Canonically Weird (The List)

191. GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (1968)

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Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro

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“A fiendish vampire from a strange world in outer space drains his victims’ blood and turns them into weird corpses!”–U.S. tagline for Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell

DIRECTED BY: Hajime Satô

FEATURING:Teruo Yoshida, Tomomi Satô, Eizô Kitamura, Hideo Kô, Kathy Horan

PLOT: A Japanese airliner crash lands in a remote mountain area after a close encounter with a UFO during a hijacking attempt. On the ground, the hijacker flees but is drawn to the glowing flying saucer, where the blob inside splits open his forehead and possesses his mind. Meanwhile, on the crashed plane the survivors squabble in a power struggle between an arms dealer, a senator, and the take-charge co-pilot.

Still from Goke Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)
BACKGROUND:

  • Goke was the most notable of four horror/science fiction films made by Shochiku studios (previously best known for Yasujirō Ozu’s award-winning chamber dramas) in the late 1960s to attempt to replicate the success of rival Toei’s smash hit Godzilla.
  • Goke wasn’t shown in the U.S. until 1977, when it played on a drive-in double bill with 1965’s Bloody Pit of Horror.
  • This movie is a favorite of , who paid tribute to Goke‘s blood red skies in an airplane scene in Kill Bill: Volume 1.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: It’s tempting to pick the scarlet heavens the airliner cruises though in the opening scenes, which makes it look the the clouds are saturated with hemoglobin and about to rain blood. After all, this was the image Tarantino chose to homage in Kill Bill. Instead, we’ll go with the vertical slit that forms in the assassins forehead at the climax of his psychedelic encounter in the alien spacecraft, a look affectionately know to the film’s fans as “vagina face.”

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Goke is a run-of-the-mill alien-blobs-in-glowing-orange-UFOs-turn-airplane-crash-survivors-into-vampires-by-crawling-inside-bloody-slits-they-carve-into-their-foreheads flick, but with a delirious psychedelic twist.


Japanese trailer for Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro

COMMENTS: Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is frequently described Continue reading 191. GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (1968) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: WINTER IN THE BLOOD (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: Alex Smith, Andrew J. Smith

FEATURING: Chaske Spenser, , Saginaw Grant, , Casey Camp-Horinek, Julia Jones

PLOT: Virgil First Raise, an alcoholic half-breed Blackfoot, wakes up from a blackout and is told that his wife has left him, taking his rifle and electric razor with her and setting him off on a boozy, hallucinatory quest to recover the items.

Still from Winter in the Blood (2013)
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: A vision quest seems like the perfect plot structure for a weird movie, but although there is a lot to enjoy in this slightly surreal, unusual Indian-themed movie, it isn’t strange enough to overcome its narrative shortcomings.

COMMENTS: Waking up from a bender in a ditch, seeing visions of his dead father, Virgil First Raise complains he is “caught in an in-between place… vulnerable to the spirits.” Though not entirely successful as cinematic psychoanalysis, Winter in the Blood does capture Virgil’s physical and psychological tipsiness and vulnerability to the spirit world, which bleeds into reality. Flashbacks frequently interrupt the present-day action, often introduced in interesting ways; for example, Virgil fishes in a river and sees his childhood self and his (now absent) brother frolicking on the opposite bank. The movie also incorporates the rhythms of hard drinking; we see Virgil tippling in a bar, following up on a lead, and suddenly he wakes up in a strange bed, leaving us with a suspicion that crucial plot information may have been irretrievably lost to a blackout. That structure of memories and ellipses would be confusing enough for the average viewer, but then there are also entire subplots that are probably imagined, such as Virgil’s dalliance with a Canadian “airplane man” who is being tailed by mysterious men in suits and who wants to enlist the Indian in an obscure smuggling plot, the details of which keep shifting. The quirky and sinister airplane man scenes, particularly one where Virgil finds a fellow diner at a lunch counter inexplicably falls face-first into his soup, give the film an exciting Twin Peaks-on-the-reservation sensibility that it could have used more of.

Virgil suffers from a horde of demons—too many for a single movie—from alcoholism to survivor guilt to incompetent parents to the manhood ritual he never completed to fretting over the Caucasian impurities in his blood. His troubles materialize in an equally numerous series of symbols: the rifle, a mysterious blonde barmaid who sometimes has a tattoo and sometimes doesn’t, the airplane man, a stuffed teddy bear, a rabbit in a haystack. As a work of Native American cinema, a field that’s not overly crowded, Winter in the Blood ranks as a minor standout. The performances are mixed but generally good, the soundtrack is alt-melancholy, and the excellent widescreen cinematography captures the agrarian grandeur of Big Sky country. But all of the floating symbolism, subplots and narrative loose ends, together with the impressionistic style and some fumbling at the finale (the emotional climax feels misplaced, with Virgil’s despair unexpectedly peaking after the scene that should have brought him insight and redemption) result in a film that ends with an unfortunate lack of closure.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Real and surreal weave together, and an impeccably chosen soundtrack — by, among others, the Heartless Bastards and Robert Plant — reinforces a mood that veers from dreamy to violent with shocking suddenness.”–Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: WHY DON’T YOU PLAY IN HELL? (2013)

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Why Don’t You Play in Hell? has been promoted to the List of the Weirdest Movies Ever Made. Please read the official Certified Weird entry.

Jigoku de naze warui

DIRECTOR: 

FEATURING: Jun Kunimura, , , Hiroki Hasegawa, ,

PLOT:  A renegade amateur filmmaking crew encounters Yakuza mayhem and exploits it for cinematic value.

Stil from Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2013)
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST:  There’s some veritable, unambiguous oddness here—a buffet of sorts. The absurdity, of the cartoonish, chaotic variety, comes in the form of sweeping gesticulations of jokey but sumptuous violence and sardonic romanticism.

COMMENTS:  Singing kids on television ads give us a chuckle, but maybe there are some creative minds in the world, busy talking about movies, possibly having a laugh from time to time. Introducing: “the Fuck Bombers,” a Cecil B. Demented-type of film crew hell bent on the art form as its own explicit end. They value DIY ethics, dedication, and sacrifice for the greater artistic good.  Just keep going and you will be cool, lead director Hirata (Hiroki Hasegawa) implies while shooting lifelong stunt actor and Bruce Lee aficionado Sasaki (Tak Sakaguchi) during an opening street fight sequence. Hirata says he’ll die for movies, but what if he was faced with that ultimate sacrifice in real life, cameras rolling?  Enter roller-skating Miki, king of dolly shots, and his partner in crime Tanigawa, a handheld camera expect, to accomplish Hirata’s filmic needs. After a prayer to the movie gods, it’s time for action.

Now there’s that asininely charming ad for teeth-brushing that keeps coming up; gnashing, gnarling, smiles wide. Everyone knows the song because it’s sung by little Mitsuko Muto, whose dad (Boss Muto) is now in a feud with Ikegami’s Yakuza over an attempted bloodletting, ending with a surprise retaliation from Muto’s crazed wife Shizue. Blood squirts in gallons onto the faces of onlookers.  Hirata looks through the camera:  “It’s just like a movie. Really? Is it cool?” Ikegami sees Mistuko in a living room full of blood, let by Shizue’s hand, and he asks for her autograph while wounded on the ground, but she has no sympathy. Meanwhile, Shizue yells at the presiding officer now holding her in custody over her murderous rampage, infuriated over the possibility that her daughter’s acting future might be halted.

Boss Muto’s plan for his wife’s release involves making the “greatest movie of all time,” starring his daughter Mistuko. It’s kimonos for all once Ikegami (Shin’ichi Tsutsumi) snaps to it and readies for the final blows coming from his nemesis Boss Muto. Meanwhile, the Bombers release “The Blood of the Wolves,” an amateur samurai movie, and are inspired by an aging 35mm projectionist. Muto, the pin-striped, gold chained Yakuza boss, is now at war with Ikegami, whose obsession with Mitsuko has now taken odd ends, as she’s on the run with naïve Koji as he pretends to be her boyfriend for the day. More strife with the Bombers comes when action stars clash with visionary directors, but Sasaki in his yellow jump suit finds redemption in his ultimate performance, a bloody Yakuza battle filmed by Hirata and Koji. The latter humorously projectile vomits (with excessive force, mind you). A script sent by the movie gods saves him from yakuza henchmen and their intensive beatings. “Make it 4 HMI screens,” says Koji to his new film crew, ordered by Muto himself to commemorate his history as a yakuza. The action is the real life battle between gangs, choreographed by Hirata, starring Mitsuko, Sasaki, and others.  “Life’s more fun on the shady side,” says Hirata.

There’s a bounty of violence and gore . Hirata insists to an excited Muto that, to honor Japanese culture, only swords should be used during fight scenes.  “Only swords?  How can I say no?” responds an eager Muto. The limitation is called off in the heat of battle when guns blaze– but why the hell not in this suggestively carnal environment? Just do it now, because there’s no time for a script.  And cut, reset, now action! At some point Koji is inebriated, and limbs are flying everywhere. Mitsuko whispers, in another line of what has become an ongoing series of tender moments during chaotic killings, “if I met someone I love, maybe acting wouldn’t be important to me.” The moments of gore-filled hilarity compare to an Evil Dead movie. Is this 13 Assassins with movie gods, yakuza, and meta-fanatical, filmic martyrdom?

The intimacy is broken up by cops, but there are some twists. Hirata ends up on the run, and in one of the most indelible scenes he melts into pure meta-fictional glory. With the eagerness of a young mind picking up a camera for the first time, Sono’s Hell is a fast-paced, bloody, and humorous romp through the deranged world of the filmmaker as an artist. Just pick up the camera and do it, seems to be the message.

Free Online Weird Movies, Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 2/6/2015

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Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Voices (2014): ‘s first American feature is a tale of murder involving an unbalanced factory worker who takes advice from his talking cat and dog. Ryan Reynolds’ performance is drawing universal praise, but the bad news is that means even weird-hating troll critic Rex Reed liked it. The Voices Facebook page.

SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, CA, Feb 6, 8, 12):

The Peanut Butter Solution (1985): Read our capsule review (and the many comments from the movie’s scarred adult survivors). Cinefamily always brings the cool, and now they break out a 35mm print of the much-remembered, unintentionally horrifying story about a boy who loses his hair from fright, then gets a recipe from ghosts to regrow it. Friday night’s screening begins at 7:30 PM PST and is hosted by Solution producer Rock Demers. We always hope these screenings herald an upcoming DVD release, but we’re usually disappointed. Maybe this time will be an exception. The Peanut Butter Solution at Cinefamily.

SCREENINGS – (Spectacle, Brooklyn, NY, Feb 8):

Help! Help! The Globolinks (1969): Read the Certified Weird entry! Spectacle, who screened Final Flesh just last week, once again feature an ultra-rare one with this psychedelic German television production of Giancarlo Menotti’s children’s opera about an invasion of music-hating aliens. Part of their “Rockuary” series.  Globolinks may be the least seen of all the Certified Weird movies, so you owe it to yourself to catch it in a crowd of your fellow proud weirdos if you possibly can. Help! Help! The Globolinks at Spectacle.

NEW ON DVD:

ABCs of Death 2 (2014): Sequel to the sporadically good, sporadically weird original; the second-string lineup of directors still includes a couple of fascinating names like and . The buzz on this installment was understandably not as big as the first time around, so we doubt we’ll be seeing ABCs 3. Buy ABCs of Death 2.

Scavenger Killers (2013): A renegade judge and a sexy defense attorney team up for a torture killing spree, trailed by oddball FBI agents including a psychic with Tourette’s Syndrome (played by–naturally—disgraced “Saved by the Bell” geek Dustin Diamond). This just came out in July 2014, and now the “Director’s Cut” is already out (released by a different distributor); the difference in listed run times between the two editions amounts to 2 minutes. Buy Scavenger Killers (Director’s Cut).

Starry Eyes (2014): Horror about Hollywood; a young actress lands a big part, and finds her body and mind transformed. Is Satan the casting director? Time suggested this is what might result “if and David Cronenberg came together to craft a gory, psychological mindbender…” Buy Starry Eyes.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

ABCs of Death 2 (2014): See description in DVD above. Buy ABCs of Death 2 [Blu-ray].

Pom Poko (1994): Magical shapeshifting racoons struggle to save their forest home from urban encroachment. Having finally Blu-ed all the most popular titles, Disney turns their attention to releasing the second-tier Studio Ghibli titles. Buy Pom Poko [Blu-ray].

Porco Rosso (1992): Speaking of Miyazaki, Disney’s other Ghibli release this week is his tale of the adventures of a WWI flying ace who is under a spell that turns him into a talking pig. Not as big a crossover hit as his other films, but true Miyazaki fans treasure this oddity as much as any of the master’s more lucrative films. Buy Porco Rosso [Blu-ray].

Starry Eyes (2014): See description in DVD above. Buy Starry Eyes [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES:

A Boy and His Dog (1975): Read the Certified Weird entry! Move over YouTube; ShoutFactory TV is on! Yes, cult TV and movie specialists Shout! Factory are rolling out their catalog online, for free (commercial-supported, but still…) Shout! owns the rights to “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” “Elvira’s Movie Macabre,” ‘s 1970s exploitation films, and more! Sadly, their impressive horror catalog, hosted on sub-label Scream Factory, does not appear to be part of this online package… yet. This announcement could mean some very big weird titles coming online for free very soon. Keep an eye out in this space for details. For now, we’ll start you out with the screen adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s crazy post-apocalyptic tale about a roving wasteland rapist and his sarcastic telepathic pooch, A Boy and His Dog. Watch A Boy and His Dog free on ShoutFactory TV (rated R).

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

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