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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZEBRAMAN (2004)

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DIRECTED BY: Takashi Miike

FEATURING: Shô Aikawa, Kyôka Suzuki, Naoki Yasukôchi, Kôen Kondô,

PLOT: An inept 3rd-grade teacher with heroic aspirations becomes Zebraman, a superhero from a cancelled 1978 television show.

Still from Zebraman (2004)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Takashi Miike goes all in with Zebraman, pushing everything—buffoonery, low budget violence, conspiracy, and, erm, eye-catching costumery—to their extremes, while remaining family-friendly and building to an in-your-face zebraction climax which must be zeen to be zelieved.

COMMENTS: All told, Equus quagga is not an animal to take seriously. Its mane lacks the nobility found in fellow members of the genus; the striping confounds; and they spend their days nibbling grass, hoping not to get killed. These traits, however, lend themselves perfectly to Ichikawa (I’ll spare you his official “-san“), an ungainly overseer of third-graders with closet aspirations of middling superhero status. But before you look a gift-zebra in the mouth, consider the sources: director Takashi Miike, forger of god-level violence and oddities, and screenwriter Kankurô Kudô, whose flirtations with the absurd would culminate in the Mole Song shenanigans. Through their powers combined, we’ve got a lot of weird and wacky crammed into an ungainly combatant who’s out “Striping Evil!”

ZEBRA DOUBLE-KICK!

Recently attempting to explain the narrative to a pair of innocent bystanders, I quickly realized that the mounting ridiculousness mounted even more quickly than I had at first surmised. There is a secret Japanese government organization concerned about an alien infestation; its head agent is a suave ladykiller, suffering from a case of crabs. Speaking of crabs, there’s a serial killer on the loose, with crab headgear and brandishing a pair of 10-inch shears in each hand. Speaking of shears, there’s that third-grade teacher toiling away on a DIY Zebraman costume, working from his memory of a television show which was cancelled after seven episodes. Speaking of the television show, the new student at the school also knows about Zebraman, and kindles the would-be vigilante in his teacher. Speaking of vigilante, the school’s principal has formed a security group of school staff to guard against an unspecified danger which appears to be slowly overwhelming the city. (Spoiler Alert: it’s aliens! Little, green, bulbous, adorable aliens.)

ZEBRA CYCLONE!

The premise beggars belief, but Miike and Kudô go all in. Every player is on form, and Zebraman has almost a family drama or character study feel to it. The disillusioned super-agent wants a cause worth fighting for. The new kid, unable to walk after a mysterious incident, wants hope in the impossible. And the principal desperately seeks atonement for his sins. When Ichikawa emerges as Zebraman, he gets lost on his way to the new kid’s house, but hears a cry for help—and suddenly the powers he’s been mimicking (badly) become real. His hair springs up, unsolicited, and he leaves hoof-mark kicks in a dastardly crab-man. As he combats greater dangers, the government agents hone in on their extraterrestrial targets, eventually capturing one and bringing it back to their steam bath/observation lab.

ZEBRA BOMBER!

So much silliness, so much heart, so much drama, so many bad costumes, dumb songs, and gloopy aliens. Just when you expect your head to not explode, Miike pulls the trigger on the finale. The city is spared a neutron bomb drop, but at the cost of a magical display of bombastic action that will leave you shocked and moved. Zebraman somehow manages to achieve a silly charm greater even than its inspirational beast.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…Miike refuses to get real, but his gonzo, punch-drunk surrealism has never felt so arbitrary.”–Ed Gonzalez, Slant (contemporaneous)

Zebraman: Ultimate Z-Pack [Blu-ray]

Zebraman: Ultimate Z-Pack [Blu-ray]
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FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: SUNBURNT UNICORN (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Nick Johnson

FEATURING: The voices of Diana Kaarina, Kathleen Barr, Laara Sadiq, Brian Drummond, Tabitha St. Germain

PLOT: After a car crash, teenager Frankie searches the desert for his father, who has been abducted by the Cactus King.

Still from Sunburnt Unicorn (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: An unlikely candidate, Sunburnt Unicorn is, objectively, a children’s adventure ‘toon with broad humor and a simple structure. However, it is also objectively a movie about a kid wandering the desert with a glass shard sticking out from his forehead being guided by a tortoise whose rear half has been crushed by a car.

COMMENTS: Every festival, I make it a point to see as many cartoons as scheduling allows. This is not just because I enjoy bright colors and moving objects (that said, I do much enjoy bright colors and moving objects), but also because I’m on the hunt for weird movies with a broader age appeal than, say, El Topo, Tetsuo: the Iron Man, or The Devils. So it is with a missionary’s—or pusher’s—”get ’em while they’re young” zeal that I seek out kid-friendly weirdo cinema. Nick Johnson’s Sunburnt Unicorn is just such a film, appealing to, judging from the audience, middle-schoolers and middle-aged reviewers alike.

First, the wholesome part. Frankie is on a road trip with his dad, who has insisted the pair of them visit the engineering college that the patriarch (and patriarch’s patriarch) graduated from—no doubt with honors. Frankie, aged somewhere in his early teens, wants nothing to do with this serious, analytical nonsense, and instead wants to pursue a career in writing. The two argue under the withering glow of the hot sun and the uninterested gaze of a insect-seeking lizard. Brakes peal, then smashcrackbang, and so begins Frankie’s exposure to the outdoors, where he undergoes challenges, earns opportunities for growth, and shares humorous banter with various animals, in particular a helpful tortoise who witnesses the car crash.

Now, the weird part. This tortoise witnessed the accident because it risked crossing the desert road, and paid for it by losing the back half of its body. From the moment we meet it, Tortoise moves, observes, and pontificates with good-natured wisdom; all the while, its jelly-pink organs dangle from its behind. During stretches of travel and talk you forget this strange state of affairs, only to be smirkfully reminded by a change of the camera angle. The reason this tortoise, and many other animals—including a trio of, heh heh, self-sacrificing desert fox cubs—aid Frankie is that every animal-jack of them believes him to be a unicorn. If memory serves, the first time we see the boy is after the crash, and a glorious, jagged shard of cracked windscreen thrusts nobly from his forehead throughout. It has its effects, and even a super power. Though it pains him greatly, he can flick it to emit a resonant and useful twing.

And so, sitting there in a cinema, having nabbed this strange beast, I was swept away by the easy flow, quality lessons, and omnipresent grisliness whenever it caught my attention that Sunburnt Unicorn tells the story of two critically injured creatures. This is by no means the weirdest thing under the sun, and there are “family friendlier” films out there, but I am delighted to have experienced Johnson’s fun little ‘toon; it hits a cozy point where conflicting genres intersect.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Gently shaken by this immediate tone and dark storytelling, the audience braces itself for whatever’s next because Sunburnt Unicorn isn’t shying away from the realities of the scenario, even if it’s about to go in a more surreal direction… It was jarring to see an animated film that looked suitable for children in both color temperature and light become so morbidly bleak that quickly.”–Sean Park, 25 Years Later (festival screening)

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FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING (2024)

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Mootorsaed laulsid

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Chainsaws Were Singing is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Sander Maran

FEATURING: Karl Ilves, Laura Niils, Martin Ruus, Janno Puusepp,
Rita Rätsepp

PLOT: Tom and Maria meet and fall in love after each has had the worst day of their lives, not knowing events are going to turn for the even worse when they cross paths with a chainsaw-wielding cannibal.

Still from The Chainsaws Were Singing (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Oof, feeling lazy here, so from this wide menu I’ll proffer, “refrigerator-bound bukkake god” and “throat-piercing lesbo-hedgehog.”

COMMENTS: One-hundred and eighty hours of footage, then a three-hour first draft, and then landing just shy of the two-hour mark: Sander Maran obviously has a song to sing, inspired by his love of pleasantly idiotic comedy musicals. This story of two lost souls coming together is more than reminiscent of Cannibal! the Musical, but is also very much its own thing. At its Fantasia screening, the hoots, hollers, and theater-wide laughs in response to the odd touches and permeating sense of eccentric madcap made its qualities as entertainment clear.

I would like to start by telling you about Jaan, a gaunt goof who meets the hero whilst passing by in his car. Stopping for this hitchhiker, he laments that his love of the act (of hitchhiking, of course) is thwarted by his being too ugly to be picked up by passersby. Jaan has something to say at every situation, rambling from one topic to another at times with a speed matched only by his ever changing costume. This quirk is on decreasingly subtle display, as somewhere around the mid-way point the audience can delight in his “dextrous” changing of the duds mid-conversation with other characters. He has a string of bad luck, too: just about every vehicle he exits during Chainsaws Were Singing ends up exploding violently, always hucking a flaming tire at his feet. Supernatural, or not, Jaan’s presence on camera guarantees something silly, strange, and usually both.

Chainsaws Were Singing also manages a number of unexpected tonal shifts. When the heroine is trapped in the basement of a sinister family, Maran shifts the film’s gears on a dime, and for some fifteen minutes showcases some real, menacing, straight-up horror when introducing the evil matriarch. Horror lampoonery veers into broader lampoonery, such as when Maran introduces the mysterious man, Cobra, whose absurd tale about the wartime death of his fifteen year old brother (in some conflict between Portugal and Sweden) could pass for a monologue.

Returning to my earlier laziness, I’ll wrap up here with a, “C’mon, everyone” coda. There is gore galore, silly comedy, ill-fated lovers, Quixotic questing, finger-food, dark pasts, gore galore, your friendly Wandering Gun Man, breezy musical numbers (“Tapa Tapa Tapa!”), tension, massacres, more gore galore, and, as I’ve already mentioned, a very helpful lesbo-hedgehog. In his cross between The Sound of Music and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Maran offers everything you could want in a wacky and weird genre frolick.

[Cue Orchestra.]

Wait, stop.

Down your instruments; I forgot to mention the bukkake.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“While there will be an audience for this type of exaggerated surrealism, the film’s quirky scenarios, parody-type approach to storytelling, and crude humor won’t be for everyone.” – Emma Vine, Loud and Clear Reviews (festival screening)

 

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FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: GHOST CAT ANZU (2024)

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化け猫あんずちゃん

Bakeneko anzu-chan

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DIRECTED BY: Yôko Kuno,

FEATURING: Voices of Noa Gotô, , Munetaka Aoki

PLOT: Abandoned in the sleepy beach town of Iketeru, 11-year-old Karin finds herself in the care of Anzu: a 37-year-old, human-sized “ghost cat” with a penchant for pachinko and speedy scootering.

Still from Ghost Cat Anzu (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Seeing as we’ve certified a charming tale of someone pulled into realm of the spirits, I’ll suggest we include this differently charming tale of the spirit world slacking around amongst us people. Also, there are too few children’s movies on the list, and never enough giant cats.

COMMENTS:

“Whoa, that’s one big frog.”

Gah! Who are you?

“I’m Anzu, a ghost cat. Who are you?”

I’m a giant frog monster. Ribbet-Ribbet!

And so it goes in Iketeru, the idyllic waterfront village where a young girl finds herself ditched by her deadbeat dad who has some complicated debts he needs to take care of in Tokyo. From this pedestrian kick-off, directors Kuno and Yamashito rise to an impressive challenge: crafting a laid-back, deadpan, almost ‘ world in a whimsical, Ghibli-style animation.

Karin is cynical before her time. Beyond her difficulties arising from the ne’er-do-well father, we learn that she lost her mother at the age of eight, and has been under the guardianship of a grown man barely more mature than she is (perhaps even less so). In many ways, her circumstances don’t change when she is introduced to Anzu, a human-sized—and very human-acting — cat, who can perceive and interact with the spirit world. Anzu helps Karin’s grandfather maintain the small local temple, as well as a taking few odd jobs around town. He travels by scooter, though an early brush with the law strips him of his beloved transport.

Mythical Japanese beings emerge for a cocktail party hosted by Anzu, and Karin meets a Hag, a giant mushroom-man, a stone-form baby Buddha, the “giant frog monster” mentioned earlier, and more. Anzu’s slack sensibilities keep him from ever working too hard (he is a cat, after all), but he is a good friend: he feels bad after gambling away Karin’s earnings at the local pachinko parlor. It’s all so very natural, despite the entities in question. Frog and friends get jobs at the golf course whose woods they inhabit. Karin teases the two local boys (self-proclaimed creators of a “Contrarian” club). Grandfather oversees the temple. And so it goes.

But most of all, Karin misses her mother, and she undertakes a daring escapade into the underworld, with the considerable assistance from the God of Poverty, who is bamboozled into the task by Anzu. Entering through the crematorium’s out-of-order toilet while on a day-trip to Tokyo, Karin, Anzu, and the god visit the underworld hotel, and their capering unleashes demons and the God of Death onto the surface. The film lays on silliness and peculiarity thickly, and the picturesque animation maintains a perfect tension with the near-flippant attitude suffusing Kuno and Yamashito’s collaboration. Strange spirits, it seems, are all around us. And they’re just about as lazy as we are.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Combining live-action filming with frame-by-frame rotoscoping, it crafts a surreal, dream-like world. With its colorful art style and quirky characters, Ghost Cat Anzu explores profound themes of grief, family, and spirituality in an approachable way for both children and adults alike.” – Naser Nahandian, Gazettely (contemporaneous)