davidlmarks Kika -- part machine, part woman-- all zombie slayer!We've seen zombie slayers with Samurai swords, we've seen zombie slayers with chainsaws! But we've never seen a cyborg zombie slayer with a Samurai chainsaw-sword and pole dancing skills!In this version of dystopia, the "infected" are people afflicted by a virus that causes antlers to sprout from their brain (much like the real-life Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus which invades ants' brains, to eventually erupt from their heads to release spores that will infect other ants).These antlers cause the afflicted to resemble Japanese melons. The origin of this affliction is extraterrestrial as well as familial-- Mother Dearest is a psycho-bitch from hell (with Kika's heart, literally) and Kika's uncle has a Swastika burned into his forehead (ala Charles Manson).And kids being kids, can't leave well enough alone, are grinding up the zombie antlers to experience a new form of high.To keep the infected at bay, a great wall has been erected to separate them from the population. But other nefarious forces are at work, and the wall is breached.Now on Death Row, Kika and cohorts are presented with a choice: face what will ultimately be an unfair trial, or volunteer to take out the "Zombie Queen"-- Mother Dearest.What ensues is sheer mayhem, as our group battles its way through the zombie horde. But not just any zombie horde! We see:Zombie women hurtling zombie babies attached to them with umbilical cords (like Medieval flails)!The Zombie Bar - A Female zombie boxer - Zombie people-wranglers - Zombies doing Michael Jackson's Thriller - Samurai Pin-cushion zombie (looking more like a grotesque porcupine than, say, Hellraiser's Pinhead) who duals (wait for it) with a truck! - A flailing mutant zombie thing with small baby arms (holding a knife and fork) growing out of it's face (words alone can not adequately describe this creature) that ultimately (d)evolves into a "General Grievous" (Star Wars)-like fighting machine - A Zombie car made out of zombie partsBe warned, the gore is very graphic at times. But if you've read this far, I'm sure you aren't taking anything here as a warning. Dismemberment and fire-hose gushers from every body part and orifice are spaced out about every minute or two."Hell Driver" has a tremendous amount of style and fountains of blood, guts and brains... lots of corny prosthetics and absolutely zero logic. It is silly to the extreme-- but that is the point. A screwed up cartoon for adults (that are stoned). Full marks for creativity here!

BA_Harrison Nikkatsu subsidiary Sushi Typhoon, the company that brought us outrageous splatterfests Alien vs Ninja and Deadball, clearly believe that nothing succeeds quite like excess: comic/horror Helldriver, directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), is quite possibly their most manic, insane and relentlessly gory effort thus far.The film stars Yumiko Hara as chainsaw wielding Kika, who is charged with leading a group on a mission into the zombie infested northern half of Japan to find and kill the 'zombie queen' (played by Eihi Shiina, of Audition fame), a former mass murderer who just happens to be Kika's mother Rikka. During their perilous journey, Kika and pals face such absurd threats as a hail of decapitated zombie heads, a multi-limbed creature with swords and machine guns at the end of each appendage and tiny arms in its face, and a zombie driving a car made from dismembered body parts.Other madness on display includes a battle between a car and Rikka's zombie husband, a zombie baby on an absurdly long umbilical cord, and lots and lots of inventive gore, including a young woman (Mizuki Kusumi?) having both her nipples bitten off, the result being fountains of blood erupting from her breasts.Obviously, to realistically bring such craziness to life would cost an awful lot of yen—clearly more than Sushi Typhoon have to spare—which is why the majority of the effects in this film (particularly the ones achieved though the use of CGI) look rather cheap and cartoon-like. Fortunately, with the action being so bonkers, this lack of realism is actually quite fitting and does little to reduce the film's overall enjoyment factor.What does drag the film down, however, is the rather overlong running time—at almost two hours long, such relentless mayhem does become a little tedious—and the fact that lead actress Hara, with her lack of curves and over-sized mouth, isn't as attractive as I would have liked: Asami would have made for a much better heroine (and by better, I mean sexier, of course).

lewiskendell "Everything is glorious!"These kind of ultra-violent, chaotic Japanese movies are very tricky. When they work, they're awesome. An amusing, bemusing, exciting mishmash of craziness that gives new meaning to the word "ridiculous". But Helldriver, like so many of these gonzo films, just doesn't quite pull off what it's aiming for. And that's certainly not for lack of trying. This tale of zombies and chainsaw swords throws everything at the viewer possible, and I have to commend the filmmakers for the sheer levels of WTF they came up with. Zombie women using zombie babies attached by zombie umbilical cords as weapon, truck versus zombie sword fights, and a zombie car are just a few of the insane ideas you'll see on display, here. I can't count the number of times I simply had to shake my head and smile at the fact that someone came up with all of this stuff. There's even a battle near the end that's eerily reminiscent of The Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, except with way fewer humans and WAY more blood. The inventiveness of Helldriver is the best thing it has going for it, by far. But amidst all the blood fountains and giant flying zombies made out of smaller zombies, the director and writers forgot to add the entertainment. How a movie can be absolutely insane and so dull at the same time is a mystery, to me. The plot is non-existent, even for this kind of flick. Our main character has a back-story with an evil mother and uncle that leads to the entire zombie infestation and her transformation into a half-mechanical warrior, but the scenes dealing with that are among the most boring in the entire movie. There are really no likable or interesting characters, either, which would have gone a long way towards making Helldriver easier to enjoy. It might be worth checking out for the undeniable strangeness of it all, but I still have to say I was more disappointed than pleased with Helldriver.

benjamindbennett Okay, when you go to see a so-bad-it's-good horror/zombie movie, there are a few expectations that need to be met and I could never get past the fact that the act of watching zombies getting killed wasn't amusing. Seriously. The movie used thousands of liters of blood and all too often watching it spray was not remotely funny. The movie delivers on a lot of fronts, but at the end of the day there was too much gore and weird sh*t going on and not enough hilarity and cheering on the hero on screen.When I saw the movie, it was the headliner for a horror movie film festival and by all means all of the circumstances for movie success were there, but it was just one of those ineffable things where the movie just didn't live up to the expectations.tl;dr Had potential, but not as entertaining/lighthearted as it should have been