Dead as Dreams
Mannikin
This is some primo J-horror schlock. Lovecraftian themes, great visuals and fx, and a gut punch of an ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Dxlz3iQzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Dxlz3iQzI
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro) (1968)
- Thread starter Dead as Dreams
- Start date
Dead as Dreams
Mannikin
Well, sh*t. In my fit of enthusiasm last night, I referred to this film as “schlock,” and though I obviously meant it in the most loving way conceivable, I’m feeling a little badly about it today, as I don’t think my brief endorsement in any way succeeded to communicate how thoughtful this film really is: on the changes in Japanese morality during the boom years of the so-called “Era of High-Speed Growth”; on American involvement and hypocrisy in Vietnam; and on humankind’s biological penchant for war and conflict. This film is sometimes mentioned alongside the best J-horror and science fiction in the period: Honda’s Matango, Nakagawa’s Jigoku, Shindo’s Onibaba and Kuroneko, and there it belongs. Criterion included it in a boxed-set collection, titled When Horror Came to Shochiku, for good reason.
Dead as Dreams
Mannikin
Oh, there's definitely some schlock to it, but it's charming all the same.
Of the films I mentioned above, it's closest in execution and outlook to Honda's. Both directors even employ the same basic plot set-up--an array of people from various socioeconomic levels and professions stranded, after a horrible accident, in a wasteland populated by creatures; then, under said trying circumstances, the humans themselves literally and figuratively degenerate to become the worst monsters around. Sato and Honda are clearly bothered by a perceived moral decrepitude creeping in on the heels of post-war economic success. The difference, as I see it, is that Sato's goes more directly at war, while Honda's targets the "spoils" of wealth as the main source of corruption.
I hope you enjoy. It makes the greatest hits of the Showa era list, for sure.
Of the films I mentioned above, it's closest in execution and outlook to Honda's. Both directors even employ the same basic plot set-up--an array of people from various socioeconomic levels and professions stranded, after a horrible accident, in a wasteland populated by creatures; then, under said trying circumstances, the humans themselves literally and figuratively degenerate to become the worst monsters around. Sato and Honda are clearly bothered by a perceived moral decrepitude creeping in on the heels of post-war economic success. The difference, as I see it, is that Sato's goes more directly at war, while Honda's targets the "spoils" of wealth as the main source of corruption.
I hope you enjoy. It makes the greatest hits of the Showa era list, for sure.
luciferfell
Chymist
A personal favorite. I've heard it described as if George Romero remade Last Year in Marienbad as a alien invasion movie. I think that is the perfect description of it.