Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - review

2016 (UK / France / Germany / South Africa / Canada / Japan / Australia / USA)

2017 Sony Pictures Blu-ray R(Free)

Contains mild spoilers.

  

Well it's been a long ride for Alice (Milla Jovovich). Resuscitated with memory loss, attacked without mercy by the scourge of the undead and their corporate overlords, then over the decade hunted and beset by all the increasingly monstrous and depraved super mutants that director Paul W. S. Anderson could conceive. She's been shot, stabbed, sliced, diced and blown from the sky. She's been cloned, watched good friends die, learnt the dark secrets of her past and witnessed the world she knew torn a sunder. To say she's due a break is an understatement but with this instalment, it would appear Anderson might just be finally letting us, and her, enjoy some kind of rest to the madness.

Over the ten years and six chapters we've slowly but surely witnessed a profound cinematic transition to style over narrative, characters, or any real attempt at substance. It's as if someone gave control of the crazy dial to a young excitable boy and then kept ploughing him with coke long after he'd definitely had enough. From a gritty, claustrophobic and earnest debut, success turned into cash, then into budget, and finally unfettered approval to bring life to the most fantastical scenes and effects, and thus did story, congruence and any concerns for character arcs, in turn, fall to the way side. Part five was the epitome of action surplus; a cacophony of battles and over the top and never-ending lunacy that failed utterly to actually be engaging or rewarding precisely because of this deficit accrued. With The Final Chapter I'd argue that while the giddy young fella seems relieved from his sugar purgatory, this is for all intents and purposes the grand finale, and as such, why is there a want to temper things now. Whilst one can see a whisper of desire to return with Alice and the entourage to Racoon City, and to the intimacy and cinematic authenticity of where and when it all began, there's too much water under the bridge; too much superficial silliness to ever really think they could.

By now we understand that it's not the gold star action and cinematic wizardry that will let a Resident Evil film down but the downtime, the moments of peace between the double back flip, the Matrix style kung-fu, or the triple barrelled shot gun into the giant toothy flying mutant of doom (I think a Kipepeo). Yet I've seen The Final Chapter come in for a lot of criticism about how it's all been cut and spliced together. Ultimately I think it comes down to personal taste, as I didn't mind the frantic and chaotic shaky cam approach; in many ways recognising it as a nod to the perils and confusion of war. The fact that so much of it was shot in near darkness however, I did, especially as Anderson to his credit does manage to return the simple un-mutated zombie back to the forefront for a large swathe of the film, and it would have been nice if we could have really seen them in all their glory.

Another recurring problem I have by now, is Alice's invulnerability. I'm all for the epic hero, the Thor or Beowulf blessed by the Gods with incredible fortune as well as strength, but as all about her fall and as buildings tumble, one never get the feeling, not for one second, that's she's actually in any real danger. The problem with winning the no-win scenario, is how do you follow it but with an equally implausible one. It's the magicians conundrum. Day one it's escaping from a box, Day 100, it's escaping from a box suspended over the Grand Canyon, on fire with a rat in your underpants. Watching Alice, yet again dancing with the big Resident Evil brute +1, or the next CGI enhanced video game inspired super boss, there's nothing really new, never any real tension and no tangible threat. Yet again, dare I say, it's all a tad stale and insipid, and no, adding another rat or maybe a cat to the pants won't ever really fix the fundamental problem.

The Final Chapter isn't as bad Retribution but that would have been a hard thing to have accomplished. At least here there is a semblance of a narrative to make sense of the carnage, even it deviates on what we've been told before, and makes a mockery of all the heroes and villains that have come together to give her a final send-off, with what in effect are short meaningless cameos. Through in truth, if anyone is really watching Resident Evil for any semblance of a coherent narrative or intelligent by this point, they're way off the mark. With action this undeniably good I'd be hard pressed to say there isn't something of merit watching Milla's perfect death bringing choreography, or any of the big picture perfect explosions; and I did find some nostalgia in the final scenes despite them ending up an insulting mockery. So as I said, better than the last, but I had very low expectations - 4/10.

Steven@WTD.

Lust of the Dead 2 - review

2013 (Japan)

2014 Tokyo Shock DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

  

If I wasn't already on a list, after importing and watching part 2 of director and co-writer Naoyuki Tomomatsu's sleazy  and horrendously b-movie soft-porn zombie nonsense I almost certainly am now. Excessive, misogynist and exploitative Lust of the Dead 2, or Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead 2 is everything that's wrong and shady with this odd little particular porn niche. It's a cheap one trick pony relying on the fun and games of horny rather than hungry and the willingness of actresses to show some flesh whatever the reason; and yet for such nonsensical zombie bunkum, it has to be said, the original origin narrative is surprisingly fleshed out and almost coherent, there is a semi-legit story being told and some of the audacious and stupidly bad set pieces and gore is surprisingly entertaining.

Following the events of Lust of the Dead, Tokyo really is now the post-apocalyptic wet-dream; a smouldering ruined city-scape with desperate isolated survivors hiding from the now grotesque, charred and mutated men that survived the nuclear blast. Two such figures are Shinji and Maki who hungry and scared are at least safe in their apartment and able to celebrate their anniversary, with love, candles and wine. That is, of course, until zombie-penis-boy bursts in, rips off her top and panties, fondles her breasts then gets himself ready for a good ol' rape. Any hope this wouldn't just be succeeding the first in premise and setting alone is immediately quashed. Tomomatsu's Lust of the Dead 2 is the story of desperate women rallying together, of scientists scrambling to find answers, of a world torn asunder, but it's still a silly little one with otaku virgins forming a cult to take revenge on all the women who humiliated them, daft American robots with laser eyes, flamethrower mouths and perfect breasts, and an opportunity to screen a lot of half naked women and indulge an obvious public groping fetish.

If you don't remember, I'll refresh. For some reason; a meteor, the ozone hole, or even some evolutionary Gaia reason all men have become infected with a bacteria that removes any and all imperative other than to have sex with any and all women. I say all men; it's really only dokyun aka successful, sporty, normal that turn, with otaku aka manga, idol, anime, loners and virgins that while infected can somehow keep their urges dormant. Lust of the Dead 2 elaborates, explaining otaku are safe because in many ways they're the modern samurai; their years of abstinence and screen watching, actually a zen like philosophical conditioning akin to Bodhidharma's nine years of wall gazing. They're actually the enlightened ones. They're also quite a terrifying nonsensical bunch of losers and though I believe their ignorance, justified violence and deplorable objectification of 3D women (as in not on screen, ala real) is by design and a deliberate parody, like the first, there's always a line of dialogue or a particular sequence that makes you think you really ought to stop laughing along.

Gone are the randy little Japanese business men, instead in the aftermath of the blast, they're replaced with giant penis wielding monstrosities that appear more comical than frightening. Though it's never been a film anyone involved ever intended to be considered horror, for a film about rape and death it's incredibly light and frivolous. With the otaku now the main threat there is less rape; but what there is perhaps more graphic, though maybe my memories of the first have been deliberately purged (or repressed). The soft-porn has definitely upped a notch and titillation has now upped a base and it's no longer just jiggly boobs, but hands in pants, touching and obvious stimulation. I should also mention the obligatory and utterly incongruous lesbian and masturbation scenes, which as obviously uncomfortable and strained the actresses look, are equally awkward to watch.

Both men and women do a good job with what's obviously a mediocre b-movie script that's entirely driven by the porn scenes, and even the painfully drawn and staged backdrop they're forced to work with for all outdoor shots. In fact the two long sequences where there actually isn't any 'action' are painfully paced and entirely tedious. Half way through, there's an attempted philosophical diatribe, with added aesthetic twinkle, that tries to explain all the otaku bull, but more criminal is a brilliantly staged conversation, ala The Return of the Living Dead, with a genuinely good and graphic prosthetic zombie carcass with semi-detached head, but impressive erection, and a primal insight into the caveman brain, yet ends with appalling cognisant justification with nonsense about gender ratios and the relatively recent judicial outlawing of mans natural right to take any woman he wants, whenever he wants.

And then it was all over. You see Lust of the Dead 2 was shot with Lust of the Dead 3. I say shot with; I think the actual phrasing would be Lust of the Dead 2 was filmed then cut in half with some bright spark thinking two sixty odd minute films with nothing cut would be better, financially, than a single well edited entry, thus explaining the poor pacing and the overly drawn out exposition we're subjected to throughout. A soft-porn monster movie no one thought we'd ever want or need, Lust of the Dead 2 is brazen with its desires and painfully honest with its execution. Now with parts 4 and 5 finished it's obviously a niche somebody wants to see and though I did have moments of fun I do rather find the whole rape fetish, as trivially, and justifiably played with as it is, uncomfortable and unsettling. Still, it's not a film I can honestly say is possible to take too seriously and I'm not going to end the review with a moral lecture. It is what it is and I do actually now want to see how the story ends, so it must have done something right - 4/10

Steven@WTD.

Big Tits Zombie (The Big Tits Dragon) - review

2010 (Japan)

2010 Terracotta Distribution DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

Now either Big Tits Zombie, or The Big Tits Dragon, or Kyonyū Dragon if we're to look to its manga source and original Japanese title, is a remarkable spaghetti zombie mash-up, perfectly capturing this particular goofy horror soft-porn niche to deliver an audaciously explosive hour fifteen of in your face unmissable fun and frolics; or it's possibly the most vacuous pile of bafflingly incompetent tosh I've had the misfortune to sit through. And though I can certainly appreciate writer and director Takao Nakano's enthusiasm in his two minutes introduction, and his wish for us to sit back and mindlessly laugh our way through his 'zombies fighting a sexy girl with a chainsaw' (his words) epic, I'm definitely leaning towards the latter position.

I do have a problem though. Despite all the short-comings; the horrendous effects and choreography, the random, entirely superficial and inconsequential story, the puerile jokes and infantile school boy obsession with boobies, I did have fun. It's also, given its title, not quite as bad as I expected with less of the obsessive fan service and none of the age-inappropriate exploitation I've come to expect. Sure leading ladies Lena Jodo (played by Japanese adult film star Sola Aoi) and Ginko (Risa Kasumi) share two scenes where tops are lost and cameras zoom in, and it's all bikinis, hot pants and tight tops; but really, I was expecting a lot more and I'm thinking the scenes as they are, were just probably in to satisfy contracts. This review is going to give me a problem.

There is an attempt at a story but I'm not sure Nakano, the actors, actresses, and for that matter us viewers were ever to take it that seriously. Lena joins a backwater strip bar and together with Ginko and three other girls they uncover a strange door that leads to forgotten cellar, the Well of Souls and The Book of the Dead. Maria (Mari Sakurai), one of the dancers, with a darker temperament and gothic leanings decides to take it on herself to dive into the 16th century medieval tomb, read a few incantations and open up the gates of hell for a new global age of the dead. Already some forty minutes in, and remember this is only a 73 minute film, it then falls to Lena and Ginko to single-handedly kick, punch, slash and swipe their way through the undead horde and save the world.

Neither Lena or Ginko or the actresses playing them have obviously ever thrown a punch in their lives. The distance between thrust and each zombie extra's dramatic collapse is comically large and exaggerated; yet moments later armed with chainsaw and katana we're suddenly expected to believe they possess the swordplay prowess of Alice, some three films in. I get it's all rather silly and in truth none of this matters; cohesion and integrity were left formally at the door; it's just all a bit overly amateurish. It's all also not helped by the fact that other than few tight skirmishes, what we have in truth is a single location zombie shindig recut and rehashed three times; once at the start and twice near the end. Add some vagina fire breathing, a goofy tentacle zombie mutation scene complete with obvious string, and a bafflingly eccentric supporting cast including Blue Ogre, a department manager from Hell and I really felt the film became more absurd and surreal the longer it went on; as if Nakano and all involved increasingly gave less of a shit how it all turned out.

BTZ is a comically atrocious film; but the thing is it not only knows it, but it does play it up. I think anyway; I could be wrong but that would be truly terrifying. As said, it's b-movie film making at its brazen best, with no redeeming qualities other than to be infuriatingly enjoyable. Not immensely enjoyable, but enough that despite telling yourself repeatably you will turn it off in five minutes you'll suddenly find yourself staring with disbelief as the credits roll. Look, it's a rubbish film but from the title and cover you already know that; you should also be under no illusion about exactly what sort of film it's likely to be, and I'll reiterate, yes, it's every bit as bad. And yet, sometimes a film is fun because it's so bad; so audaciously stupid you can't look away; I'm still torn and I'm sure I'll take some flak for this but… 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

Resident Evil: Damnation - review

2012 (Japan)

2012 Sony Pictures Home Ent Blu-ray R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

  

Right. Resident Evil: Damnation, the CGI follow up to 2008's animated snooze-fest Resident Evil: Degeneration, and not to be confused with the increasingly contrived and style over substance live action nonsense fused together by Paul W.S. Anderson and wife Milla Jovovich. And I wasn't optimistic. I'll be honest, I really struggled with Degeneration. I found it hard to digest, so utterly lacking in joy and life that it took me three sittings and a lot of caffeine to actually get through it at all. It's wasn't bad per se, with better than average animation and a competent, if utterly derivative story; it was just that the experience was akin to watching a long scripted and rather tedious video game being played out by someone else. Now, while that feeling hasn't been completely shaken off with this second outing, I'm pleased to report that things have significantly improved in all other areas.

It's another elaborate and overly complicated Resident Evil story with big corporations, corrupt politicians and nefarious overlords with questionable motives and methods; where everyday Joe's are quashed in the millions and the fate of mankind rests on the shoulders of the few or the one. This time we're in Eastern Europe, in the made up country of Eastern Slav Republic, the questionable baddy is President Svetlana Belikova (voiced by Wendee Lee), her motive is to seize the oil rich parts of the country controlled by the rebels, and her means is by playing with BOW's, Bio-Organic Weapons, of course. This is also where Leon S. Kennedy (Matthew Mercer), a t-virus specialist and  hard as f investigator and our hero, comes in.

What differentiates director Makoto Kamiya's second directorial Resident Evil offering is simply put, the quality of the story and the writing. There's no derivative zombie tale, no cobbled together series of scenes to show-case increasingly lavish effects, but a real desire to present something both coherent and cohesive, and to treat both viewer and source material with some respect. At the outset there's no clear good or bad; things aren't so binary and simplistic and Kamiya confidently captures the full ambiguity and confusion of a country caught up in civil war with both sides resorting to increasingly desperate and morally-dubious tactics to win. Thing's are also kept fresh and interesting because we're not subjected to half an hour of slow contrived suspense driven build up, but thrown straight in, and expected, after some six films and six plus video games to have half an idea of about zombies, the Plaga mutations, and everything else this crazy world is able to throw at us. 

Resident Evil: Damnation is as expected, full of action with lavish and outlandish CG fights, but also has perfectly spaced interludes. Kamiya truly has the pacing down, and he even manages to make the many heavily scripted and choreographed combat scenes, which in the past have so easily becomes chores to watch, feel inventive and on point. Even the long and excessive final boss encounter was broken up in such a way as to not out stay its welcome; in fact, that it was the last big fight was lost on me until it was actually over, and to say that's a departure from Degeneration is quite the under-statement. It's also worth mentioning that the CG is at times breathtaking realistic, and dare I say beautiful, with detailed textures and ridiculous attention to detail. There are times though that the illusion is lost; perhaps things are too perfect or contrived or there was less rendering or something technical, but over-all it's never a distraction.

Damnation is Capcom's Resident Evil and true to the video-games, not the live action films, and as such it always will have, and probably should have, a 'gamey' feel. Unlike Degeneration though, here it subtly guides aesthetic and narrative rather than consuming and dictating, and thus avoids that long laboured cut-scene feel. Also taking its cues from the games the zombies are really just the opening fodder to get you used to the game mechanics with the Lickers, Majini, and increasingly outlandish bio-engineered monstrosities, in this instance, several leather clad Tyrants, the real danger once things really kick off. For a good hour though these snarling, gnarly, fast-moving gut-munchers still pose quite the threat, and there's plenty of good old fashioned gratuitous zombie head popping on offer.

Easily the best Resident Evil film, for what, some eight or nine years since Russell Mulcahy's Extinction, Resident Evil: Damnation excels in all the areas the franchise has struggled with ever since. An interesting, complex and complete story, with multi-faceted motives and authentic characters and relationships, there's also an attempt at reigning things in a little, and dare I whisper, an attempt for substance over style. Ok it's still Resident Evil, and one crazy fight to the next, incrementally turning the excessive dial up a notch each time; but for the first time in a while,  the story never feels it's being pushed aside in favour of forcing in an extra tentacle or larger horde. Easily the best video game zombie film, probably the best non-children's zombie animated film it comes highly recommended - 7/10.

Steven@WTD

Versus - review

2000 (Japan)

2003 Tartan Asia Extreme DVD R(0)

Contains spoilers.

Director and co-writer Ryûhei Kitamura's Versus is the story of life, death and resurrection; the eternal battle of light vs darkness made incarnate and flesh. It's a stunning visual tour de force; graphic, beautiful and indulgently crafted; and also breathtakingly unremitting, inviting the viewer to join with it to rejoice in a perpetual martial arts, sword and gun-play master class. It's also, when all is said and done, a tad boring.

One has to admire what Kitamura has put together. Versus really is a visual treat; dare I say it's visual art. Grand sweeping pan shots, extreme zoom in and outs, the great use of pausing and time, all help build a believable yet mysterious, ethereal other-worldly sand-box for the various characters to play in. The faultless display of highly choreographed, sumptuously stylised and captured martial arts, all of the highest calibre also makes Versus an absolute film making triumph; it's faultless; it's performance art.

There's a old adage though, that one can certainly have too much of a good thing and at two hours even the most hard-core fighting fan would start to find the endless barrage of video-game-esque dueling wearisome, however polished it all is. And that's the rub because outside the fighting, the narrative, such as there is, is so minimal, so enamoured with ambiguity, mystery and what hides in the shadows that the bust ups alone are relied on to solely to carry the film; and they just can't do it. That's not to say what little there is, is bad. Kitamura's esoteric mantra, the deliberate design to permeate intangibility across all two hours brings with it an alienness, a transcendentalism that one can't help but admire. But, critically, it rarely made perfect sense, seemed at times to contradict itself and more than once seemed forced so as to justify the next big duel.

Versus is the story of Prisoner KSC2-303 (Tak Sakaguchi) and his eternal struggle against The Man (Hideo Sakaki) and his undead cohort. There's also The Girl (Chieko Misaka), a gang of Yakuza goons, various assassins and some cops. In a what appears to be an endless cycle The Man keeps waiting for the The Girl and KSC2-303 to return resurrected to the world, or more precisely to the Forest of Resurrection, where he can hopefully, this time, perform a sacrifice or something, open one of the 666 portals 'to the other side' and gain some great unimaginable power. All the while the Forest of Resurrection behaves as one would expect bringing any others caught up indirectly in the manage-a-trois death party back as zombies. 

Combine sadistic Yakuza, blood thirsty undead and an ultimate samurai driven callous by the ravages of immortality, but in possession of a really big sword and a plethora of modern weaponry, and you have quite the recipe for an excessive blood bath and Versus delivers, in bucket loads. Whether it's heads, hands, innards or all three, exorbitant but delightful attention has been given to making the zombie or human deaths as memorable and colourful as possible. Scenes are audacious and shocking, and even a bit daft at times, but this is never a Dead Alive (Brain Dead) or Dead Snow; the melancholic atmosphere is always dutifully adhered too, even as twisted zombie caricatures are literally sliced and diced Fruit Ninja style in laughably long and exaggerated set pieces.

Sublime, surreal; Versus is a hard film to judge. A hyper-stylised excess of violence; as a Japanese close combat film it excels in all areas. Except, when your first twenty drawn out duels are as good as the last, when it does get to the big finale where immortal fights immortal and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance, it just fails to deliver the kind of punch you'd expect it to; especially when you'd already enjoyed them going at it together a good few times before. Certainly a zombie high-octane experience, there's much to recommend with Versus and certainly I can understand many shouting it's the best film evar; I'd also go as far as proclaiming it art in both form and function; and yet as a complete cinematic feature it just didn't quite do it for me with just too much, well, everything, 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

Lust of the Dead - review

 

2012 (Japan)

2013 Tokyo Shock DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

You know what you're going to get when you watch a Japanese film titled Lust of the Dead or in full, Zombie Rape: Lust of the Dead; well at least I hope you do. Amateur effects, sets and acting, an inconsistent story that unravels into farce, and enough low budget and totally inappropriate sleaze that it leaves you walking away wanting to wash your eyes out with bleach. And yet; somehow, there's always the chance that the crass and vulgar will make you laugh, the absurd and ridiculous will entertain and the fan service will either titillate or be shrugged off as harmless. It's a tall ask though, as the for every Zombie Ass: Toilet of theDead or Troma flick that's at its brazen best, there are scores of titles that fall so low that merely uttering their names leaves one feeling unclean.

As probably imagined, I really want to throw Lust of the Dead with its rape agenda, its dangerously age inappropriate nudity and its penchant for the systematic objectification of all women, firmly in the latter pile; and for a good hour I was definitely planning on doing just that. Then somehow, it managed  the impossible. Somehow despite the good hour of obsessive breast focus and panty flash and the umpteenth gratuitously shot brutal rape or gang-rape, all I believe totally justified by director and co-screen writer Naoyuki Tomomatsu's ludicrous testosterone fuelled zombie origin narrative, it managed to demonstrate that tiniest spark of self-awareness; like it could actually, maybe, be more than it was.

Don't get me wrong. It didn't try too hard and by elevate itself I'm talking a 3 not a 1. I mean listening to Kanae (Asami Sugiuri) shouting 'Women are not sex slaves for men!' while battling the hordes of horny undead all managing to pull at her kimono until her breasts were free for audience to ogle and the extras to grope, even if she does manage the last word by blasting them all to kingdom come, is, if as a last minute attempt to redress the balance, woefully missing the point. Yet it could be argued it is at least trying, and the five minutes or so of high octane OneChanbara-esque fighting preceding it was head and shoulders better than the sporadic and quite lame scuffles that had come before.

It's normally at this part of the review I start delving into the pertinent zombie origin story, though here I don't know quite where to begin. The Ozone hole, GM crops, space radiation, the Shinto Japanese myth cycle are all cited along with some stuff about bacteria, the origins of oxygen based life and the need for constant evolution. What we do know though, is, dokyun men (think high testosterone, sports, naturally rapey) have all turned into insatiable sex mad zombies driven solely to strip, grope and rape women. I say dokyun men, as the seemingly only alternative is otaku or stay-at-home manga / anime loner men who say they are happy to remain sexless though as we find out the slightest provocation and these guys too turn. So it's kind of all men and as stressed in one of the laboured TV cut-in debate interludes maybe what's wrong with rape anyway as it would begin to redress not just an imagined gender imbalance but all societal, wealth, nature and power imbalances as well; so why differentiate one man from another, we're all as bad or all as entitled...

Lust for the Dead is soft porn pretending to be a zombie film pretending to be soft porn; not only just managing to stay the wrong side of appropriate throughout but on occasion really stepping over by playing that creepy, last seen in Attack Girls Swim vs The Undead, scene that suggests that the those on the receiving end of a right good rape might in some way be grateful for the sexual stimulation. Yet, for all I've just said, it did just enough in its final few throes to stop me from totally hating both it and myself for buying it. Once the North Korea death nuke hits, the zombies suddenly become more interesting in the sense they're really probably quite dead now, even finally looking the part. Also the surviving female companions appear to have found some sudden depth, maybe on screen for more than having their blouse hang open, or to have a clumsy lesbian make-out with a new best friend.

The cityscape they find themselves in too, suddenly has a beautiful yet eerie post-apocalyptic vibe, giving the film an expansiveness not felt in the first hour or so that had them stuck in the same four walls nostalgically flashing back to pre-zombie sexual inappropriateness. I'll whisper this final bit, but the final scene had almost a Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2) feel; also it would be hard not to mention David Cronenberg's Shivers which too played with the idea of non-dead sexually charged men and women who are so driven their higher self begins to deteriorate though in that instance in with entirely different style, substance, skill and subtlety.

Overall, Lust of the Dead is distasteful misogynistic fantasy; playing with rape and sexpolitation in a really creepy way that not only feels uncomfortable while thinking about the characters but spills over into thinking about the young actresses who had to work with the myriad of older Japanese men who seemed more than comfortable simulating gang-rape, and squeezing and jiggling their breasts at every opportunity. It's a film that some will really enjoy, as gore, zombies, fun and boobies can make a good mix, yet for me, despite thinking it was poking both genders, it's just not enough and I'm left feeling like I need a brain bleach, though I better hold off as there's parts 2, 3 and heaven help us, 4 too - 3/10.

Steven@WTD.

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead - review

2011 (Japan)

2013 Tokyo Shock DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

I marked review #100 by turning to one of zombie cinemas more serious and reflective releases. The Serpent and the Rainbow based loosely on the real adventures of one Dr. Edmund Wade Davis, played with vodou and zombification both psychologically and symbolically; pitting western dogmas against Caribbean mysticism with neither coming out on top. It was dark, thought provoking, sumptuously put together and made a fitting choice.

Now the thing I've learnt about our undead friends and their portrayal ever since Béla Lugosi helped a wealthy plantation owner win the object of his affection, is the medium is also partial to the odd bit of farce and audaciously stupid. The very concept is in itself a binary opposition; a state of being, that is neither alive or dead, and the zombie myth, our primitive minds way to deal with the unsolvable dilemma it presents. Zombies are an irreconcilable anomaly; they provoke fear, unease and the reasons they make a great cinematic vehicle for horror are the same reasons they make a great vehicle for ridicule. I've never shied away from this fact; zombies are absurd, they are stupid and when I mention I review zombie films the looks I get are justified.

So what better way for review #150 than to shift one hundred and eighty and look at a film that's the pure embodiment of playing with, and ridiculing these aberrations of nature.

Just to emphasise how utterly, audaciously and ridiculous Noboru Iguchi's Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead is, putting aside for one minute that you've already read the title, I'll describe the big final fight. Megumi (Arisa Nakamura) hurtling to the ground and her certain death has a last minute epiphany in the vision of her dead sister who took her life one year earlier for being unable to deal with the shame of farting in front of her bullying school mates. Surging with new vigour she soars back up above the Japanese forest canopy powered by her now never-ending fart-jet, with her small school girl breast exposed, to battle her camping companion Maki (Asana Mamoru) who after swallowing the queen of the Nekurogedoro parasites has mutated into a hideous flying monstrosity who's also carrying, a young knife wielding sociopath who has made a pact with the worms so that they'll keep her leukaemia in check. I'll add that the fight for the most part involves long anal worms flailing wildly at each other desperate to enter whatever orifices become available and I'll also add this isn't by the far the most ridiculous, or repugnant, or bat-shit crazy thing I'd had to sit through.

I'll cut to the chase. Is it just about the stupidest film I've ever seen? Without question. Is it misogynist? Yeah, probably, ok yes, definitely. Wildly inappropriate, even for a film with such dedicated scatological reverence? Yes, the two (yes) parasitic penis rape scenes make sure of it. Is it crass and at times painfully b-movie? Again, I've got to say yes recalling the paper-mache / zero budget queen Maki hybrid sfx (with emphasis on special). But did I enjoy myself? Oh YES…. Oh the shame… And whether Zombie Ass is for you ultimately comes down to whether you can even vaguely get behind the ideas I've mentioned so far; heck, even if you have, it will still test you.

Blood and guts are one thing and I'm now well-adjusted (don't confirm this with my wife) to deal with the day to day carnage that comes with the medium, but poo, that's something else. I won't mince words. Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead is obsessed with bottoms and what comes out. From start to finish, whether it's excessive flatulence and its social impropriety, to ensuring we never forget out of which orifice the parasite worms are most likely to make an appearance, Zombie Ass is a vehicle for a non-stop barrage of rear-end focus, as if a giggling delinquent on the back of reading too much Viz had been let loose with a camera and way too much money. 

From their first appearance pulling their way up and out of a vile cesspit below a dilapidated outdoor toilet to grope and grapple Maki's naked bottom, the zombies are there to be repulsed by and laugh at. They're covered in excrement and surrounded by flies, they shuffle and jerk about painfully as if they're suffering chronic constipation and cramp; they throw poo, they fart excessively and they're gloriously excessive. By themselves they never come across as particularly dangerous, as is the Romero way, unless of course one gets oneself cornered by a group. The real danger, such as it is, comes from the parasites which control their hosts and the zombies second state; that of quick moving rear ended parasite protruding drill that resembles a bastardised wheeler from Return to Oz stuck in reverse.

Infection is spread by the Nekurogedoro parasites eggs, incubation is fast and the effects total and irreversible. To be fair quite a lot of work has been done to actually make the ludicrous narrative actually seem semi-coherent. Iguchi could easily have bypassed any kind of structured story given the premise but the film does actually try to keep on point, and it does flow with reasonably good pacing. Dialogue is deliberately hammy and the actors to an impeccable job given what they have to do / say. Also even though Iguchi is obsessed with bottom secretions he doesn't ignore blood and gore with plentiful quantities of both oozing, flowing and exploding at any given opportunity, making it quite a test for even the strongest of stomachs.

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead is the most audaciously daft and repulsive Japanese zombie film of its type I've yet seen even making the likes of Zombie Self Defence Force seem lucid and reasonable, and as such it's now firmly my favourite. Yes I know there's a totally unnecessary shower scene and having Megumi's dangerously close to age inappropriate breast in shot for the final ten minutes was wantonly gratuitous, but I felt Iguchi had actually behaved himself somewhat as none of these scenes were quite as exploitative as they could have been, and titillation obviously wasn't the main focus of the film. Then again perhaps I'm just getting used / immune to the fan service now with the ability to filter much of it out. Zombie Ass is a film I very much expected to hate and while I'll be the first to call it disgusting, vile and stupid, and certainly wouldn't show it to anyone who actually knew me, it's video nasty film making at its brazen finest, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

Junk - review

2000 (Japan)

2003 Warrior DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Put aside for one minute all the gnarly gut munching, gratuitous eye gouging and colourful brain rainbows, by far and away the biggest shock of the afternoon was looking down at the case some thirty minutes in and realising that Junk was in fact a film released in the noughties, and not as I was assuming the early eighties. At times a low budget Yakuza film with guns and goons, at times a painfully forced The Return of the Living Dead wannabe complete with chemical spills, a military cover up and a hell of lot of painfully bad decisions, and at its best a Fulci inspired video nasty; the one thing Atsushi Muroga's Junk never is, is refined or even vaguely contemporary. Honestly, whether it's the gangster posturing, the copious leather and denim, the sets and cars, or heck, the score and video presentation, everything screams Nightmare City, The Zombie Dead (Burial Ground) and Zombie Flesh Eaters; and certainly not 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead, both of which were released only a few years later. If we're kind we'll say Junk is deliberately old school; a somewhat kitsch hark back to when acting qualities and narrative sensibleness weren't quite so important as long as guts were spewing and dead people were really, really unpleasant.

A zombie munch in the first minute is always a good thing in my book and watching the topless Kyôko (Miwa) pull herself up from her peaceful permanent slumber, take one look at the scientists inquiring innocently as to how she felt and deciding she wanted a piece, was delightful. Skin gets ripped, blood spurts out and yes, the set is sparse, the acting even sparser but it's campy, fun and unashamedly in your face zombie. Yet it was all a tease; a glimmer of what we'd have to wait a lot longer for, as despite this no nonsense zombie start, it takes another thirty minutes for things to really get going again as Muroga has another film in his head too.

As much as the film does end up descending into exactly the European eighties video nasty nonsense we expected after the start, it also tries very hard to be a semi-serious Japanese gangster film with a Yakuza boss, a jewellery heist and a motley assortment of honourless goons who'd no sooner ask for your hand as stick it in a zombie's mouth. The robbery, the getaway, the boss and his goon-squad and young getaway driver Saki (Kaori Shimamura) and her attempts to buy her second hand dream car from a bafflingly superfluous used car salesman is all light, fun and entertaining in its own special way, it just drags on way too long for what's really just a narrative reason to get nine victims to the same abandoned remote factory.

It's entertaining when the world of the gangsters and zombies finally collide; it's just baffling so much attention was heaped on the one part of the zombie story that really didn't need much at all; especially given the brief part each of the characters was ultimately going to play once it kicked off. On top of all this Muroga also deemed it necessary to provide a western narrative and even a love story, that could sit over the chaos to present it all as reasonable, coherent and plausible but again like the gangster preamble it all ends up feeling a tad half hearted and redundant. I should reiterate that it's not all bad though as when focused on zombies and death Muroga gets it entertainingly right.

We have DNX, a highly experimental US funded drug which has brought Miwa back to life as an insatiable neck biter and flesh eater. We have the two doctors that administered the drug now bitten and turned into Romero tradition zombies too implying oral / viral transmission and a situation that could quite easily expand out of hand. Then to top it all off, in full on Return of the Living Dead tradition we have a bit of an industrial accident, a vial is spilled and the remaining corpses are up and joining in too.

There's a bit of a mix going on if we're honest; Kyôko it seems is actually quite intelligent and powerful, in a kind of possessed The Evil Dead / The Exorcist / Manga kind of way; those freshly bitten are blue tinted ponderous walkers straight out of Dawn of the Dead and the extras are a hideous bunch of foul fetid maggoty horrors that look like they've shuffled straight from filming Bruno Mattei's Hell of the Living Dead; which for reference, also concluded in a very similar looking industrial complex. One could nit-pick the non uniformity or design of it all, but it doesn't really matter. The zombies are fun, dark, dangerous and there's copious quantities of well-presented gore on display. The final superhuman Kyôko who survives a head shot, only to come back stronger with different colour hair doesn't make any sense at all but by now I'm starting to get used to Japan's need for a boss fight and it was at least captivatingly stupid.

Junk may be cheap but it is fun. The gangster and US military narratives are superfluous guff adding little to the trashy exploitative carnage that's the focus of the film but they're not actually offensive; and at a little over an hour and twenty minutes long I'm guessing Muroga needed some way to fill the time. It's daft, it's brash, there's some appalling English from some Japanese speakers and some painfully amateurish moments but you get the feeling Muroga knew all this and didn't really care. The mash of ideas and narratives never really gel yet in never firmly adopting any distinct identity, it kind of ends up getting one all of its own anyway and one can see how it got its name. A daft English / Japanese hybrid eighties throwback that's as entertaining as it is awful it's definitely worth a watch with a beer (or ten), 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

Resident Evil: Degeneration - review

2008 (Japan)

2009 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Blu-ray R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Sony's CG animation departure from the increasingly over the top on screen antics brought to the big screen by Paul W.S. Anderson. If anything being a return to the franchise's video game roots Sony should be applauded. It's no longer the Milla Jovovich show instead going back to a time of feisty and moody young heroes battling geopolitical greed and corruption and trying to protect a world from big baddies with some really nasty biochemical goodies. I've read the film is ultimately fan service, written for those invested in the deep convoluted story arcs and quiet suppressed sexual tensions; Resident Evil 4.5 without the game-play. Now I've played through RE4, 5 and 6 and respect the film for playing out as an elongated cut scene, but this is ultimately the heart of the film's problems too.

The thing about video game cut scenes is they're intrinsically, and I may be opening myself up for some heat here, boring. Good cut scene design is to keep it brief and to use them as extremely satisfying rewards and momentary respite for completing a particular intense sequence of game play. You make it through the airport finally scurrying outside to be rescued just before the zombies catch up; cut scene of shooting guns, the survivors hugging one another, a bit of exposition to set up the next chapter, then back to shooting zombies in the head. The problem here is the interspersed interactive game play between each cut scene is more cut scene. There's still the 'BIG' dramatic cut scenes but the action in between that you feel you should be playing is played out for you. It's not you running to the doors, it's you watching someone else running towards the doors. And there's a problem with this.

I wanted to like Resident Evil: Degeneration, it played with some nice ideas, the action scenes were entertaining, the dialogue pretty crisp and coherent, the voice acting good and the animation competent; it's just whatever I tried, namely coffee, opening all the curtains, opening a second screen on my lap with saucy pictures of Milla on, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I'll freely admit that it probably didn't help that I'm not au fait with the full RE mythology, having not played 1-3 and if I'm honest I didn't pay too much attention to the cut scenes and story of 4,5 and 6, and as such maybe the film just isn't for me. 

Putting aside the question as to whether Resident Evil: Degeneration is deserving of automatic praise because it stays true to its origins against Anderson's bastardisation, my main problem with it is that the story is incredibly bland and tiresome. Derivative narratives can work to a certain extent in video games because they're not the main focus. For most action titles the story is there to enable some amazing fire fights and set pieces; take it out and critique it in any serious way and most likely it'll all fall apart. With some pretty uninspiring whingey characters, cookie-cutter villains and weary locations there's never any moments to really get excited about and even the final boss fight, which lasts a good half of the film never gets the heart racing, which is a shame as there's not an awful lot wrong with the presentation.

After the constant drive from Anderson to move away from telling anything resembling a good old zombie survival story there's a lot commend in director Makoto Kamiya's decision to focus on a small group of survivors versus a plane load of t-virus traditional zombies, at least for the first half of the film anyway. The action also comes thick and fast as snarling, blood thirsty, ambling undead ankle biters demonstrate how easily they can replicate given a good food source. There's a bit too much deliberate and obvious visual exposition to teach us how zombies work (head shots, biting, they're not human, alive or nice); I mean c'mon it's 2008, but at least they do stick to the rules. As said with the second half and the introduction of the g-virus RE does what RE does and goes a bit manga and implausibly excessive. It's just even with buildings exploding, rockets being fired and people being batted about like paper balls it was just hard to get too excited about the whole thing, though I think I know why.

Watching someone else play a video game is generally quite a dull experience, especially when the danger that they might actually do something wrong or die has also been removed. Add to this a story that's safe, derivative and really feels like it's dragging the whole thing out to come in longer, and you end up with a film that's wholly flat; competent yes, but incredibly dull. As said, and reading the many positive reviews this has got, I can see an appeal, to some, of a fairly safe resident evil fan film that doesn't deviate too far from what is required; yet to the rest of us and as a film in its own right, zzzzzzzzz, 4/10.

Steven@WTD.

Zombie Hunter Rika (Rika: Zombie Killer) - review

2008 (Japan)

2011 Switchblade Pictures Nihombie!: The Complete Japanese Trilogy (Zombie Self-Defense Force / Attack Girls' Swimteam vs. the Undead / Zombie Hunter Rika) DVD R(1)

Contains mild spoilers.

Low budget, crass, nonsensical Japanese exploitative zombie comedies are a bit of an acquired taste and I'll happily admit, having now watched all three of the nihombie high-school girl vs zombie bad taste flicks that it's one I've yet to truly acquire. I'll concede there are more than likely cultural reasons to why I haven't found the incoherent excessively stupid narratives engaging, laughed along with the juvenile humour or particularly felt comfortable with the awkwardly forced and dangerously close to age inappropriate nudity, but I'm starting to think maybe it might actually be them, not me, who's at fault, and the truth is simply that they're just pretty crap. I'm being a bit disingenuous; I didn't actually mind Naoyuki Tomomatsu's Zombie Self-Defence Force, pitched as it was at being as totally bat-shit crazy as it possibly could get away with. It understood perfectly what to do with no money and a ridiculous premise and story, knowing to never bow to common-sense or restraint at the expense of getting another cheap laugh from an endless supply of the audaciously stupid. It was still culpable of all the complaints I mentioned earlier and is undeniably crap but it knew it and knew played along with it.

On paper director Ken'ichi Fujiwara's Zombie Hunter Rika has it pitched right. School girl Rika (Lisa Kudô) is playing hooky to visit her master surgeon and expert samurai grandpa, there's an outbreak of green skinned flesh eating foot shufflers and the severed arm of a legendary American zombie-hunter is conveniently found just when our fair skinned heroine inadvertently loses her own. Add three moronic stooges that have somehow survived the onslaught, a conspiracy theory that blames the whole thing of a covert government program to euthanize the elderly, a cognisant zombie who arrives on the scene offering help and a rat-like zombie boss who makes not one blind bit of sense for existing and we have all the stupid, implausible and contrived we've come to expect.

So why doesn't it work this time? Two reasons. One, is that there is actually an attempt to present all of the above in something other than a non-serious way. Two and more importantly, what should have been audaciously over the top and in your face actually comes across flat and insipid like all involved just couldn't shake off just what amateur b-movie drivel it all was. The acting is limp and lifeless, the dialogue lazy and the story gives up any attempt at retaining a modicum of coherence or natural pacing all too readily. Fleeing the zombie horde with help from Tomoya, a man purporting to be her grandfather's wife's brother, the trio arrive to find a sad old man riddled with dementia, a gaggle of young maids desperate to compare breast size and an awful lot of conversation completely devoid any mention of the fact the whole town is now fucking zombiefied. I can handle a bit of laziness but it's like no one cared at all by what was being said.

The zombies, I'll hold my hands up, aren't actually too bad; though I'm really using the term loosely. They're clearly the result of minimal time and money but, at least they have a uniform look to their shuffling around groaning and ponderous attacks on anyone unaffected. There's the usual Japanese quirky embellishments, with one zombie holding his crotch as if aroused, one driving a car and the excessive use of a questioning 'meha?' groan, but I'll leave these as observations as I don't think it's really worth any attempt at a semi-intelligent critique. Also where would be if there wasn't some token completely out of place and mind-bafflingly insane magic and mayhem, and a good old fashioned big boss fight with the excuse to throw in some average looking CG. A speaking, mask wearing cognisant revenent with a hokey eye and some strange CG death beam from his belly has the former covered; Grorian a dual sword wielding samurai who on defeat explodes into dust and somehow holds to the key to fixing all the wrongs that have been wrought and curing all infected or killed, covers the latter. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it and while not necessarily a bad thing; I mean look at Chanbara Beauty and Zombie-Defence Force which were equally audaciously stupid, here the action, effects and fighting is so lacklustre, bland and lacking in style, finesse and belief, it can’t rise to appear as anything other than as poor and amateur as it is.

Zombie Hunter Rika is so pedestrian and mediocre it took me three sittings to get through it as I kept thinking of things I'd rather be doing like taking out the bins or tidying the cutlery drawer. There were a fair few interesting and uncomfortable moments of gore, lots of blood and there's plenty of flesh-eating, but I'm scrambling for many positive things to say. An amateur script that felt like it was being made up as it went along, dry lacklustre acting performances from people who genuinely looked like they didn't want to be there, and shot capture and direction that looked cheap and harried as if Ed Wood with his one take what-ever happens approach was in charge; it's bad film. A chore I'd not recommend others endure, 2/10.

Steven@WTD.