2006 (Japan)
Contains spoilers.
Now that's how you
do a zombie film if you've little to no budget and little to no restraint.
Forget keeping things sane or simple; the one thing clear from the batshit
crazy opening from director Naoyuki Tomomatsu's zombie opus, is we're in for
quite the ride.
You see, some aliens
have crash landed their ufo in the forest at the foot of Mount Fuji throwing out
green radiation which has reanimated the dead. Three disparate groups get
caught up in the ensuing mayhem, cross paths and try to survive. It could
easily happen.
If the premise
sounds simple the delivery is anything but. Zombie Self-Defence force is a
tour-de-force of madcap, over-the-top, total top drawer nonsense film making.
Tomomatsu has recognised the inherent ludicrousness and absurdity of the zombie
and just run with it, fully capturing the essence of what makes such great
audaciously stupid gore comedies such Dead Alive or Evil Dead II, work, albeit
on a smaller, cheaper scale. Never afraid he might be going to far and never
stopping to show restraint he's produced a film so intrinsically bad one will
either love or loath it. It'll be either, turn it off with a shake of the head
before the opening sequence has passed, or do what I did and get with the
program, and join in with the laughs.
It really is a
stupid film. Zombies, zombie embryo/babies, aliens, ancient spirits of world war 2 heroes,
cyborgs; it's got it all. At heart though it is still a zombie
film, and Tomomatsu demonstrates respect to the medium throughout, poking fun at
the absurdity of the subject rather than the subject itself, and it's this
which allows it all to work. However ludicrous the story gets or how stupid the
action, the cohesiveness of it all stays tight and the central vision and gusto of the film stays on point. Of course
with such a so-bad-it's-good story you need an accompanying range of
exaggerated characters. Whether it's the small rather sensible Japanese defence
force, the prima donna Idol Hitomi (Mihiro Taniguchi), the camp Yakuza, or the
quite insane adulterer and homeowner the group find themselves huddled up with,
they're all pitched and played to perfect b-movie perfection.
The zombies are
proper reanimates. They can be momentarily stopped with headshots but whether
their head's been removed or their brains have been shot out they'll soon be
back up and back on the trail for flesh. Despite the low budget Tomomatsu has
taken every care to make them appear gruesome, gratuitous, comical and most
importantly authentic as possible and they actually come across well. He's also made clever use of speeding and slowing up the
film to make their movements appear spasmodic, jagged, and unnatural; and it's all quite effective. Never one to avoid a joke, and never one to avoid a little
zombie-fan service the film is full of subtle in-jokes and references to the
rich zombie cinematic back catalogue with many scenes the direct parody of fan favourites.
It's also never afraid to go truly over the
top with the blood and gore in the ever increasingly gratuitous fights and
deaths in true Dead Alive style. Demonstrating inventiveness and an eye for the absurd the blood always sprays a little too much and the deaths can be feel a contrived and set-up but it all adds to the experience. I've come to always expect a little titillation and fan service with my Japanese horror these days and it doesn't disappoint though, and this is with great relief, here it's actually quite restrained and if anything a little parodied itself.
Zombie Self-Defence
force will either be a film you love or hate; you'll either get the joke or be
appalled by it. A proper Friday night, couple of cans of beer, leave the
brain-at-the-door experience; it's a truly atrocious zombie film but one choc
full of fun and charm. I honestly can't remember laughing this hard for a while though I'm still not totally sure whether this was at it or with
it. Crass and tasteless; a stupid, STUPID film I totally admire, 7/10.
WTD.
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