"Suicide Club" (2002)

(Originally released as Jisatsu Saakuru)

Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Akaji Maro, Masatoshi Nagase, Saya Hagiwara, Hideo Sako, Takashi Nomura

First, the lowdown: A string of suicides in Japan sets off a trend more disturbing than MySpace.

You really have to appreciate the WTF factor in Japanese cinema. There are so many films out there already that have been created merely to get a reaction out of the viewer, but the Japanese seem to have perfected that art form. Having attempted to kill myself on more than one occasion, I thought it amusing how this movie presents suicide as a concept. I also wryly thought it appropriate that it came from Japan, a place well known for it’s high youth suicide rate. As a crowded conformist culture, the kids of Japan are always striving to fit in somehow. But sometimes circumstances prevent someone from being just like everyone else, no matter how hard you try. (I can relate on this point a bit.)

This movie addresses none of that. We open at a subway station in Tokyo. As a train’s arrival is announced a group of schoolgirls line up on the platform and jump in front of the oncoming train IN UNISON. The same evening a nurse and her coworker whimsically fling themselves out of their office window. The police are stumped at the sudden upswing in suicides. None of the victims of the subway incident went to the same school. A mysterious phone call from someone calling herself “the Bat” points the investigating officers to a website that represents all of the suicides as a red or white dot, BEFORE THEY OCCUR.

A white sports bag is found at both the office where the nurses killed themselves as well as at the subway platform. In side is an enormous ribbon of human flesh that has been stitched together. The medical examiner points out that it’s comprised of 20cm squares of skin from different people. Also the skin samples match the remains of the victims, but appear to have been removed while the victim was still alive.

The major flaw of this movie (and I’m willing to believe that it’s because I’m not Japanese) is that after establishing a pretty kick-ass premise, the movie goes nowhere. Which is not to say that it’s boring per se: the body count rises ever more alarmingly and the background music gets increasingly inappropriate (one scene has a housewife happily cutting off her own hand in front of her 5-year old daughter). But eventually everything comes completely unhinged and while there is an attempt to explain things at the end, it raises more questions than it answers.

Line of the movie: “There are several bodies here. We’ll pry them apart later.”

Three and a half stars. Praise the Lord.

"Cannibal Ferox" (1981)

(AKA: Let Them Die Slowly)

Starring: Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Lorraine De Salle, Danila Mattei, Zora Kerova, Walter Lucchini.

First, the lowdown: It’s those wacky cannibals in a new jungle adventure!

I dig cannibal movies. I gotta admit it. It takes a real actor to bite into a raw roast covered in grenadine and pretend that it’s been hungrily carved off some screaming tourist. This one stars veteran cannibal actor Giovanni Radice, who was in Cannibal Apocalypse with the indomitable JOHN SAXON! (Ironically enough, Radice played a cannibal VETERAN in that one. Yuk-yuk-yuk.) We start out in the Big Apple, where a Mafioso and his slimy Tom Petty/Martin Mull-esque sidekick blow away a junky. Before the audience can even say “What the expletive deleted?” we’re whipped ‘round to central Colombia where an anthropologist, her neckerchief-wearing brother, and their dippy coke-whore friend are traipsing about. Our anthropologist (who looks like Jeanne Tripplehorn with a failed perm) is out there to prove that cannibalism doesn’t exist. (Now this could just be a shortcoming in the dubbing, because as anyone who’s read up on the Donner party or gone traveling with the Argentinean soccer team can tell you, people WILL eat each other if the situation is desperate enough. What I THINK they meant is that cannibalism does not exist in tribal cultures. Which is also not true. Many of the aboriginal tribes in New Guinea use cannibalism as a death ritual.) So in order to gather evidence of this lofty claim, she plunges deep into the Amazon rainforest without even a thread’s grasp of where to go or how to communicate with the natives. After successfully marooning their jeep in a mud bog, the hapless morons decide that the best thing to do is go even further into terra incognito. Yup, real scientists here. They go hiking without worrying about food, clean water, shelter, or Deep Woods OFF!, but make sure they brought plenty of whiskey. After a while of hiking and bitching about their situation the morons three make camp; which gives the audience the chance to relive Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom by watching an anaconda kill a coati. Thrilling, eh? The next day, the kids run into the smarmy Radice and his sickly companion Joe who are running from a tribe of hungry cannibals in the mood for Manwiches (I’m just rackin’ the product placement here). After mumbled introductions and unnecessary dialog, our party just happens to stumble into the native village that Radice and Sickly Joe had fled from, but the only people who are there are the tribal elders, and they appear more frightened. (Or at least that’s what we’re told. The natives in the movie, while authentic-looking enough, are as expressionless as a granite slab.) Because it’s the only structure they’ve seen for miles, the morons three decide it would be a good idea to rest there. (After all they shouldn’t be afraid of a bunch of old people, right? Right?) Radice manages to seduce the dippy coke whore (like it was that hard to do), and then proceeds to manhandle the natives who had offered their mute hospitality. When he accidentally shoots a native girl it brings a tearful confession from his dying compatriot. Apparently the “real story” (as opposed to what?) is that the two of them were laying low for a while (and Colombia is such a great place to do that) after ripping off a heroin dealer in New York. (Remember the bit before where the junky gets blown away? Yeah, neither did I.) During Radice’s and Joe’s their stay, a native tries to sell them some high-quality emeralds. Thinking that rock hunting is a fun and profitable enterprise, they convince the native to show them where he got them. After being frustrated by days of fruitless panning in the rivers, Radice and his pasty partner finally give up laboring for wealth and come up with a better idea. Lacking in diplomacy skills, they lock up the women and children whilst their menfolk are out hunting, and torture the unwitting native rather elaborately. (Including castrating the poor sod.) However, the native ends up dying of his wounds just as the tribesmen return, leaving our hapless sods to run amok into the forest. Meanwhile, back in the present, the current group of muttering natives decide to turn the tables on the stoopid white people and imprison them in a pit; but not without graphically removing Radice’s genitals first. At this point the gears come loose from the movie and everything else is just a chaotic sequence of Radice writhing in pain, unnecessary animal torture (using REAL animals getting their REAL entrails extracted), scenes in the Big Apple which look like an old Kojak episode (and really have no point), and a classic shot where the filmmakers re-enact the vision quest scene from A Man Called Horse on the coke-whore’s breasts. My biggest complaint about the whole film is that it banks more on the shock value of killing live animals more than it does on the evisceration of the stoopid white people. Come on, the purpose of watching a cannibal movie is to see the palefaces get their sweetbreads sliced up by a gang of grinning pygmies, NOT to be subjected to a PETA documentary on the fur industry.

Line of the movie: “Why couldn't we have made it Acupulco, instead of this poison paradise?” Our blonde coke whore becoming more unlikable by the minute.

Three stars. Keep watching the skies.

"Battle Royale II" (2003)

(Originally released as Batoru Rowairu II: Chinkonka)

Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, Shugo Oshinari, Ayana Sakai, Haruka Suenaga

First, the lowdown: Battle Royale is back and this time it's war!

The book Logan's Run by William F. Nolan, opens with the following passage:

"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength.
By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age.
The population continued to climb — and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 percent.
In the year 2000 — critical mass"

In the introduction of Battle Royale II we are first treated to a shot of the Tokyo city skyline, peaceful enough until a series of explosions reduces five of the largest buildings to rubble. The audience is then informed that two survivors of the Battle Royale tournament have banded together with anti-government terrorists, calling themselves "Wild Seven". Wild Seven has put a contract out on adulthood, in particular the Battle Royale Act from the first movie, and has been spending the last three years blowing the ba-jeezus out of anything that stands in their way. (Kinda like if Peter Pan and the lost boys were backed by Al-Qaeda.)

We then cut to a high school rugby match. Given the broad way that the camera sweeps over everyone, it's pretty obvious that these guys are going to be this year's lucky contestants. Unlike the first movie, where there was only a vague mention of the class's poor behavior, it's pretty obvious that there are more than a few undesirables in this new class. (Mainly because they look like rejects from 1980s hair bands.)

The movie progresses pretty typically, with the usual group of kids making a field trip (on Christmas Eve!) and being driven into the usual series of unknown tunnels before finally waking up with explosive collars around their next and being roughly shoved into an abandoned warehouse. This time things are a little different, the new teacher (Riki Takeuchi playing a CHARACTER named Riki Takeuchi) is even more crazy-pantsed than the one in the previous movie. When the kids ask what's going on, Sensei Riki lists all of the countries that the United States has bombed. (And I think he's missing a couple, actually.)

Japan is beginning to feel inadequate under the displays of military might that Good Ol' USA has been displaying, and with the recent series of terrorist attacks, the government is finding their own Self-Defense Force sorely lacking in manpower. So in order to make up the shortfall, the government has decided to "retool" the Battle Royale program. Instead of being a free-for-all contest to the death, the participants are pretty much drafted, with the goal of taking down the leader of Wild Seven: Shuya Nanahara, the main character from the previous movie.

The students are given a choice, be drafted or die. One student in particular, Shiori Kitano, knew of the new goal of Battle Royale and transferred into the class for an opportunity to avenger her father, who Nanahara killed in the previous film. When one student refuses, it is demonstrated that the explosive collars now work as a pair: since there are an equal number of boys and girls in the class, if one student dies, his opposite also dies. Also if the two students get more than 50 meters away from each other, the collars go off. After that display, volunteers were easy to come by.

Nanahara has holed himself up in an abandoned island off the coast of Japan and now looks like a bizarre cross between John Lennon and Shoko Asahara (the Japanese subway bomber). With his group, the Wild Seven, they have been strategically bombing metropolitan Japan to foment revolution among the nation's youth.

The students arrive on Nanahara's island by remote controlled boat and are immediately assaulted. In a scene that borrows much from Saving Private Ryan the first few moments are completely chaotic as the kids scramble under heavy fire, unable to shoot back because their ammunition hadn't been airlifted yet. After the ammo is dropped the students regroup and we find out that their numbers have been reduced by half. Shiori takes control of the group, leading them into a series to decrepit buildings that had been serving as the Wild Seven's Headquarters.

Once inside the Wild Seven discover that their new invaders are wearing Battle Royale collars and disable them with an electro-magetic pulse bomb. Nanahara then explains to the kids that they should enlist with him since they both have a common enemy: the grown-ups that put them in this mess in the first place.

After this part, the movie loses it's focus and becomes a series of soapboxing statements that really do nothing more than reveal director Kinji Fukusaku's stance on war, militarism, and the USA's bullying of everyone in the world community. The idea of "kids vs. grownups" is a pretty good one and fits in the vein of Battle Royale's overall tone. But here it's brought up as almost an afterthought. With the exception of a brief cameo appearance by Sonny Chiba (!), the movie is pretty much like watching a Ford Pinto fall apart in front of your eyes as you're driving it. And when you think things can get any more insane, something even LOONIER happens in the next 5 minutes.

Overall the thing I was disappointed in the most was the fact that the opening scenes of the sequel show some hint of explaining the gaping holes and loose ends that were made in its predecessor. But once it got full steam, the movie pretty much acted like the first installment never happened, but expected you to remember stuff from it anyway.

Line of the movie: "You aim, you shoot. Life is a lot like that."

Three stars. Now with more DOOM.

"Ogenki Clinic Adventures" (1991)

(Whoah! 20 of these already! Wish I had something better than this quickie here.)

Ogenki Clinic Adventures (1991)

Starring the voices of: Vincent Baggs, Honey Bare, Sadaj, Holly Bobbit, Wendi Talker, Brim Tease.

First, the lowdown: Freudian hentai, sans tentacles.

People often picture hentai (that is Japanese animated pornography) with young, nubile schoolgirls being violated by some deformed tentacled beast (like Ron Jeremy with multiple phalluses.) This description is not ill deserved, nor is it surprising. One needs only to look into Japanese mythology to find tales of diving girls being seduced by octopi; demons comprised of nothing but oversized genitals and feet; and dark lords who make pacts with evil forces to assist their manhood. However, not all hentai is tentacle porn, in the same vein that not all of Japanese animation is Pokemon. (In fact there is a genre of “blackmail porn”: stories that involve a character being blackmailed to perform scenarios that he/she normally would find squeamish or repulsive.) Ogenki Clinic Adventures is about sex therapist Dr. Ogenki, and his Russ Meyer-esqe, dippy redheaded assistant Aruko. Ogenki possesses an immense cock (which bears his likeness on its head), and Aruko is every Coop fan’s dream. Together they treat a wide array of weirdos: a blushing 18-year old who can’t ejaculate, and a man with a superhero fetish. At first glance, the storyline and characters seem quite western; a sex doctor with a bevy of unsatisfied patients, his large busted nurse, and nymphomaniac landlady are all the staples of classic American pornography. However, other areas are distinctly Japanese: an example story involves a weird Jungian exercise where Aruko’s brother surgically alters himself to look like his sister. There’s quite a bit of male transvestitism and submission in this flick, so if you’re into pegging, check it out.

Line of the movie: “Only until you admit that you’re a pervert can you be CURED!” declares an adamant Dr. Ogenki.

Three and a half stars. If it moves, kill it.

"Cannibal Apocalypse" (1980)

Starring: JOHN SAXON!, Elizabeth Turner, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Cinzia De Carolis, Tony King

First, the lowdown: Three Vietnam vets come back home with a hankerin’ for long pork.

What can I say? I goofed up when I got this one. I was recommended Cannibal Holocaust and instead I rent Cannibal Apocalypse. Whoops. But anyway, Cannibal Apocalypse starts out deep in Viet-Cong jungle. A surprisingly fit John Saxon leads his rag-tag mob of GI’s to an enemy held POW camp. After firing randomly and killing enough civilians to fill their quota, they set fire to a woman running by. (Remember folks, Enemy Combatants are exempt from the Geneva Convention.) She ends up falling into the pongee pit two POWs are held in. After the body stops smoldering, the prisoners, having been fed as much as Kate Moss, start chewing up the body like a Rotweiller with a lamb shank. John Saxon ends up stumbling on the whole scene, and for his reward, a prisoner leaps up and starts chewing on him. Flash forward to the tubular ‘80s, John Saxon is now married to the hostess of a public access TV show (who lives rather luxuriantly for that kinda thing), and is plagued by dreams of the misbegotten cannibal Marines. Both of the liberated POWs have been institutionalized (go figure), but after years of regression therapy and Thorazine highballs, one has been deemed fit for society. Our “cured” cannibal wanders through a community college, where a feral pack of handballers (I’m not kidding on this one folks) are harassing a pair of spandex-clad coeds. After interrupting the handballers, our wayward loony goes to the local theater that’s showing a thrilling wartime drama that consists of nothing more than stock footage. (Yeah, that’s a good idea. Put the shell-shocked vet into a room filled with guns and explosions.) His enjoyment of the chaotically put together movie is interrupted by an airheaded teenager and her paunchy boyfriend (who looks like Beau Bridges as a college freshman). Forgetting all schoolyard conventions, they decide to start necking in the middle of the theater. This however gives fate the ability to prove that psychotherapy is an inexact science, so our “reformed cannibal” proceeds to chomp a bite out of the swooning airhead’s neck. Unfortunately, the loony didn’t realize that cannibalism is best left in the home, and thusly an angry mob arises. The cannibal vet flees to the local strip-mall, only to be pursued by the feral pack of handballers whose help has been enlisted by the angry theater mob. The handballers chase him into an abandoned flea market, where the vet acquires a gun and blows away one them. Finally the police arrive, but (exercising some actual police procedure for a change) decide not to rush him out, but talk him out. Of course this sits REAL well with our “reformed psycho” and he starts shooting at random. (In Grand Theft Auto game terms, he would’ve had a 4 star wanted rating and they would’ve started sniping him from a helicopter.) Meanwhile, John Saxon is playing with his toy plane in his backyard only to be interrupted by his Susan Lyon/Linda Blair-esque teenage neighbor. She asks to borrow a hairdryer, but is using the pretense to flirt with John Saxon. (Hey, who could blame her? He looks pretty damn sexy in this pick.) John Saxon cannot, however resist the phantom call of cannibalism and bites Sultry Teen on the inner thigh (kinky, no?). Mrs. John Saxon, on the other hand, has wrapped up taping her show at the Public Access TV studio, only to find out that “some nut” has holed himself up at the flea market. So she calls home to make sure that John Saxon isn’t the aforementioned nut (lacking in trust skills much, lady?) John Saxon is at home, but heads to the flea market anyway to talk the guy down. After a thrilling sequence of guys talkin’ crazy talk, the vet walks out and gets thrown back into the loony bin. And there the fun starts. Apparently the other veteran cannibal was still incarcerated and the sight of his partner sets him off like a gibbon with heatstroke. Taking a dim view of their chewing on the staff, the administrators of the fun palace place them in solitary until they feel sorry for what they done. Back at the police station, an officer who was bit by the cannibal vet at the flea market goes apeshit and tears out the throat of two coworkers before being gunned down by his boss. Mrs. John Saxon, however, is concerned with her husband’s weird behavior (like you could tell with a guy like John Saxon), and telephones his shrink. Dr. Shrink has discovered that the two crazy vets in the fun palace have a form of communicable cannibalism (and you thought having herpes was socially awkward.) John Saxon, fed up with his odd craving for flesh, goes to Dr. Shrink’s hospital for a complete workup. The doctor who examines him ends up getting his tongue ripped out by the newly infected staff member who was attacked by the wacko veterans earlier. Infected Coworker ends up freeing her cannibal brethren and they in turn team up with the indomitable John Saxon who has now given into his Hannibal Lector-like taste for sweetbreads. Together they make up an unstoppable crime-fighting force of cannibals, or at least that’s what the theme music would have you think. The police get the scoop on the escape by our ravenous quartet and eventually end up chasing them to the cleanest sewers in the nation (either that or they’re in Canada). And from there the movie comes to a grinding halt as the only victims turn out to be the cannibals themselves. (And they’re not ironic endings either, like being caught in a meat-grinder or shoved into a pizza oven.) Honestly if you want to call a movie Cannibal Apocalypse, make sure there’s an “apocalypse” part of it, guys.

Line of the movie: “How can a social phenomena like cannibalism be transmitted as a disease?” asks a puzzled Mrs. John Saxon. Find out the answer in next week’s episode.

Three and a half stars. It’s not my fault.

"Flesh Gordon" (1974)"

Starring: Jason Williams, Cindy Hopkins, Joseph Hudgins, William Dennis Hunt, Candy Samples, Mycle Brandy.

First, the lowdown: It’s the godfather of wacky porno spin-offs of popular films. (See “8 to 4” for further reference).

Tired of seeing hours upon hours of scratchy old serials? The poor sound quality, the moralistic melodrama, not-so-special effects, and rough-shod acting? Well, this movie is no less different than any Buster Crabbe vehicle that’s been released. Only there’s more Seventies-style nudity in it and it’s in color. Our movie follows the adventures of Flesh Gordon, an Aryan thrill seeker who wears fake jodhpurs. He meets our heroine Dale, with sexy results! Earth is being bombarded by a “sex-ray” sent by the horridly made up Emperor Wang (whose voice bears a strong resemblance to Dr. Forrester of MST3K). Our hapless heroes then bump into Dr. Jerkoff, a freelance scientist with out of control facial hair and an accent that fluctuates between Topal and Connery. He’s built a spaceship and they’ve mere days to save the earth! Well, not really, but it sounds exciting doesn’t it? It’s hard to make fun of a film that already makes fun of itself. Made at the dawn of the “porn chic” phase in the 1970s, this picture is pretty indicative of adult films at the time: a threadbare plot that only serves to show people grinding gnarlies, and dialog that is eyerolling at best and groan-inducing at worst. As a consumer of porn I have to say in comparison with much that I’ve seen, the production for this flick is positively LUSH. You have to remember that pornography is usually more budget-conscious than even the most frugal amateur director (“It’s too expensive to wait until night for this scene. We’ll do a quick re-write and put ‘em in the supply closet.”), so having an adult film that has not only props, costumes, prosthetic makeup AND stop-motion effects (with a segment giving a wink to Ray Harryhausen) is an oddity to say the least. (I kinda got the impression that the filmmakers neglected to mention to anyone indirectly involved with the movie that there was going to be sex in it.) Another interesting point is that the “pre-marital hanky-panky” that goes on is more of the softcore variety. (Do not expect to see penetrated orifices or liquid substances flinging about.) That aside whilst the softcore “pseudo-sex” going on is focal to the primary characters, several of the background extras used as nekkid window dressing are having Gen-U-Wine Coitus. I guess the director thought it added ambience. One thing I will point fun of is the fact that Rick Baker, who assisted with effects and “special photography”, eventually went onto more prominent pictures such as Close Encounters Of the Third Kind and Star Wars. Hey, we all need our start somewhere.

Line of the movie: “I’ve got the Power Pasties, and I know how to use them!” Dr. Jerkoff and – Forget it, you don’t wanna know.

Three stars. May cause diarrhea.