Tokyo Zombie (2005) 1h 43m

I picked this film up at the one, and only, horror convention that has happened here in New Orleans since we moved here almost seven years ago.  You would think that New Orleans would have more horror stuff but mostly it's just lame Anne Rice shit.  Anyway, Tokyo Zombie has been on my to-watch list even prior to owning it.  I just never had the chance to get a copy of it until then, and then it sat on my shelf since then as well.

I will never feel bad about my
comics ever again.

Based off of a manga, I can only describe Tokyo Zombie as a live-action anime if they were still trying to make it as anime as fuck.  The film itself is actually broken into two sections.  The first half focuses on Fujio and Mitsuo, two guys that spend most of their time fucking around on mattresses with Mitsuo teaching Fujio jujitsu.  Outside is a large pile of buried trash (and bodies) known as Black Fuji for it's immense size.  When zombies begin to come out of it and eat people our duo decides to take their work truck and attempt to flee to Russia.  Instead Mitsuo gets "bit" and throws himself off a bridge and into the river below.  We're given a brief animated segue where we learn that the world has become this strange Hunger Games-esq land of upper class and slums and the only way to gain a measure of respect was in a zombie fighting arena.  Fujio uses his learned jujitsu to decimate his zombie opponents until he finally has to face off against a "zombie" Mitsuo.  Also there is apparently some strange revolution or Mad Max style raiders that exist here too.

Tokyo Zombie felt like I was watching a Japanese game show.  There were a lot of moments where the humor tried to be too absurd and you're expected to laugh along but it just didn't reach me.  The only solid comparisons I could give would be if you take Kung-Fu Hustle and put the Three Stooges as the main characters.

Now that I've said that, I'm okay with Tokyo Zombie, but that's it.  Just okay.  I'm concerned that I came into this expecting something else though so rather than complain about how this wasn't what I wanted I'm just going to say that I plan to revisit this again at another point and give it a fair shot now that I know what I'm getting into.  So I'm going to do something different here and I'm going to suspend my rating of this film.  In the future I will re-watch it and give it an honest go.

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (1995) 1h 20m

Ever since I bought this film, I continually forget that I own it.  I wasn't even looking for it when I was searching for a film to watch, it just happened to be in the same binder as tomorrow's film and I found it first.  So what does that say about Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness, aside from that title is too long?

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (or Eko Eko as I'm going to call it from now on) opens with a satanic cult using magic to kill teenagers.  Their apparent goal is to take the lives of 13 innocent teens in order to bring Lucifer to Earth to do whatever.  This film is really vague on what the end goal is here so we get: Step 1: Kill Teens, Step 2: Summon Lucifer, Step 3: ????, Step 4: Profit!  At the end of their opening ritual they get a warning about a strong witch coming that they should not make an enemy of.  Enter Misa, said teenage witch that ends up trapped in the school with 13 other students and two perverted teachers.  Her goal is to find the head person behind the killings and prevent the rise of Lucifer as this is apparently all she does in each school she goes to.

I forgot this happened.

Eko Eko had this weird feeling to it, like it never sat quite right with me.  It looks like it was just a made-for-tv-movie and its short running time (at least compared to most J-horror films) only bolsters that sentiment.  The plot is relatively straight forward and some of the set-up and magick effects look okay but you can tell that this was most likely made for a PG-13 audience.  This isn't to say that films under an R rating are bad, just that in this case it all feels a bit immature.

Eko Eko was based off of a manga from the 70's and apparently spawned six fucking sequels and a short television series.  I don't know how I feel about that info.  I would like to go back and read the manga for a comparison just to see if they toned things down or if this was always as tame as I perceive it.  You know, because I perceive the magickal murder of teenagers in order to invoke the rising of Lucifer to be a mundane task.

I give Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness 2 I-no from Guilty Gear out of 5:

Helldriver (2010) 1h 57m

If you haven't noticed by now, this week I'm going through my J-Horror collection and reviewing those things that I bought mainly because they looked cool.  Surprisingly, I only just realized that a majority of these films that I own have something to do with Tokyo Shock (The Asiatic cinema/television focus of the larger company, Media Blasters).  It makes sense though since most of my favorites have high powered blood sprays, lots of action, and insane creature design.  So with that fresh in your brain, let's jump into Helldriver!

Kika's home life isn't ideal. She comes home one day to find her mother and uncle eating her still living father.  During her escape attempt a meteor crashes through the mother's chest but her mom pulls Kika's heart out to replace her now missing one.  At the same time, the meteor was an alien which takes over the mother and encases her in some sort of amber-like shield.  Kika is thrown to the side but not before she gets the same shielding.  The mother than shoots space spores into the air which turn those that breath it in into zombies with strange fungal antenna on their forehead (like ophiocordyceps unilateralis in ants).  Kika is rescued and turned into a cyborg (although they say android here) with a metal chest plate and a chainsaw katana.  She and a small group of sudden friends attempt to take out this zombie queen and save the world.

Look at this Silent Hill shit!

All the things I love with these Japanese hyper-gore films are present here.  There's a lot of blood, intense action scenes, absurd and nonsensical things that only work for this movie (ie. a car made out of zombie body parts), and the overall feeling of not taking itself too seriously where it would ruin the film.  If I had any real complaint with Helldriver then it would be my usual gripe about pacing.  I was about 45 minutes into it before the title card appeared which made me feel like the whole first half of the film was meant to be an intro to the latter half, and in a way it really was.  We have so much time spent establishing our characters and the world that, when we get to the heart of the matter, doesn't really need to exist.  It's like playing an RPG and you have to grind for a few hours before you're even able to leave the first section and get to the actual adventure.

Helldriver is really a niche film.  This isn't something I could just drop on a friend and tell them to check it out without advanced knowledge of their cinema tastes.  In this case, it would have to taste like blood... a fire hose of blood all yelling at you in Japanese.

I give Helldriver 2 zombie ants out of 5:

Wild Zero (1999) 1h 38m

Holy shit, Wild fucking Zero!  I picked this up a few months ago at the yearly anime/J-culture convention.  There's one booth that is 90% anime sets but if you walk around to the side of the table they have a stack of movies and weird shit for you to sort through.  This has been on my list to get for a while now as I never had the chance to see it but I knew about it through the early 00's Pittsburgh punk scene.

Wild Zero has a lot going on in it so bare with me.  We start with a bunch of spaceships approaching the earth.  While that's happening a meteor crashes into a town and zombies begin to overrun it, a la Night of the Living Dead.  At the same time, we meet Ace, a Guitar Wolf fan that idolizes their rock n' roll machismo.  When Ace stumbles into a stand-off between Guitar Wolf and a club manager he stands up for rock n' roll only to get knocked out.  After Guitar Wolf shoots the fingers off the manger (while Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf comb their hair) he creates a rock n' roll blood brother pact with Ace and gives him a whistle to call Guitar Wolf if Ace ever needs them.  The next day Ace inadvertently stops a robbery where he meets his new love interest, Tobio.  Zombies attack, the club manager is attempting to track down Guitar Wolf for revenge, and the alien invasion eventually begins... and it's all turned up to 11.  ROCK N' ROLL!

Fuckin' right on, Guitar Wolf!

After watching Wild Zero, this film is definitely in my top 10 all-time favorites, maybe even top five but I'd have to spend more time than I want thinking about that right now.  For a movie that came out in 1999, it's surprisingly progressive.  It takes all the things that I personally like about punk and rock, n' roll and rather than pushing the say, Motley Crue model of excess, it pushes this acceptance of everyone in the name of rock n' roll.  It's almost like it's a polytheistic lifestyle, elevated above everyday life.  Are Guitar Wolf gods?  Is this their bible?!  I'd go to church if it were just going in and having the word "rock n' roll" shouted at me from a microphone that shot flames!

This movie is hands down amazing.  There's a drinking game on the disc as well if you're into that.  If you are, then just do so responsibly.  Drunk driving is not rock n' roll!

I give Wild Zero 5 copies of Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll out of 5:

Ju-On: White Ghost Black Ghost (2009) 1h 1m / 1h

In the rivalry between the two, I prefer Ju-On over Ringu.  Maybe it's because Kayako has the additional striker of the small semi-naked child that just makes cat noises which gives her the advantage to topple Sadako, or the fact that I just find the entire concept of a Ju-On much more frightening than a well ghost creeping on you with outdated media.  Either way,  I've owned this for longer than I'd like to admit after claiming to be a fan of something.  Also, post script to this, I've had Shudder for like two years and still haven't watched Sadako vs. Kayako, but that's mainly because I watch so many horror movies for this website.

Why must you haunt me cursed ghost?!

White Ghost Black Ghost is actually two separate films.  White Ghost kicks things off with someone that I refer to as Sentai Sanata (due to his clothes and motorcycle) delivering a Christmas cake to the Ju-Oh house.  After a short time he realizes the woman interacting with him is actually acting on a loop and his investigation of the house causes him to find the bodies of a murdered family before finding the Ju-On spirit.  In this case it's an older woman holding a basketball because she's about to bring the Shaq Attack and dunk all over his ass!  Actually you find out why later but she does have a basketball each time she appears.  The rest of this film jumps around in regards to the characters and their spot in the timeline.  It leaves you a bit bewildered at first until you begin connecting the threads.

Black Ghost focuses on a young girl in the hospital.  Following in White Ghost's steps with an erratic time line, we find that after an episode where the girl freezes, screams until the Kayako noise comes from her mouth, and then face plants, her parents are concerned for her health.  Her father checks on her only for her to grab his right hand and say "you killed a woman with this hand."  It was an awesome moment.  Most of this is focused on trying to find out what is wrong with the girl but when we learn what is wrong with her and how it gets handled it makes this the far superior of the two films.

I have a ton of notes on White Ghost Black Ghost, a lot of which is me popping off at different moments with "OMFG!" or "That's fuckin' rad!"  It helps to come into these knowing the previous two films.  Kayako is absent from both but I like that since it allows us to apply the Ju-On curse to anyone that dies in a rage, not just this one specific individual.  It also prevents the staleness that can happen with the "slasher" genre where screenwriters attempt to break things up with a fake Jason or an evil Halloween mask company.

If you could only watch one of these, then I would say to definitely watch Black Ghost, but both are pretty great.

I give Ju-On White Ghost Black Ghost 5 oni masks out of 5:

Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld (2015) 2h

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! If there's one thing I love it's over the top Japanese horror.  It's strange then that this film comes to us from Argentina because if you switched out the Spanish for Japanese then I would have assumed this was 100% Japan A-Number-One!  Most of my notes for this movie start with "HOLY FUCK" or "OH SHIT" and then end in exclamation points, so let's get into it.

Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld is a mix of the supernatural and modern-apocalyptic cyberpunk.  That's a lot to take in, but trust me, that's the only way I can describe it.  A wizard is hired by some military operation to summon a demon in order to make a trade for power.  The wizard does it but the leader of the group chose not to follow the instructions he was given.  This leads to the demon (looking like a mix between Mumra and the offspring of Darth Maul and a sand person) killing almost everyone, but making a deal with one survivor named Razor.  Razor becomes a powerful man but has four bodyguards created in order to protect him from the return of the Demon to collect Razor's life.  The wizard is being hunted, Razor is a military tyrant, and demons are controlled by humans with sick shit like gatling guns for arms.

This movie has everything!  Great make-up so that each of the demons on screen is different, katana fights, Japanese rope bondage, school girl outfits, and a final fight straight out of a manga with rad dive kicks and Ora! Ora! Ora! punches!  The costuming varies from Shadowrun to Colonial America and everything in between.  I've never had two hours fly by as fast as they did with this film and I would've wasted another hour taking everything this film had to give.

The plot is a bit of a loose thread.  It could easily unravel the whole thing but luckily no one pulls on it so we still get a cohesive story.  Besides, when you're watching people explode and sick fight scenes then it doesn't matter!

 I give Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld 5 Gendo Ikari's out of 5:

Gantz:O (2016) 1h 35m

Here's something new to the 30 Days of Plight.  I've covered live action films of manga/anime with the Netflix Deathnote film, I talked about the anime inspired Castlevania series in my Choice Cuts, but now we get a CG film based on a manga/anime.  I just need a legit video game movie to pop up now.  Maybe one of the three Resident Evil animated films... which I own on blu-ray... shut up!  I like them!

Gantz:O is like watching an hour and a half video game cutscene (I'm looking at you Kojima!).  After Kato is stabbed and killed by some psycho in the train station he wakes up in an apartment with four other individuals and a large black orb known as the Gantz.  In this version of Japan some people die only to resurrect as part of a game where they battle real life monsters in order to gain points.  If a player collects 100 points in a round then they are granted a "wish" where they can get a special weapon, bring back a dead teammate, or be set free from the game and never have to play again.  Kato needs to survive, not only for himself but for his younger brother he cares for.

This is my first exposure to anything Gantz.  I knew of it, but never what Gantz's plot was.  After watching this though I definitely want to check out at least the manga.  I was afraid the use of CGI was going to detract from the film.  Luckily the CGI is just lifelike enough that your mind is kind of tricked into thinking it's live action.  This is in opposition to other similar films such as Advent Children.  Keep in mind though that Gantz:O is years later than Advent Children so technology has only improved.  The creature design for Gantz was impressive, with a great collection of creatures inspired by Japanese mythology with parts swapped out like custom action figures.

I will say that certain plot lines get confusing with this, especially when it comes to the very end.  I had to look up interpretations online but this just left me with more questions as this timeline apparently takes place after Kato's second death and he has no recollection of his prior time in the game.  These elements don't detract from the movie though and even the ending part could be read as set-up for a sequel.

I give Gantz:O 3 Onna Nue out of 5:

Temple (2017) 1h 18m

Horror films have taught me many things over the course of my life.  One thing is that children are most likely all ghosts or the devil.  Just because that creature was "born" doesn't make up for the fact that there were a solid nine months where you had no idea what it was really doing in there.  I've seen sonogram images that look like that thing is summing all the powers of the dark lord into him!  Seriously! Do you have multiple children?  Well then one is a ghost and one is Satan, or they're both the ghost of Satan, I don't know.  I don't have kids!

The Temple takes us to Japan where white people act like entitled assholes and can't take "no" or "not for sale" for an answer.  A woman finds an old journal in a used book store but when she attempts to buy it the shop owner tells her that the book is cursed, not for sale, and kicks them out and closes up shop.  If this isn't a sign of "don't fuck with that book," I don't know what is.  Of course, one of the men with her goes back to find a small boy in the shop and buys the book from him (red flag #2).  He stops at a ramen stand where he is told by the chef and the other patron to not go to the temple in the journal (red flags #3 & 4), but one of them still tells him where the temple is.  So guess where these people all go the next day?  This plot is trash.

I was really hoping for something great when this film started but it took me down a long and lonely road of boredom.  I held no sympathy for any of these people because they're all trash and multiple levels.  It's the deepest trash I've ever seen.  An ocean of trash.  The only thing that caught my attention was maybe three to five seconds long and it was the guardian spirit of the temple coming to life and attacking one of the men.  The rest of this film can be shot into the sun for all I care.

I give Temple 0 dumpsters out of 5:

Death Note (2017) 1h 41m

I knew this day would come.  I fucking knew it!  I just hoped that it would be much later than this, and on Halloween of all days!  So I've read all of the original Death Note manga, saw all of the anime, and own two of the three Japanese films (Death Note and Death Note II, but not L Saved the World).  When Netflix said they were going to make their own movie based on Death Note it was met with some excitement and some skepticism.  Then it came out and all I heard about it was that it was trash upon trash.  So how does this really measure up?

If you're unfamiliar with the premise, Death Note is about an ultra intelligent teenage boy named Light.  He finds a notebook labeled as a "Death Note" and a list of rules inside of how to use it.  The book itself belongs to a Shinigami (death god) named Ryuk who acts as an influencer and voyeur to Light's use of the Death Note.  After donning the name "Kira" (an indirect form of the word "killer" in Japanese), Light uses the Death Note in a self-conceived notion of global morality by eliminating criminals.  A special operative, another teenage boy of extreme intelligence, known only as L is put on the case to flush out Kira.

That pretty much sums up what is maybe the first quarter of the original story and more info than you're given for the entirety of this film.  If you know nothing at all about Death Note then you might like this film.  If you know even the slightest bit about Death Note then you know this is a bastardization of the source material set in America.  I could go on and on about why this wasn't good, but those reviews already exist so I'll jump to the two things I did like about this.  First, Ryuk (and more importantly Willem Dafoe's voice acting) was a shining star in the black void of this film.  The lines were dead on, the look was great, and Willen Dafoe fucking kills it with his laughs and line deliveries.  Second, this version of L was much more proactive than the original.  He took risks that were out of character for L, but it made him a bit more interesting.  It doesn't help that I'm not really a fan of L in the manga/anime and much prefer Near, but with this film you have no clue what I'm talking about.

So is this movie the turd sandwich people say it is?  Ehhhh... Like I said, if you have even flipped through the manga then you know this movie is trash.  Although, for people that have no clue about Death Note, maybe this will be their gateway into the real thing, or maybe it will be their intro to manga and anime.  So I can't really shit on that.  Kids still get into metal based on new Metallica albums.  If it leads to them finding good metal or visiting the old Metallica albums, then good for them.  Metal up your ass...

I give Death Note 1 apple out of 5 (in honor of Willem Dafoe's Ryuk):