Guzoo

Gotta love when a movie has Part 1 in the title, but there was never a sequel or anything that could be called Part 2. If there was a Guzoo movie, I might consider watching it though, because this first and only one wasn't bad for something so barebones and low-budget.

I could almost call it restrained, considering the poster and title imply/show graphic violence, and it takes a bit beyond the halfway point for things to get super messy.

The narrative is sort of just crazy things happening to a group of young women staying in a weird house though, so it's not trying to rewrite any playbook or anything. They go somewhere, there's a monster, there's some blood, there's some death.

It looked like it might've been fun to make, but I guess you can never be certain. It was pretty fun to watch, as a bite-sized and schlocky splatter film.

I also liked the monster. Can't go wrong with a good monster.

Guzoo: The Thing Abandoned by God features lots of thrashing, slimy tentacles of the kind seen in many a sleazy hentai (both animated and live-action). But despite this short's many glistening, prehensile appendages and the presence of four teenage Japanese cuties, Guzoo doesn't qualify as hentai, the film delivering zero nudity, the creature's many quivering extremities never violating the girls' nether regions. That's not to say that fans of bizarre Japanese excess will be disappointed by Guzoo -- on the contrary, I imagine that most fans of wild Asian cinema will be more than satisfied by this commendably crazy offering from director Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu (Entrails of a Virgin, Entrails of a Beautiful Woman), which features plenty of strangeness and a reasonable amount of over-the-top gore.

The film's plot sees four pretty girls spending a vacation at the house of their professor, whose daughter Miss Kujô (Hidemi Maruyama) is, unbeknownst to her guests, conducting strange experiments in the basement with an ancient creature. Things soon start to get weird when Yuka (my favourite of the foursome, played by Naomi Kajitani) receives a cut on her arm while frolicking in the pool with her friends: Miss Kujô tells the girl that she has been attacked by a Kamaitachi, a mythical invisible weasel with claws like sickles that lives inside of small whirlwinds. This eccentric explanation seems to satisfy the girls, who retire to their room to discover that all of their compact mirrors have been smashed.

That night, Yuka goes do the kitchen to get a drink and is attacked by a tentacle that emerges from a mirror. Her screams attract the attention of her friends, but by the time they arrive, the tentacle has gone. The other girls presume that Yuka has been dreaming. However, the next day, Yuka goes to investigate, and is dragged through the mirror by the monster and killed, the creature pushing a tentacle into the girls mouth, her stomach exploding with numerous flailing feelers (why is it that my favourite girls in horror always seem to die first?). With Yuka missing, her curious friend Kachin decides to investigate, and also has a close encounter with the monster.

Miss Kujô rushes to the lab to try and stop the creature from killing again, but is too late. She slams the door shut, but the tentacled terror breaks free and decapitates her. The final ten minutes of the 40-minute runtime involves the remaining two girls being chased around the hotel by the slimy cephalopod-like critter, eventually trapping themselves in the basement where they repel the beast by playing a small flute (?!?!).

Certainly, very little about this film makes sense, especially the final scene in which the surviving girls leave the hotel to discover a small turtle on it's back (is this supposed to be the monster in a different form?), but the impressive practical effects and the easy-on-the-eye cast mean that I was thoroughly entertained throughout.

7 Things Abandoned by God out of 10.

Revisiting this oddity on Lovecraft's birthday today. A low budget SOV gore short movie, part cosmic body horror with slimy tentacles. This is very unusual movie when compared with the Kazuo Komizu's films where nudity and gore fit perfectly. Extreme Japanese fans will be disappointed as the film delivers zero nudity. It has similarities with Prince of Darkness (1987) but predates it by a year. Starts of like a low budget Hausu staged soberly and feels like a kick in the pit towards the climax. The script is simple, the acting is not that convincing, but the effects implemented covers the film with an uncomfortable veil. In addition, the score for the creature supports the action and inevitably casts its spell. "Guzoo" obviously isn't a perfect movie but is more or less a fitting addition to fans of the genre. On the other hand, there's barely any action until the end. That's means that dialog has to carry the weight up until the end which is pretty mediocre, so give it a shot and enjoy the slightly bumpy change of direction and GORE.

A group of Japanese schoolgirls on holiday at the secluded home of their professor are menaced by a flesh-eating, attic-dwelling monster that attacks people through mirrors. The formless monster design is unique, and variably redolent of a MUMMENSCHANZ puppet.

There's really too little of a story to warrant commentary in this proto-shokushu-zeme featurette...it's essentially just a string of scenes with pretty girls getting mulched by this "Guzoo" thing. It's certainly not for all tastes, but if you're gore-horny and like them really ooey-gooey and gross, put on a bib and dig in! It's pretty fun, as these things go, and clocking in at just 40 minutes, it doesn't exactly overstay its welcome.

6/10.

Most of the time I didn't realize what I was watching, the story was pure nonsense, the effects we're okay but nothing if the movie made any sense: bad movie. It would have been more excited if there would have been real nudity in the film.