this director's work for many years, particularly the excellent TOKYO FIST, so I was very happy to find this obscure little film.

It seemed at first to be much more mainstream than the rest of Tsukamoto's films, but it did have its share of bizzare scenes... It is essentially a cross between EVIL DEAD II, THE THING, and THE CHURCH... but in Japanese. Mainly enjoyable, and a must for anyone interested in this guy's work. It is very strange indeed...

Arriving in a small village, an archeologist tries to find the colleague who summoned him only instead to find his son hanging around a local school trying to find out where his crush has disappeared to, only to find that the reasoning for his summoning is a local goblin released by a classmate and must stop it together.

There was quite a lot to like with this effort. Among its brighter points is the exceptionally fun setup at play here that provides a lot of local folklore and background into the creatures' appearance. The initial guise of the group arriving at the village on an archeological expedition to uncover a series of ruins discovered in the woods surrounding the area gives this a solid backdrop to introduce the legend of the giant mound and the myths surrounding it. With plenty of evidence that there are superstitions about the mound and how dangerous it is to be around the area, aspects of a family curse that are brought up, and a series of secrets that have to be revealed about the way the locals treat the creature, the setup to this one is engaging and has a lot to like about it. On top of this incredibly fun setup, the film itself features plenty of exciting and enjoyable creature action which starts from the very beginning. The camera-work to display the creature scuttling through underground tunnels or down school hallways chasing after victims is immensely terrifying with the inhuman speed and low stature to the ground we see it zooming along, and given the beastly growling accompanying the sequences brings about a really impressive tactic. With the later scenes showing the creatures' true form and how it moves around as a human head with spider-like appendages sticking out from all sides allowing it to move about with the speed and accuracy it does and the eerie song it sings to tempt and distract victims, there's a lot to like here. That all gives the attack scenes plenty to like about it. The attack on the kids at the school manages to be both incredibly eerie with the unknown assailant flying around the room scattering objects in front of the terrified victim and manages to kill him without us seeing who it is after several distractions, while the creature chasing both the student and the professor around the campus contains several close calls and frenetic escapes on top of the impressive effects on the kills the finale, taking place in the creatures' underground hideout containing an army of similar beings about to be released, goes for more of a fantasy feel with the spells and incantations to stop them but fits in with the rest of the film and gives this a rousing, triumphant finish to raise the film quite nicely. There isn't much to dislike but it does have some slight issues. The main drawback factor to be had here is the strange treatment of the professor when he arrives at the village, which is seemingly quite comical and dismissive despite being the nominal action hero of the piece. The slapstick clumsiness, predilection for strange gadgets, and mockery by his peers all point to the comic relief role rather than the tack-charge man-of-action he really is throughout the rest of the film and leaves this one feeling somewhat discordant at the start. The other slight issue here is the films' low-budget effects work, for as good as the creature design and make-up look there are instances where it looks like cheap constructions which aren't detrimental but rather distracting. These are what hold the film down slightly.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

After opening an ancient tomb discovered beneath their school, teacher Takashi Yabe (Naoto Takenaka) and pretty student Tsukishima (Megumi Ueno) fall victim to the goblins trapped within. With the help of archaeologist Hieda Reijirou (Kenji Sawada), Takashi's son Masao attempts to prevent the goblins from escaping into our world.

Tetsuo, The Iron Man, Shin'ya Tsukamoto's nightmarish cyberpunk cult hit, found its audience with the art-house/obscure horror intelligentsia; I can't imagine the same crowd going quite so gaga for Hiruko the Goblin, which takes a far less visionary approach, borrowing much of it its visual stylings from Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and John Carpenter's The Thing.

The film's plot is just as incomprehensible as Tetsuo's—I hadn't a clue what was happening for much of the time—but Tsukamoto eschews the surreal for a far more basic, splat-stick style, with plenty of gushing blood, crazy creatures, and chaotic, over-the-top acting. It might not make much sense half the time, but with decapitated heads sprouting legs, a crazy archaeologist armed with homemade goblin-hunting gizmos, and a young hero who develops burns on his back that resemble the goblins' victims, it's hard not to enjoy on the most basic of levels.