Batter Up

Over the top gore can be a little much sometimes, not because of its intensity but because sometimes, gallons upon gallons of diced appendages that shoot blood like a Nickelodeon approved super soaker just gets dull. In the early 2000s, the Japanese cinema scene learned such a lesson with, in the opinion of many, a few too many of these kinds of all-out horror comedy.

Personally, I tend to find films like Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police rather boring in how hard they try without much heart. I wasn't expecting much from Yudai Yamaguchih's Deadball, but maybe life had just been too serious because by the time a baseball found itself lodged in the eye socket of a supporting character for the entire film, I was pretty much a giggling mess.

Quick Plot: Jubeh Yaku is a talented little leaguer enjoying a game of catch with his older father as his younger brother looks on. As his pops beckons him to show what he's really capable of, we learn a pretty neat fact:

Jubeh is capable of flying to the sky and throwing a fastball so hot that it tears right through his beloved father's head.

Orphaned and guilt-ridden, Jubeh grows up into a successful teenage criminal with a touch of vigilantism in his heart. He ends up in a ridiculously strict juvenile facility that just so happens to have a struggling baseball team called the Pterodactyl Gauntlets in need of an ace. After an intense knife-in-face, metal-plate-to-groin, fly-in-mouth, and much much more battle, the strict, Ilsa-esque Neo-Nazi warden Ishihara promises Jubeh that his teammates will be pardoned if they win a big game against an even tougher girls' prison. 

The odds are not in the favor of our little dinosaurs, who quickly learn that the sexier the female juvenile delinquent, the deadlier she is with a curve ball. Their barbaric game is overseen by Ishihara and her gang of German pals, all who feast on sausages and sing praise to Hitler as a few teenage felons watch their teammates suffer a variety of violent deaths.

It's kooky.

I've seen my share of zany violence in genre cinema, and for reasons I can't exactly pinpoint, Deadball made me supremely happy. Sure, much of it is gross and all of it is ridiculous, but when you're in the right mood to laugh at a kid getting a baseball stuck in his eyeball and walking around the rest of the movie with it still there, there is a lot of beauty to be found. Don't be angry at me for recommending a movie that involves a woman gleefully pulling baby dolls out of juvenile delinquents' anuses during a cavity search. I warned you. 

High Points

Some of the dialog is genuinely funny, with jokes that take their time in being setup and are ultimately delivered with the perfect tone. The best example is easily when Jubeh's younger prison mate launches into a long monologue detailing the crimes of both his team and their terrifying rivals. It's a thing of beauty

Low Points

It's not necessarily out of character for a teenage boy to hate homosexuality, but having the film's hero drop some pretty insulting and homophobic insults is fairly disappointing

Lessons Learned

MSG salt and carefully used telephones are excellent weapons to use in martial arts

The pitcher wears number 21

Super strict futuristic prisons will conduct thorough anal searches to ensure you don't sneak weapons or baby dolls into the facilities, but it will still be okay to sport your own groovy hemp poncho on the inside

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you're already a fan of the Japanese splatter genre, there's little question that you'll probably enjoy Deadball. For others, it's hard to say. Maybe it was the combination of its baseball-themed humor and the fact that I really needed to watch something mindless that let this movie crack me up so hard. Deadball is, let's face it, a rather silly explosion of 90 minutes, but if you're looking for a gory horror comedy that involves robots and fastballs, it's hard to find any better. 

Deep Down, Maybe We’re All Mushroom People

Much like Midnight Meat Train, Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People has the kind of misdirecting title that might put potential viewers in the wrong frame of mind when sitting down to watch this 1963 Japanese oddity. Thankfully, unlike Midnight Meat Train, it does not suck in the least.

Quick Plot: We open in a hospital with a back-lit man telling us his tale. SPOILER ALERT! He will survive what we’re about to see (at least up to the time the flashback meets the present, because, you know, he's telling us his story). 

His yarn beginneth:

While sailing with free spirits on a sunny day, a batch of wealthy professionals get stuck in a storm and end up washed ashore to a mysteriously abandoned island. As arguments abound over just who the REAL skipper is, the folks gradually realize something is quite amiss on their tropical not-paradise.

For starters, nary a bird nor beetle seems to be buzzing. The only life is of the plant variety, with a healthy population of fungi making the island its home. After discovering another shipwrecked vessel rotting away under mold, the group decides to ration their canned food, scavenge what they can, and avoid ingesting any of the maybe (or most certainly) poisonous mushrooms that seem to be blooming throughout their their new residence.

If you’re like me, you might now be thinking “sheesh Emily, we’re three paragraphs into this synopsis and not once have you said the words ‘mushroom people.’ What gives?” Well, a surprisingly lot. See, though a film titled Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People would lead you to expect, well, lots of mushroom people, director Ishiro Godzilla Honda has other ideas in mind.

Thankfully, they are good ones.

Rations lead to hoarding, hoarding leads to hunger, and hunger leads our grumpy survivors to feast upon the colorful garden of fungus freely growing about them. Those who give in turn loopy. Those who don’t stay hungry. And eventually, mushroom people happen.

Matango is an unusual film and I mean that as a compliment of the highest esteem. Though the characters didn’t quite engage me, the caustic pacing, eerie atmosphere, and unique payoff more than make up for it to produce a weirdly fascinating little genre picture unlike anything else. Now THAT’s an achievement in itself.

High Notes

Honda’s soundtrack is wonderfully weird, with everything from loud instrumentals to eerie laughter doing its part to set a tone like nothing you’ve quite experienced before

Although the actual design of the mushroom people isn’t necessarily cutting edge, there’s something pretty groovy about the fact that no two look the same

Low Notes

I might be convinced to blame some of the bland characterization on awkward dubbing, but it is a tad disappointing that some of the players--particularly the virginal ‘heroine’--fail to leave a major impression

Lessons Learned

Everything in Tokyo is important (it’s a great city and full of life)

If you threaten a girl then pretend to be kind to her she’ll fall for you immediately

Turtle eggs are rich in protein

Rent/Bury/Buy

Long hard to find (and a ‘long wait’ on Netflix), Matango earns its place as a cult favorite. The movie is far eerier than you probably would expect based on its title and premise, and as a result, it’s simply filled with surprises from beginning to end. Sure, the dubbing is imperfect and characters thin, but its utter, well, DIFFERENTNESS makes this well worth a taste.

Party Like It's 1999 (by way of 1974 & 2001)

It's the end of the world as we know it, so let's talk.

The mighty Jake McLargeHuge has assembled a powerful trio to tackle the apocalypse on his latest episode of Podcast Without Honor and Humanity. Join Jake, Action Attraction's Metal Mikey, and yours truly as we roundtable with the fury of giant slugs, mass draughts, evil Internet demons, cannibalism, mutant babies, speedwalking children, and green fungus...a lot of green fungus.

That's right! We delve into the horror of dial-up to cover Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse...

And in more obscure territory, Tosio Masuda's 1974 epic oddity The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

This little-seen Japanese treasure is something truly special, and I'm not JUST saying that because it has giant slugs.

So head on down to Libsyn or iTunes or that new annoying podcast ap or wherever it is that you feed your inner ear with Jake's latest episode.

Also in the news: it's a new Paracinema!

Don't even think of not following this link to go get some. Otherwise, I just might throw some giant slugs at you, and NOBODY wants giant slugs thrown at them. 

They're really heavy. And smell weird. And in some cases, eat people's faces off.

So really, you should just pick up an issue already.

Hear Ye, Hear Me

Hey nerds: give it a rest already. Take a break from that geekery you call reading for a change and listen up: I've got some audio kimchi to give your ears the exact kick of fiber they've been craving.


Over at Episode 65 of Podcast Without Honor and Humanity, I stopped by the virtual lair of the one and only Jake McLargeHuge (yes, best name ever) to discuss a pair of Asian treats. Up first is the 2004 Korean film Doll Master, a somewhat adorable attempt at my favorite horror subgenre by a filmmaker who seemed to have no actual idea of what a horror movie is supposed to do.

And for those who prefer yakuza murder to dolliciide,  crime bosses to puppet masters, rape to glass eye poking out, there's our second feature: 1972's Kinji "Battle Royale" Fukasaku's Outlaw Killers: Three Mad Dog Brothers.

Go get it!


Also in the news: I've been invited to a tea party!

Well, not quite like that. I get to keep my arm and sanity. I think. I hope. 


I don't really know.


Point is, I'm now a member of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers, a ridiculously fine collection of horror bloggers. It's an honor, and I can only hope my wild coffee inhaling ways don't put me to shame.

Now go weekend yourself. If that's a thing. It is a thing...right?

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Cold Fish

A family drama, Shion Sono style.

That means you’re going to have a lot of severed limbs.

Quick Plot: Meet the Shamotos, a drearily unhappy family composed of a wimpy tropical fish store owner, his much younger second wife, and resentful teenage daughter. Mrs. Shamoto tosses store bought groceries in the microwave with the enthusiasm of an anorexic. Daughter Mitsuko shoplifts without care, and patriarch Nobuyuki longs for escape in the local planetarium.

After getting busted for stealing, Mitsuko befriends a garrulous businessman named Mr. Murata, who owns a cheerier tropical fish store across town and recruits the girl to join his staff of other attractive teens from troubled backgrounds. The Shamotos can’t seem to get a word in with the lively Murata and his bombshell bride, so by the end of the week, Mrs. Shamoto is having rough sex with her new friend, Mitsuko is cleaning fish tanks with a new kind of Japanese Stepfordism, and Mr. Shamoto is helping his new benefactor cover up his 58th murder by burning bones in a bonfire and covering up to the yazuka.

Indeed, making friends is an odd aspect of adult life.

Shion Sono is easily one of the most fascinating filmmakers working today. Everything from his premises--killer hair extensions! suicide cults inspired by bubblegum pop music!--to execution feels incredibly unique but generally, not forcefully so. Sure, Sono is adamantly avante garde, but rarely does his weird feel weird for the sake of weird.

Cold Fish seems most related to 2005’s Noriko’s Diner Table, the prequel to his better known Suicide Club. Both films are not easily categorized as horror, even if they feature extreme bouts of physical violence. Thematically, Cold Fish and Noriko’s Dinner Table are even more familiar. Both explore family dynamics with an emphasis on alienated teenage girls and their inefficient, inconsequential and clueless fathers. In both cases, a far more charismatic third party steps in to lead the daughters away like a modern Pied Piper.

Truth be told, I’ve only watched Noriko’s Dinner Table once (at the now defunct Two Boots Theater, sad face) and while I remember it being densely layered, I also remember it being a tad boring. Granted, its predecessor involved quite a few treats to keep you watching, from child cults to Goblin King impersonators breaking out into musical numbers. It’s a tough act to follow.

Cold Fish, on the flip side, finds an excellent pace. Though there’s a chilly distance between the audience and characters--primarily because Mr. Shamoto is intentionally barely a man--we care enough to jump on board almost immediately. And considering where the story takes us, that matters.

High Points

From Mitsuru Fukikoshi’s restraint as the near-dead Shamoto to Denden’s all-out crazy train Mr. Murata, the performances of Cold Fish are pretty pitch perfect

Low Point

Until a good hour into the film, everything we see is filtered through the Shamotos. Hence, once Mr. Murata’s driver comes to watch Murata’s wife and business colleague get it on, it’s a tad strange from a perspective point of view

Lessons Learned

Business is just entertainment (or a ploy)

The style of Japanese passion involves a lot of cupping of the boob

Getting stabbed in the neck with a pen kind of hurts

Stray Observatoin

This film may very well feature the most incompetent police officers since The Human Centipede. I say ‘since’ because even a bottle of seltzer makes a better cop than the Germans in Tom Six’s film

Rent/Bury/Buy

Part gangster film, part serial killer tale, and quite American Beauty, Cold Fish is typical Sono in being unlike anything else. It doesn’t ever go down the route you’re expecting it, making it something truly special for modern cinema. Eventually, it also gets incredibly brutal and quite disgusting, but for all the severed torso canoodles and bone sawings, Cold Fish doesn’t lose sight of the story it tells. Sure, it splatters a lot of blood over it, but at its heart, this is a film about a detached modern family letting itself be disbanded...and getting really bloody while doing so.

Gimme a Head With Hair (Extensions)

Ah, Sion Sono. Something tells me that your parents weren’t the peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-white-bread kind of folks, that your afterschool activities didn’t include soccer practice and that your family pet wasn’t a golden retriever.

No good sir, I think not. I think you were born of midichlorians, that your sustenance is silicone packets mixed with Crystal Lite, that you created a life-size replica of Guernica out of lunch meat in the 8th grade and that your best childhood friend was a half leprechaun, half unicorn that only emerged at full moons and taco day.

The point is, you’re an odd duck. An avant guarde duck who seems to refuse to allow any notion of normalcy to come near your camera. Suicide Club managed to unite ear scrapings, The Goblin King, and tween pop music. Its followup/prequel Noriko’s Dinner Table focused on people who got paid to act like people in your family. And Strange Circus spent a good part of its running time trapped inside a cello case.

Is it any wonder that Sion Sono is responsible for a movie about killer hair extensions?

Quick Plot: A trio of night watchmen at a storage facility discover one compartment busting with stinky and thick hair extensions. Oh, also, the corpse of a mysteriously slain female with (not surprisingly) Pantene caliber locks. At the morgue, the clearly not quite right Yamazaki is so impressed with her mane that he brings the whole package home.

Meanwhile, a cheerier than a cheerleader on crack hair stylist student named Yuko (Battle Royale’s marathon champ turned Kill Bill assassin Chiaki Kuriyama) bicycles her way to work, a place she might as well call heaven. Yuko, you see, reallllllllly loves the art of haircutting. Think back to how enthusiastic the killer of Chain Letter must have been about chains, because that’s about as excitable as scissors and the blue stuff make the bright-eyed Yuko.

But you know what she doesn’t love? Her deadbeat big sister, an awful awful woman who constantly dumps her bruised little daughter in Yuko’s apartment. It’s ultimately not a major problem, since Yuko slowly bonds with Mami (and yes, hearing every character yell “Mami!” at a 7-year-old is confusing and weird) though their connection and shared fabulous locks eventually draws the attention of Yamazaki.

Dressed in rainbow spotted overall shorts and jazz hand gloves, Yamazaki has only been growing weirder since, well, dragging a corpse home and settling her comfortably in a hammock. For whatever reason, her hair has still been growing...and growing...and growing out of her head, eyes, mouth, and open wounds. Naturally one capitalizes on such a feat of nature by selling extensions to the local salon, which just so happens to be the place of employment of Yuko.

If the next thing you expect to happen in such a film is that the women who wear the non-vegetarian extensions begin sprouting hair in their own open wounds in mass amounts, then congratulations! You have successfully predicted part of the plot trajectory for a Sion Sono film. As facetious as that may sound, it’s actually surprising to finally be able to do such a thing. Based on the other three films of his that I’ve watched, Exte feels positively normal. 

Yes, there are killer hair extensions. And a character that spends his days singing to and about them. And a death scene that makes me thirsty for a milkshake made by putting Mr. Potato Head and my Tourist Trap DVD inside a blender.

+

=

Delicious.

But aside from that, it’s kind of just a slightly odder than usual J-Horror with some black humor busting out of its bun. Certainly a well-done oddy, but not quite at the level of mind-blowing weirdness as Suicide Club.

High Points

The major spotlighted kill of the film is grandly over the top, with visual echoes to Uzumaki and a wonderful mix of humor and ouch

Low Points

As quirky as Exte is, there's something not all there about the whole package. It starts on such a light and chipper note, flirts with darkness, side-steps with wacko humor,then hits the hour and forty five mark where I realize that as much as killer hair is bizarre and the actors are charming, I'm really, really quite ready for it to end.

Lessons Learned

Whenever possible, use hand symbols, since safety is first

A mother should never hit her little one

Instincts don’t solve cases

The Winning Line

“Sis, are you going to be afraid of hair from now on?”

Rent/Bury/Buy

When it comes to hair horror, alls I know of is the Stacey Keach segment in John Carpenter’s Body Bags and now, Exte. Already on that front, you have a recommendation.

And hey, while not perfect nor as interesting as Sono’s more serious work, Exte is sufficiently odd enough to warrant a rental. The DVD is bare bones, as is way too sadly and too often the case. Because really, if there’s one conversation I’d like to hear, it’s Sion Sono explaining what inspired him to make a movie about killer hair.

June Is Busting Out All Over Your Ovaries (but not quite that--well, um...)

New stuff!

1. A new month means a new issue of Rogue Cinema, so hop on your hoverboard and skate over here for, among other things, my review of the romantic drama Lovers In a Dangerous Time and an interview with Skew director Seve Schelenz. Stick around for tons of more content, with reviews of new indie releases and discussions with more film folks, including Hobo With a Shotgun director Jason Eisner.

B. Skip that venti frappaccino today and give your $7 to a far more noble cause: Paracinema! Yes, this is an ACTUAL PRINT MAGAZINE filled with original content on all the films you love or love but don't know about yet. Issue #12 features some typically great stuff, including an article on Kiyoshi Kurosawa bu VCinema's Josh Samford, some nostalgia on Explorers from Baby Eater Matt House, an interview with genre luminary (and Leprechaun 3 director!) Brian Trenchard-Smith, and original artwork you won't want to dog-ear. Go GIT it!

III. Need some sweet lady voices in your life? Prefer to hear those sirens ramble on about paint huffing, incest, and unusual genital designs? Then head to iTunes or podomatic for the newest episode of Girls On Film Radio. Myself and a few lovelier ladies tackle Alexander Payne's first film, Citizen Ruth (drink every time we say 'abortion'!) and a Japanese Criterion classic from 1963 called The Insect Woman. Shockingly enough, we somehow avoided bra talk this week, although I like to think that's made up for with adorable dog snoring.

Four. Those of you with a weakness for showtunes, pop music, or sweater vests probably already listen to GleeKast, the podcast myself and knitting pro extraordinaire Erica host on everybody's favorite/most hated Fox musical. Even so, allow me to remind you that our last 'official' episode is now available for download. We're taking a mini-hiatus to breathe and dedazzle, but we'll be back this summer with more bonus content on all things ridiculousness. 

Bonus points if you catch/agree with my Troll reference.