Jigoku kozô

"With production values like these, who needs enemies?" Isn't that how the saying goes? I know what Asato Mari is capable of; I loved 2013's 'Bilocation' and found it to be flawlessly crafted. I can only assume that as with this title's companion piece in "Hino Hideshi's theater of horror," Nakamura Yoshihiro's 'Lizard baby,' Asato's 'Boy from hell' struggled with a lack of resources and a very tight production schedule that placed major upper limits on its potential. The root premise holds promise as a grieving mother, a successful surgeon, carries out a terrible deed to bring her young son back to life, only to find that nothing is quite as she had hoped. And I think there's a fair bit to like in these fifty minutes. Yet as this movie presents it is more than a little rough, and the lasting value to be had is middling at best.

The root story is quite good as grief turns to bloody madness, though the scene writing is a mixed bag as the wry dark humor sometimes just comes off as immature and ill-considered, and a lot of dialogue is altogether clunky and bad. Asato's direction is not so sure-footed here, and between that and the material, the acting is often too over the top for its own good as everyone seemed unsure of what tone to strike, or where on the spectrum their contribution should fall. The cast sure does try, though, especially Yamamoto Mirai. Some of the practical effects look pretty decent - namely scattered instances of blood or gore - but the more extraordinary an effect tries to be, or needs to be, the worse it looks, and this includes composite shots and rear projection. The fundamental image is so bare-faced and glaring to be all but painful on the eyes (especial bad news for some character designs and backgrounds that are abjectly cartoonish) and the audio is imbalanced, troubling the original music which in and of itself is pretty good.

There are fine ideas in this flick, and I can imagine easily enough how it might have looked if Asato and all others involved had all due opportunity to spread their wings and make 'The boy from hell' the best blast of horror storytelling that it could be. Unfortunately that's not what happened, and this more closely represents the purposefully schlocky, low-grade, transparently false nonsense that might air on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block as adult-oriented mimicry of live-action children's fare from the 60s or 70s. It doesn't look good, and with the apparent limitations on the production, it wears on one's patience quite quickly. I don't think the sum total is altogether rotten, but very simply, this is not a picture you need to spend any time with. There are better things to watch, and whatever you might want out of this, you can find it elsewhere.

A doctor tragically loses her son in a car accident (quite graphically). A random old woman appears telling the mother she can bring her son back if she kills a boy the same age with a special tusk. She does so (again, quite graphically) and her son returns, but not as the boy he once was, but as a hideous monster who craves human flesh. She keeps him locked up in a cage and tries to find a way to heal him but he escapes and starts slaughtering anyone in his path. It's not long before a detective with a huge nose and violently loud sneezes is hot on their trail.

It's makes even less sense than it sounds like believe it or not, but by gawd is it entertaining. The charmingly cheap green screen effects are immediately striking. Then there's the surprisingly graphic deaths of children. Not since Beware! Children At Play have I seen so many gory child deaths depicted in such an unflinching manner. Then, there's the centerpiece of the movie - a jaw-dropping dream(?) sequence where the titular Boy from Hell goes "home" and wreaks even greater havoc. This sequence then returns later on for an even stranger climax.

This is the first film I've seen from Hideshi Hino's Theater of Horror series. Every other movie in this series sounds interesting to say the least (one of them is called Lizard Baby, another is about zombie dolls) so best believe I'll be giving them a watch.

THE BOY FROM HELL is the best cinematic representation of legendary Japanese manga artist Hideshi Hino's overall visual and storytelling style so far, even beating out 1988's MERMAID IN A MANHOLE, which was directed by Hino himself. While other entries into the HIDESHI HINO HORROR THEATER hexalogy of short films may be better films when viewed out of context, THE BOY FROM HELL stands as the single best adaptation in the series.

A theme that is almost always present in Hino's manga work is the isolation and suffering of the outsider, the freak. There is a brilliant scene in THE BOY FROM HELL where the titular resurrected monster happens upon a group of children playing ball. When he approaches them, wanting to join in, the run away screaming. Despite the grisly murders Daio has committed up to this point, you still feel sorry for him in that scene.

Another thing that director Mari Asato and screenwriter Seiji Tanigawa (working from Hino's eponymous manga) nailed perfectly is the mix of grotesque horror imagery and gore with pitch black comedy that permeates so many of Hino's comics. The most wonderful examples of this are the ridiculous fake nose they put on the detective and a birthday party for Daio, during which he is forced to wear a mask similar to that of Hannibal Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to keep from from devouring the other little kids. Of course that doesn't work so well in the end ...

I hesitate to recommend THE BOY FROM HELL to the casual horror fan or even fans of Japanese horror. It is wildly different from the slow paced malevolent hair-ghost stories of recent years and hearkens closer to the ero-guro films of the 70ies, while also adding plenty of elements from campy fun splatter movies of the 1980ies. If you like those and/or are already familiar with Hino's manga publications (a fair number of which are available in English translations) then this is a movie you should seek out. Everyone else may come away confused and maybe disappointed.

"The Boy From Hell" is about a surgeon who brings her son named Daio back from the dead,only he's now a decomposing corpse boy with a taste for blood and human flesh.In 2004,Pony Canyon decided to adapt six different Hino manga stories,all of these shorts were made by different filmmakers using digital video.Mari Asato's "The Boy From Hell" is a grotesque and surprisingly gory horror flick.Daio looks truly creepy and actually resembles murderous babies from Larry Cohen's "It's Alive" series.The acting is fine,the cinematography is great and the use of colors is very Argentoesque.Overall,"The Boy From Hell" should satisfy fans of gruesome Japanese manga stories.It's not as sickeningly brutal and morbid as several "Guinea Pig" movies,but still packs a punch.8 out of 10.

Ultra low-budget and very short film that kind of worked, I think? I was a bit zonked out while watching it and was in the need of something short and simple. I'm not sure if how I felt led The Boy from Hell to feel like a fever dream. Maybe this is just the right way to watch something like this.

It's a little gory and it's got a bit of body horror, but it never commits enough to be too horrific. I guess it also deals with a family tragedy that plays out like the one seen near the start of 2018's Hereditary. I've got you, Ari Aster, taking ideas from then-14-year-old obscure Japanese horror movies that aren't short films but aren't long enough to be features exactly! You will pay for your crimes (jokes, no one has a patent on people's heads getting knocked off while sticking them out of moving vehicles).

The Boy from Hell is bizarre but it is about a boy who dies and then goes to hell and then he kind of comes back so I got what I was after, based on that title. It's low-grade in a sort of charming way, and has some dark fun for just under an hour and then ends. Maybe they were going for something a bit deeper and it didn't register, but that's okay. I kind of liked what I thought this was. What my sleepy, still-recovering-from-a-mild-cold body/mind thought it was.