Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell

I'm not sure where or why people really compare this to Evil Dead, that is a comparison that raises expectations way too high in my opinion. It's a short little movie that feels like a group college aged horror enthusiasts put together in a weekend.

2 younger people end up trapped in a Japanese(aka really small) house where a demon tries to kill them. They fight back resulting in several "It's dead, it's all over" moments only for the exact same demon to return for them to fight.

The effects and gore are mostly pretty low quality. As is the filming and shot quality. Lots of super close ups since every room was 6 foot by 8 foot at largest. You can blatantly tell it was put together by a bunch of horror fans wanting to have a bit of fun making the whole thing a bit charming though all around unremarkable.

I don't exactly recommend this one but at least it is short which makes for a decent draw on a bad movie night where you will likely talk over it.

After learning he's inherited a house, a man and his girlfriend invite a psychic to the house to help her with a story she's writing that details the unique history of the house, but when the ghost of his dad's jilted girlfriend possesses the psychic to kill him sets out to stop it from happening.

There's quite a lot to like with this shot-on-video effort. Among the better qualities here come from the enjoyable and overwhelmingly cheesy setup featured here. The initial introduction here that explains how the house is haunted works nicely enough to provide the reasoning as well as the action showcasing everything. As well, the reasoning to get him and his friends to the house by looking through the place in order to investigate the location as well as get information for the article his girlfriends' writing comes off quite nicely. These scenes are all rather chilling with the remark about being watched and the walk-through shortly afterward providing some chilling moments. That gives the film some rather decent and enjoyable shock scenes of the haunted house coming to life and affecting their trip. The first seance attempts that spell the beginning of the danger as the ghostly limbs are shown behind people unknowingly or manipulate objects to injure those in the room is a rather fun sequence with some chilling imagery. A later attack by the ghost on the medium where she possesses his body to attack him and his girlfriend is even better as it kicks off the frantic final half where the possessed bodies come to life for a series of brutal, high-energy confrontations. Getting to see the cheesy effects work and creative ideas here seeing the way the two battle the disembodied body parts continually attacking them gives everything a great touch and has plenty to like about it. There isn't much to dislike here. One of the few drawbacks here comes from the rather obvious amount of homage and ripoffs this one goes through during the film. The overall setup and approach here are so clearly and plainly taken on from one of the genre's classic entries which carry into some of the other sequences later on. How sequences play out wholesale as well as camera angles and even lines straight from the film come which doesn't hide the influences taken and become somewhat detrimental here. As well, there's also the overall cheap and low-budget look here which comes from the generally obvious effects work that looks cheap and can potentially put some off on the film.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

This short film was made during the early period of 90s Japanese straight -to-video entertainment, but never got released until 2012. It's full of campy fun, obvious references to Evil Dead series and the character of "Ash" to a Japanese body builder.

It's also can be been seen as a pre-Grudge (or J u-on) film since the villain is Hell bent on a grudge toward the living! It worth of look, for earl attempts on Japan V-cinema -- at the beginning of directors like Miike.

This is exactly what you'd expect from a movie called Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (AKA Japanese Evil Dead).

The first half drags a bit, but the second half is so much fun. Never has a movie felt so much like it got incrementally better as it went along, as quite literally every scene was better than the last.

There are obviously technical flaws and limitations aplenty, but most add to the charm of the movie. And while the first half is comparatively show compared to the second, at least it doesn't stretch those tamer 25-30 minutes to 45-50 in order to get this in the more traditional 80-90 minute range.

I hope Sam Raimi's seen this, too. He'd probably really like it. And while it is derivative of Evil Dead 1 (and 2!), it does just enough to make it feel like its own thing. And being filmed before Ringu, it did a creepy scene with a tv first.

Also: the very last shot was surprisingly kind of unnerving.

Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell calls itself 'the Japanese Evil Dead', because it's Japanese and it shamelessly rips-off The Evil Dead (and EDII). Seems reasonable enough to me. And like the Evil Dead, it's a total blast once director Shinichi Fukazawa begins to pile on the excessive gore and splat-stick comedy.

The film starts off relatively restrained, with a prologue set in Tokyo, 1978, that sees a man, Naoto, killing his wife and burying her body under the floor of his house. Years later, Naoto's son, bodybuilder Shinji (who still has a long way to go before rivaling the likes of Schwarzenegger), inherits the property, and takes his girlfriend Mika there so that she can write an article about the supposed haunted house. A psychic accompanies them on the trip.

Once inside the house, the psychic examines all of the rooms, detects an evil presence, and begins to see ghostly apparitions, and soon after the fun really begins...

Mistaking Shinji for his father, the vengeful spirit of the murdered woman possesses the psychic, and Fukazawa lets loose with the craziness, piling on the blood and guts, missing no opportunity to give his own interpretation of key scenes from Raimi's horror classics: the possessed man pops up to provide shocks, but is decapitated with a shovel; the body is chopped up, quivering parts scattered all over the floor; these pieces suddenly have a life of their own; Mika is bitten and becomes possessed herself; and Shinji arms himself with a shotgun and utters the Japanese equivalent of 'Groovy'.

It's all totally devoid of originality, of course, but the whole bloody shebang is imbued with such energy and a clear love for Raimi's films that it's hard not to like. 7.5/10, happily rounded up to 8 for IMDb.