Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell

I saw a cheap pan & scan VHS of an English dub of this film years ago but I found a Japanese DVD of it recently and even though it is not dubbed or subtitled, and I don't speak Japanese, it is still quite unsettling. The Japanese don't play when it comes to stories like this and they don't pull punches either. At least the disc is widescreen, preserving the Shockiku Grandscope compositions. If you have seen KILL BILL Vol. 1, you will find out that even Quentin Tarantino was inspired by this film once you see the opening scenes. The special effects are usually not realistic but are quite imaginative. The whole film could be seen as something of a morality fable.

There is definitely a message to the film, although most people write this one off because of it's exploitative sounding title. There are several very creepy and effective scenes in the film and this film left a lasting impression on me. I think someday this film will be recognized for the horror classic that it is. Even if you have to watch a pan & scan dubbed copy, it is well worth catching.

By the way, the English-language version is called GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL. It certainly got my attention. Pacemaker was the American distributor. I first saw it on a lousy VHS rental copy. Rumors about a letterboxed American NTSC release to DVD have yet to be fulfilled but I remain optimistic.

Thanks to Quentin Tarantino homaging 'Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell's blood red sky in 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1' I can finally get to see this obscurity on DVD in Japanese with English subtitles, instead of a badly dubbed fading old VHS tape. Yay! Okay, this is a b-grade movie and the effects are pretty lousy (especially the plane crash sequence), but to say it's a bad movie is far from the truth. For me it's the perfect example of a low budget horror movie transcending its limitations, coming up with something surprisingly creepy and surreal (See also William Castle's 'The Tingler', Herk Harvey's 'Carnival Of Souls', Coffin Joe's 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul',etc.) The opening is terrific - a plane flies through an eerie red sky and birds throw themselves at the windows in sheer terror. There's a suspected bomb on board and the plane crashes after sighting a UFO. On the ground the survivors are initially worried about the basics, like water and rescue, plus the presence of a suspected assassin, but pretty soon they also have to contend with a bizarre alien invasion! Like I said, many of the special effects are cheesy, but they're still effective. The acting is generally quite good, the alien will freak you out, and there's several interesting references to the Vietnam war, which was unexpected and gave the movie quite a unique background (can you remember any American SF movies of the 1960s even MENTIONING Vietnam?). I highly recommend 'Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell' to all horror fans who treasure the offbeat and the unusual. Hopefully this overlooked movie will now reach a larger audience. QT, I salute you!

This isn't one of those typical rubber suit movies where a giant beast smashes everything in sight while being shot at by toy airplanes. This is a slick, well-done horror/sci-fi that blends many elements and does it well.

There's some vampires, people's minds being taken over, driven insane, killing each other, invading aliens with sinister plots, and a lot of innocents in peril. This is the stuff of a good horror flick. The movie opens with a UFO sighting, and a plane being knocked out of the sky and forced to crash land in the wilderness. From there, evil starts to infect the survivors of the airplane, and a desperate battle for survival is on. All levels of conflict ensue: characters against each other, the environment, and even themselves.

A lost gem of the horror/sci-fi genre, worth seeing.

A seemingly ordinary flight is quickly and inexplicably cursed by blood red skies, a bomb threat and suicidal birds splattering themselves against the windows. As if this were not enough, a globular glow-in-the-dark UFO causes the plane to crash in an unoccupied and desolate area which looks suspiciously like the quarry where Fred Flinstone once worked. The survivors are soon faced with an alien invasion in the form of moldy cosmic silly putty. The slime takes over human hosts by oozing its way up over the face and into a gash opened in the hypnotized victims forehead...a gash which, even when closed up, rather resembles a vagina and gave me the uncontrollable giggles.

Anyway, the possessed human hosts go on vampiric killing sprees, draining their victims of blood and turning them a pleasant shade of blue. In the end, the dwindling survivors show their bravery and do battle with the nasty aliens, or become cowardly lumps of Jell-o and run away screaming. There's a lot of anti Vietnam War protesting throughout, complete with stock footage of wartime atrocities. It's a nice touch, considering the time in which this film was made and the unpopularity of anti-war protesting period. There's also a surprising twist ending which, for some reason, reminded me of Fulci's film "The Beyond" combined with "28 Days Later."

All in all, this is a goofy, badly dubbed and totally entertaining film to watch. If you're a fan of Japanese cinema, vampire films and sci-fi flying saucer invasions, you won't want to miss this one.

First of all, if you want to see this flick, you'll have to look for one of the out of print tape copies made by Sinister Cinema. They used to have them and in widescreen (more or less) but apparently cannot make any more. Mine was one I found for sale that was already viewed but was lucky to find.

The widescreen is not the complete picture, but it's close, there's not too much cropped off at the sides and it's about 1.66 to 1 ratio. Pretty good image and color too. The story concerns an airplane crash landing on some sort of island or rural area, where a spaceship has landed. The alien is a life form which takes control of a person by entering the body, and then turns that person into a vampire, who drains its victims of all blood. It seems this alien is the vanguard of an advancing conquest. The whole thing is pretty eerie but has plenty of goofy moments that will make for laughs. There's the whole idea of mankind racing to destroy itself along with pretty vapid references to Vietnam, and how terrible the world is. The idea is that the earth will get what it deserves since we can't live in peace. Good old 1970s peacenik hand-wringing at the terrible state of humanity, with a good dash of cardboard character clichés thrown in. You'll want to see it for the really weird execution of a pretty spooky premise, and fast paced too. One of those type of films that cries out for a remake by someone who knows how to handle sci-fi horror.