poe426 If TETSUO and THE BODY HAMMER were anime-inspired (and, it seems to me, they clearly were), then HIRUKO THE GOBLIN appears to be more manga-esquire in its execution. It has a comic book feel from the very beginning. Eschewing the graphic gore and kinetic kinema that inform the aforementioned TETSUO twosome, Tsukamoto with HIRUKO opts instead for a more formal and less experimental approach. I won't go so far as to say that HIRUKO is by any means bland, but it certainly lacks any of the visceral visual punch that the director's earlier films boast. (Even as accomplished a filmmaker as David Cronenberg, whose earlier films certainly packed a wallop, began to mellow later in his career; and his later films, while not forgettable, were, nonetheless... less.) If you like manga or anime, or live-action anime like ZERAM, you'll like HIRUKO.

Woodyanders A crazed, gory, wonderfully absurd and furiously kinetic piece of Asian supernatural horror hokum; it's a feverishly inventive, turbo-charged, hard-driving trash terror item that's deliriously overloaded with demented imagination, wild-eyed passion, devilishly frolicsome wit and rip-roaring flair to spare. In short, it's a real pip.A brutal, lethal, nearly unstoppable all-powerful otherworldly force wreaks plentiful grisly havoc in a remote rural school, decapitating students and transforming their severed noggins into swift, deadly creatures which are jet-propelled by speedy, ultra-sinewy spider legs. Two teenage guys bravely attempt to thwart the wildly out of this world supernatural mayhem, with the expected madly disastrous full-throttle four-sheets-to-the-wind insane nerve-jangling and life-threatening results.This baby's got it all: briskly efficient pull-out-all-the-stops virtuoso direction, handsome, hyperactive vertiginous cinematography (the quick, super-smooth scuttling POV shots of the killer heads on the prowl are great), an intense, ominous, flesh-crawling mood that gradually escalates into all-out pandemonium, a few breathtaking moments of serenely surreal beauty, frenetically headlong pacing, gorgeously slick high-gloss production values, some pretty pastoral visuals, and a funny, appealing oddball nonconformist bespectacled dweeb protagonist -- he's a rogue, family-tradition-be-damned archaeologist named Hiruko, to be exact -- who's undoubtedly the best scrawny, weak-kneed, chicken-hearted limp dishrag unlikely savior of mankind since Zalman King's sweaty, constantly twitching dippy hippie dropout from "Blue Sunshine" (Hiruko's shrill, girlish screaming is especially hilarious -- and the bulky suitcase full of ineffectual state-of-the-art technological hoodads is a nice touch, too).The splashy, excessively nasty and explicit splatter f/x really deliver the ghastly groceries: Heads are messily ripped off so blood can copiously spew forth like a bright red crimson geyser, gruesome eviscerated corpses are strewn about the school's hallways, one character develops a burning (and smoking!) boil on his neck, a spider head tries to fatally French kiss one dude with its harmful elongated prehensile tongue, and other such gleefully grotesque stuff. The truly off the wall final, in which our bumbling, but stalwart heroes are attacked in a dark, dank cave by a murderous multitude of encroaching spider heads and do their best to fend off the vile beasts with cans of insect repellent (!), deftly walks a fine line between blackly comical bedlam and grimly apocalyptic horror; it induces both nervous giggly laughs and genuine scared shudders in equal proportion. A delectably deranged and enjoyably over the top gem.

cvw Unlike every other Tsukamoto film I've been able to hunt down (the two TETSUOs, GEMINI, and ROD BOY,) this film seems to be nothing more than a silly popcorn film. Nothing wrong with that, certainly, although it does raise some interesting questions about Tsukamoto's style as a director. The sped up POV running towards a character thing he did in both TETSUOs, for example, looks like an EVIL DEAD rip off here, despite the device having a completely different effect in the Tetsuo films.This feels less like a Tsukamoto work than anything else he's done, even the slowly paced art film GEMINI. Beyond that, it's basically a straight horror flick: characters find themselves in a bad situation, and spend the entire film's running time trying to get out of it and/or fix it. The elements aren't original by any stretch of the imagination (there's even a crusty, crazy old man who knows more than he's telling,) but Tsukamoto's handling of them still feels new. When someone is attacked by a goblin, the victim flashes to a peaceful, serene, but nonetheless threatening dreamworld, which (as we discover) more often than not leads to suicide.Much, much fluffier than anything else the man's done, and curious for his fans, although the uninitiated will just see a straight horror flick, albeit one better done than most. Fun stuff.

SurgeBot I found a copy of this film without the benefit of English subtitling, but was able to figure out the story... vaguely, anyway. I have been a fan of this director's work for many years, particularly the excellent TOKYO FIST, so I was very happy to find this obscure little film.It seemed at first to be much more mainstream than the rest of Tsukamoto's films, but it did have its share of bizzare scenes... It is essentially a cross between EVIL DEAD II, THE THING, and THE CHURCH... but in Japanese. Mainly enjoyable, and a must for anyone interested in this guy's work. It is very strange indeed...