Horror Feast: Sushi Typhoon

For those who don't know, Sushi Typhoon is a Japanese production company specializing in low budget horror, sci-fi & fantasy films. A collective consisting of directors Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER), Yoshihiro Nishimura (TOKYO GORE POLICE), Sion Sono (SUICIDE CLUB), Noboru Iguchi (THE MACHINE GIRL), Tak Sakaguchi (YOROI: SAMURAI ZOMBIE), Yudai Yamaguchi (BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL) and Seiji Chiba (EVIL NINJA).
If you've seen any of the movies I've just mentioned then you should have a pretty good idea of what you're in for when it comes to a Sushi Typhoon release. For those who haven't, well buckets of blood, absurd amounts of violence and cheap digital effects are the order of the day.
So without further ado, let's get into this shit.

DEADBALL (2011)

As a young child, Jubei discovers the insanely powerful force of his pitching arm when he unwittingly destroys his father's head with a baseball. Needless to say he vows never to play ball again. Cut to a few years later and Jubei is a vigilante, visiting violence upon evil-doers. He is caught and sent to a prison for juveniles which is run by a Nazi headmistress who encourages him to join the prison ball team. But their first match against the ridiculously hot and brutal Saint Black Dahlia girls reveals that this is no ordinary baseball game. Blood is what the spectators have come to see.
Exploding heads, elbow-deep cavity searches, vomit eating, Nazis and robots, this movie has it all. And the lead character Jubei (played to perfection by Tak Sakaguchi) is so awesomely cool that he can pluck lit cigarettes out of thin air any time he wants.
Sure the acting isn't great, the story either, and the special effects are cheesy as fuck, but all in all DEADBALL is a explosively fun movie with plenty of gore and humor and is very entertaining.

YAKUZA WEAPON (2011)

Tak Sakaguchi once more takes centre stage but rather than being a juvenile delinquent with a killer pitching arm, here he plays Shozo the unstoppable Yakuza killing machine. Just like Jubei in DEADBALL, Shozo is almost impossibly cool. Like so cool that he can scare landmines just by glaring at them, or catch RPGs with his bare hands, or stand in the middle of a jungle firefight smoking a cigarette while bullets go whizzing past his head. That cool.
Shozo returns to Japan after 4 years abroad to avenge the death of his father who was a big time Yakuza boss. Upon returning to his family's former headquarters he learns that his father was betrayed. Violence and action ensue. But it's not until he gets a cyborg makeover that things get really exciting. A mixture of ROBOCOP & MACHINE GIRL & that special something that only the Japanese seem to possess, YAKUZA WEAPON is over the top, non-stop action with a huge body count.

HELLDRIVER (2011)

DEADBALL and YAKUZA WEAPON may have been totally bizarre but Yoshihiro Nishimura's HELLDRIVER is on a whole other level. A meteorite has crashed in Japan, releasing a cloud of toxic ash which turns people into bloodthirsty zombies (not technically zombies but whatever). Young girl Kika leads a group charged with tracking down and killing the zombie queen - who just so happens to be her crazy, homicidal mother.
Kika carries with her a chainsaw/katana hybrid; a chainsword (not sure if that's what it's called but it's definitely what it should be called). Needless to say chainsword + zombies = lots of blood and limbs flying all over the place. Other things you will see in this strange fucking movie include a car made out of zombies (seriously), lots of exploding heads, flesh eating, and of course gallons and gallons of the red stuff. What more could you ask for?

MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD (2010)

Tak Sakaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi work together to bring forth the ridiculous insanity that is MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD. It follows young schoolgirl Rin, who on her 16th birthday discovers that she is the descendant of an ancient race of mutants known as Hilko. She sees her parents killed in front of her and is rescued and recruited by a group of Hilko who train her so that she can understand her full powers. After being sent on her first mission, Rin finds herself unable to kill innocent humans and so confronts the other Hilko. Basically this is a bloody, gory riff on the X-Men, full of lowbrow humor, cheap effects and sexy mutant schoolgirls. Their 'super powers' range from claws and tentacle arms right through to titty-swords and ass-chainsaws. And the blood, oh the blood. There is tons of the stuff. It's everywhere, raining down, splattering the camera, shooting out of limbless stumps. So much blood.

OUTPOST: BLACK SUN (2012) Review

Directed by: Steve Barker

Starring: Catherine Steadman, Richard Coyle, Clive Russell

I was more than a little disappointed with the first OUTPOST, mainly due to a lot of inconsistencies regarding the Nazi ghost/zombie/super soldiers. I was hoping these problems would be addressed in this sequel but unfortunately they weren't.

Helena (Steadman) is a Nazi hunter to put it simply. She has made it her duty to track down and kill elderly Nazi war criminals who have run and hidden under assumed names. While on a mission to track down a particularly elusive target named Klausener she becomes caught up in a much larger situation. She runs into an acquaintance named Wallace (Coyle) who is looking for a machine built by Klausener. If you've seen the first film then you'll know exactly which machine I'm talking about. If you haven't however then all you need to know is that this machine has the power to create an unstoppable army of Nazi supersoldiers. In other words it's not a very nice machine. Helena and Wallace travel to a bunker where the machine is supposed to be located and run into a group of soldiers who coincidentally are also looking for said machine. Soon they find themselves under attack from these Nazi supersoldiers and desperately need to find the machine and put a stop to it once and for all.

As I mentioned, my biggest gripe with the original OUTPOST was the inconsistencies regarding the enemies. At the beginning they were super stealthy and could teleport through locked doors etc. Then they started for some reason to get really sloppy, setting off tripwires etc. In this sequel I actually found them to be even worse. Instead of being the silent supersoldiers they started off as, they now shamble around making the cliche zombie noises and they don't really try to be stealthy at all. Also they seem to be much easier to kill in this sequel.

On a much more pleasant note, the movie at least does a good job of creating a nice dark, unsettling and claustrophobic atmosphere within the underground bunker. The acting is decent as well but when it comes to the writing I was once again disappointed. It seems that there are too many sub-plots which are merely mentioned and never followed up on. It's as though they tried to cram too much into the movie instead of just focusing on what's important. The tension which the first film had has not been successfully carried over into this sequel and there were only really a few exciting moments. If you loved the original then this is worth a watch but don't expect too much from it.

DEATHSHIP (1980) Review

Directed by: Alvin Rakoff

Starring: George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso

The first thing I noticed about this movie was that the more recent Ghost Ship (2002) pretty much ripped off the poster idea and the basic plot outline in general. They've basically cut the word Death from the poster, replaced it with Ghost and modernized the look. I hated Ghost Ship, so I didn't really expect a lot from this film at all. But I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie starts out on a large cruise ship where a big party/ball is underway. Another large ship appears on the radar and they find themselves on a collision course, so they adjust their course and continue. But the other ship also changes direction, and in fact it seems that they are trying to ram them. Eventually they collide and everything goes all fucked up. Water gushes in and the cruise ship finally sinks.
Miraculously a handful of people including the captain (isn't that bastard supposed to go down with his ship?) manage to survive and find themselves floating in the middle of the ocean in a tiny raft. Before long a large black ship approaches with a ladder lowered so of course they decided to climb aboard, but it seems to be deserted.
Weird shit starts to happen and people start dying, and the captain falls under the ship's influence and goes crazy.
Obviously the remaining survivors have to escape before they become the latest victims of the DEATHSHIP.

Pretty simple storyline really, and we've seen plenty of variations on it including not only Ghost Ship but also movies like Event Horizon. Since it takes place at sea and not in space, this is closer to the former but fortunately it's about 10 times better. At least. The one thing I enjoyed immensely was the fact that they don't try too hard to explain why the ship is haunted, by using some sort of lame backstory. You do get an idea though when it is revealed that the ship is a former Nazi interrogation boat, but it's still pretty vague and that suits me just fine.
Another aspect I liked was that the small group of survivors are all previously acquainted with each other in some way, which might not seem very likely but it does help to give them all some sort of emotional attachment to each other.
There isn't really a lot of gore, but the discovery of a torture chamber does reveal some pretty nasty looking corpses and there is a lot of blood thanks to one particular scene.
As for the acting it's actually not bad at all and George Kennedy in particular does a great job as the crazy/possessed captain. There were a pair of kids who were extremely annoying and I kept hoping that they would just fucking die already, but it surely wasn't enough to put me off the film.
I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed this movie. There was plenty of action and tense moments to keep you watching and the whole atmosphere of the ship was kind of eerie. This is definitely something I would recommend and I would have no problems with watching it again.

Horror Feast: Zombies & Nazis

Saturday was just one of those days. One of those days where I really couldn't be bothered doing anything at all. So I grabbed a six-pack and a pack of cigarettes, parked my ass on the couch and decided to just watch movies all day. I have these days every now and then, so I've decided to use them as a chance to blog and do some short mini-reviews of the movies I watch.
On today's menu: Zombies & Nazis.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)

An absolute classic. I'm sure I don't need to go into the details of the plot, so I won't. I've always been a bit unsure on how I feel about this movie. My personal idea of what a zombie should be is basically what was shown in Night of the Living Dead. A mindless, shambling, reanimated corpse which acts purely on instinct. The zombies in ROTLD are very different. They are reanimated corpses but they can talk, use tools and even formulate plans. Despite these problems however, I can't help but love this movie. The awesome soundtrack provided by bands like 45 Grave, The Cramps, TSOL and The Damned. The famous naked graveyard dance. And of course the movie gave us Tarman, who is one of the most badass zombies ever. This is one of my favorite zombie movies, and if you haven't seen it then make sure you do.

ZOMBIE LAKE (1981)

Wow. Going from ROTLD to this was a bit of a shock to the system. I'd never actually seen this before and I really hope I never have to see it again. ZOMBIE LAKE is at the opposite end of the spectrum to the previous movie, and is a strong contender for worst zombie movie ever made. It's about a bunch of Nazis who's bodies were thrown into a lake after they were killed by the French resistance. They return as zombies. I think. Basically they just look like men with a bit of patchy green paint on their faces. You can easily see some of them take a deep breath before they go underwater, and all they really seem to do is bite peoples' necks and then leave the bodies lying there. No flesh eating or brain eating. And then there's the ridiculous subplot which involves one zombie reuniting with his daughter. No joke. And I have to mention the horrible acting and of course the terrible dubbing. The only good part was all of the gratuitous female nudity. Stay far away from this.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD Part II (1988)

A military truck transports the 2-4-5 Trioxin barrels from the first film. They fall out of the back and one tumbles down into a river. Kids find the barrel, open it and unleash the Trioxin within.
Obviously this sequel was aimed at a teenage audience, which isn't good because it means there is a lot less gore than in the first movie. The inclusion of James Karen and Thom Matthews playing different characters than in the original film is pretty cool. They even refer to this fact, saying something along the lines of "I feel like we've been here before"
The soundtrack is pretty lousy (except for the inclusion of Anthrax) and there is no nudity. With basically the same storyline, you're better off watching the first movie. This sequel isn't too bad (better than Zombie Lake at least) but it's not great either.

OUTPOST (2008)

A guy hires a group of soldiers to escort him to a secret underground Nazi bunker. He promises that it will be an easy in-and-out job. But of course it isn't. They find the bunker, inside which are a bunch of bodies and one survivor. Before long they find themselves under attack from an unknown enemy. It turns out that the bunker houses a machine which the Nazis developed to create a race of unstoppable zombie/ghost/ghoul soldiers.
It's a good concept, but poorly executed. The inconsistencies in the enemy were terrible. At one point they can sneak in and out completely unseen, walk through locked doors and never set of a single trip wire or claymore. Then suddenly towards the end they come bumbling down to the bunker, tripping all of the wires and can't get through the locked doors. What the fuck? Apart from that it is a fairly good film and I believe there is a sequel on the way. Let's hope they address the problems from the first movie.

SHOCK WAVES (1977)

I'd never seen this before, but Peter Cushing? John Carradine? Nazi zombies? How could it possibly be bad?
A small group of vacationers are taking a boat trip around a group of islands. Suddenly out of nowhere comes a massive ship and sideswipes the small boat. They end up stranded on a reef with a damaged hull and when daylight comes they find themselves not too far out from an island. The island is inhabited by Peter Cushing who was a Nazi commander in charge of the 'Death Corps", a group of undead soldiers which can survive underwater. The undead soldiers return to the island and slowly start killing everybody off.
I was a bit disappointed. There was basically no gore, the zombies didn't look undead enough and Peter Cushing's German/British accent was terrible. It's a fun movie, but not a must-see.