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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CASSHERN (2004)

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DIRECTED BY: Kazuaki Kiriya

FEATURING: , , , Kanako Higuchi, Fumiyo Kohinata, Toshiaki Karasawa

PLOT: Dr. Azuma uses experimental cell-regrowth technology to resurrect his son Tetsuya, transforming him into a reluctant superhero and inadvertently creating a group of rebellious new humanoids who are prepared to destroy all of humanity.

Still from Casshern (2004)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Ambitious to a fault, Casshern is glorious excess, ricocheting from elaborate action sequence to moody introspection and back again, all against one ornately decorated backdrop after another. Even in its most intimate moments, this is a film that aims big: in plot, in look, in performance.

COMMENTS: The year was 2004, and the digital backdrop was ready to make a splash. A quartet of films offered an early look at the green-screen extravaganza that would come to dominate the cineplex, each one of them in their own way showing a path to the future. One of them, Able Edwards, looks exactly like its $30,000 budget. Immortal captured our attention by emphasizing weird flourishes. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow opted for star power, plopping some of Hollywood’s biggest names in front of glorious sepia-toned Art Deco images and directly into the heart of one of the most boring movies ever projected. And then there’s Casshern, Japan’s entry in the digital sweepstakes and probably the film that best augurs the current state of the movies; creating a fusion of intense action, elaborately appointed CGI landscapes, and liberal doses of operatic philosophical discussions conducted with aching intensity. Each, in their own way, led us to “The Mandalorian.”

Casshern has so much plot. It’s adapted from a 1973 anime series and absolutely feels like it, with volumes of backstory condensed into short bursts amidst the action and impassioned reflection. For most films, the showdown between humanity and the new creatures it has unintentionally Frankenstein-ed into existence would be conflict enough. Shellshocked Tetsuya finds an appropriately flamboyant opponent in Burai, the white-haired leader of the Neo-Sapien revolution.The history here, however, just keeps going back and back: to Tetsuya’s father as the inventor of neo-cells, to the intractable war between the two great powers, to the coverup of the true origin of humanity. Sometimes, Casshern has so much it wants to explain that it feels like it’s retconning itself in real time.

It’s all very, very serious. Tetsuya and love-of-his-life Luna can barely take a moment for themselves without reckoning with all they have lost. The various powers manipulating the situation from behind the scenes are too bureaucratic and officious to waste a moment on mustache-twirling. Even Burai and his grand pronouncements of world destruction are weighted with pain and vengeance. You would think that dressing themselves in fabulous supervillain gear, donning a logo that looks like the Nazis co-opted a 45 rpm adapter, and stumbling with unbelievable serendipity into an old factory for constructing killer robots would merit at least a moment of wry acknowledgement. But no, there’s not a smile to be found.

Music-video veteran Kiriya puts together some spectacular set pieces, including a tense escape from a laboratory under heavy fire and an exciting sword duel on the grounds of a decimated city. He’s always careful to keep the story rooted in philosophical quandary, though, which means the film is wildly inconsistent in tone and pace. (Shiro Sagisu’s score, which often feels wildly out of sync with what’s happening on the screen, doesn’t not help.) What’s most curious about this mix of moods is that everything feels essential, but mismatched, as if two different takes on the same material had been stitched together. A North American edit supposedly tightens up the more philosophical sections (and reportedly makes the story less comprehensible in the process), but it’s hard to see how that would help. For all the introspective diversions, “too slow” really isn’t one of Casshern’s problems.

For a superhero film that, for its look and its weight, could sit comfortably alongside any number of MCU and DCU entries, Casshern is not particularly fun, but it is fascinating. If you wanted to show how an anime could become live action, this would be a strong point of comparison. If you wanted to demonstrate the full potential of digital set design to create impossible worlds, this film opens the door. If you just want to embellish familiar sci-fi settings with a layer of existential dread, this definitely does the trick. All these things and more are possible. However, you just might want to decide which of those things you want the most.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… so stunning and strange to behold, saturating the screen with such rococo detail, that it is impossible to believe it was made for under 6 million US dollars… Casshern really does represent a spectacularly stylised mutation of the way we look at the world of war.” – Anton Bitel, Projected Figures

(This movie was nominated for review by Andrew Milne, who called it “utterly inscrutable and deliciously mad.” Andrew also recommended it to Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending, who got to his review long before we got to ours. Well played, Tim. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)   

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Casshern (DVD)

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    FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZSAZSA ZATURNNAH (2026)

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    AKA Zsazsa Zaturnnah vs the Amazonistas of Planet X

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    DIRECTED BY: Avid Liongoren

    FEATURING: Voices of Phi Palmos, Adrienne Vergara, Io Balanon, Siglo Pecho, Joelle Yuvienco

    PLOT: Ada, owner of a local hair salon, has a crush on the  grocer across the street and must rise to heights of heroism to defeat murderous aliens from planet Planet X.

    Still from Zsazsa Zsaturnnah (2026)

    WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The fact that this is one of the queerest movies I’ve seen, both in the modern sense and the word’s original definition, tips my balance of judgment here. A string of silly, sexualized kaiju encounters (eggplant, anyone?) culminate in a showdown involving a cock-and-balls super weapon, so there’s certainly that, too. Zsazsa might make for a great animated sci-fi queer double feature alongside Strange Frame.

    COMMENTS: Ada enjoys his quiet life, in his quiet town, working at his quiet hair salon. He enjoys, a great deal, innocently ogling Dodong from his viewpoint across the street (often falling into an inadvertent drool as the comic-book visuals morph into Steel-y pastels of hunkitude). He enjoys, somewhat less, the company of Didi, his in-your-face assistant who somehow managed to land devotedly in his employ. He enjoys, not at all, the prospect of devouring a large space rock—emblazoned with the enigmatic word, “ZATURNNAH”—at Didi’s behest; but as Didi quips, Ada has had no difficulty fitting large things into his mouth before. Open wide, gulp, fizz, blast, and behold our superhero: muscle-bound, flowing-haired, curvaceously-carressable Zsazsa!

    Adapated from a comic series, and previously interpreted in live action both on screen and on stage, Zsazsa is wholly unleashed in its animated form. Avid Liongoren pushes the vibrant versatility of the medium to fabulous, fantastical heights as colors grab the eye and zippy lines whoosh us through mighty battles, culminating in a zombie horde ka-powing before the actual final showdown. That battle, against the strange forces behind the series of invasions that plague the small town, squares us off against an odd bit of commentary: a mighty queen from a far off planet who has destroyed all men and believes that Zsazsa is wholly female. There is a smirking tension in Zsazsa between misandry, misogyny, and a nebulous middle thingy. Ada is, quite firmly, a gay man, though with classically feminine tendencies, and the queen of Planet X has no experience with this.

    But I risk taking things too seriously. Zsazsa bursts with Lisa Frank energy from the get-go, and the pep doesn’t let up throughout the movie. In the midst of the endless sight gags, zippy one-liners, and cartoonish combat is a message: strength comes from within, and it has nothing to do with whatever spiky space rock you may have deep-throated into yourself.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “… the actual subject of the film perfectly accentuates the strangeness of its animated frames… Fans of campy cinema, drag aesthetics, and comic-book fantasy should have an absolute blast with this wild genre combo.” — Joshua Hayes, Josh at the Movies (festival screening)

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    366 UNDERGROUND: INCORPOREAL MAN (2025)

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    Beware

    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: None (completely generated by AI)

    PLOT: A delusional bum with supernatural abilities tries to fight crime and save democracy.

    Still from Incorporeal Man (2025)

    COMMENTS: From the beginning, something feels off. Characters move clumsily and the imagery alternates between photorealistic and animated with no consistency at all. Then it becomes clear. This is a feature length film completely constructed with the help of Artificial Intelligence. But let’s not be negatively predisposed, assuming it will be the product of laziness and lack of talent, just because it doesn’t use real cameras and actors. Let’s soberly examine it for what it is, or at least attempts to be.

    Director Haradon has a background in AI-made films: The Epic of Gilgamesh (2024) is a feature-length A.I. adaptation of the world-famous poem. Now, with Incorporeal Man, he works on an abandoned script of his own from 2004, bringing it for the first time ever on the “big screen.” The plot revolves around Jim, a disheveled drunkard (partly modeled on Haradon’s physical appearance) coming to town to catch the infamous serial killer “The North Butcher.” Jim develops a friendship with Roger, a cartoonish egg-shaped figure working at the Shit Factory—don’t ask–and through their conversations the protagonist’s background and special traits (like his superpower that allows him to travel through walls) are revealed. Pretty basic exposition, but it works.

    Through Roger, Jim finds a job at the Shit Factory, too, studying kung fu in his spare time in hopes of saving the city from criminals and sickos. He mostly goes around talking about himself, though, getting trapped gradually in a series of destructive and self-destructive delusions. It all plays out like a dark comedy, with a protagonist who’s an exaggerated combination of two well known archetypes: half superhero, and half deadbeat detective out of a classic noir. Everything is archetypal, in fact, and mostly plays by the rules of classic narrative, with only the somewhat anticlimactic and ironic finale really making a difference.

    If this movie wasn’t made by AI it would be basic, forgettable work. Here it has a distinct grotesque aesthetic, with decomposition and degradation imbued almost in every shot, not only in our low-life characters but in their environments, too. There’s also a nod to classic ian thrillers towards the climax.

    For sure, there are some WTF elements along the way, such as the Shit Factory. The factory works mostly as an allegory, though, recalling shitty, alienating work environments most of us can relate to. The sound department is also AI software; it works okay, incorporating realistic voices and some classical tunes. There are some weird sound effects, however, like the farting noise heard whenever our character turns incorporeal to pass through walls.

    All in all, this movie may appeal to a certain kind of audience that loves bad cinema. It is a Z-movie that might entertain for how outrageously silly it is. We do have to recognize the passion here. The movie is also available for free—legally—on YouTube, so you can check it out if the concept intrigues you. But a final warning: Incorporeal Man is in essence feature-length AI slop, nothing more.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “The spirit of the late poet Bukowski becomes a ghost in the machine in the AI-tooled unconventional superhero feature The Incorporeal Man… Fans of Tim and Eric will like it, as this is way stranger and less irritating than the Tim and Eric feature movie.“–Michael-Talbot Haynes, Film Threat (contemporaneous)

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    APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MATAPANKI (2026)

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    DIRECTED BY: Diego Fuentes

    FEATURING: Ramon Galvez, Antonia McCarthy, Rosa Peñaloza, Diego Bravo, Rodrigo Lisboa

    PLOT: Punk kid Ricardo unlocks superpowers from a mysterious alcoholic admixture and reluctantly pursues the path of a superhero.

    Still from Matapanki (2026)

    WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The punk DIY aesthetic goes quite a ways in making this one a bit different—but the apocalyptic, kaiju-scale showdown with the US prez takes it over the finish line.

    COMMENTS: Punks and their punk movies. Jerky camera maneuvering, hand-painted ¡Poder! effects, naturalistic acting, boozing, cigarette-lighter huffing, amiable grandmothers… Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, and they can’t even afford to film in color!

    Of course, I jest. (And I’m something of a square.) To be honest, this film is quite charming. Ricardo and his pals have a healthy social thing going: the cover charge at the club they frequent can be paid through second-hand books. All they’re trying to do is live their low-key party lives on their own terms. But as is always the case, the Man (in particular, the Gringo) wants to bring ’em down.

    With an opener straight out of ‘s dark alchemy, Matapanki‘s punk cred is never in question, despite the feel-good throughline. The superhero storyline unspools in thrash time, taking somewhere under an hour (if you don’t include the credits). Viewers get a wallop of antiestablishmentarianism, with fast cuts and vibrant doodles whenever our hero (and later, the supervillain) pumps up the ¡Poder! Matapanki jouncily stumbles toward the finish line, keeping merely oddball throughout (with more than a few hints of Repo Man) until culminating with a BANG! when Super Punk Boy battles Super Neocon Gringo Man.

    Take that, you square! And don’t you ever mess with our anarcho-drunken heroes again.

    Matapanki does have a worldwide distribution deal with Italy’s Minerva Pictures, so it should become available to the general public in the nearish future.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…a perfect rendition of a superhero flick made in the style of the cinema of transgression… Like a good punk song, it stuffs a lot of chaos into a very short running time…”–Micheal Talbot-Haynes, Film Threat (festival review)

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    CAPSULE: THE TOXIC AVENGER (2023)

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    DIRECTED BY: Macon Blair

    FEATURING: , , , Jacob Tremblay,

    PLOT: A mild-mannered janitor becomes an avenging superhero after being thrown into a vat of toxic waste.

    Still from THE TOXIC AVENGER (2023)

    COMMENTS: The idea of Hollywood types spiffing up an old script for a polished take on the underground exploitation studio’s punk sensibilities is inherently intriguing. And although some might miss the Jersey grime and DIY nihilism, there’s enough of a novelty factor to the whole enterprise to make the new Toxic Avenger worth a look.

    Right away, you can tell that little things like editing, lighting, and cinematography far surpass ‘s capabilities. Not to mention, of course, the acting. (If you can even name an actor from another Toxic Avenger movie, you’re a real fan.) Who wouldn’t be curious to see Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, and Elijah Wood ham it up in Tromaville? Even the supporting characters with less name recognition, Taylour Paige and Jacob Tremblay, blow away most Troma performers, who tend to be broad comic caricatures who come across more through costuming and outrageousness than through line deliveries. The stars don’t sleepwalk through the project, either. Dinklage gives it his all, putting real pathos into Winston Gooze, snuffling in terror and even donning a pink tutu at one point. Bacon has as much of a ball as you would expect as a soulless and unscrupulous corporate huckster with his own mad science dungeon in the basement of his mansion. Wood is nearly unrecognizable as a pasty-faced, Penguin-like chief of security with a bizarre hairdo (he’s balding, but with one exceptionally long wisp of hair growing from the front of his crown).

    The major tonal change is that this new Avenger sports conspicuously more heart than Troma’s cynical output. The script goes out of its way to show us that Winston is a decent man, whose only flaw is that he’s overly meek. A widower, Winston takes his responsibility as sole provider for surly teen stepson Wade seriously. Maybe he lacks the courage to stand up to a slumlord who’s harassing his grandmotherly neighbor, but he will instinctively risk his life to save her cat from an oncoming car. When he’s diagnosed with an unspecified fatal illness from mopping up toxic waste all day to feed his family, and then denied lifesaving care by healthcare bureaucrats, he generates legitimate sympathy. And the Avenger’s ultimate targets—corporate scallywags poisoning the populace, not just teen bullies as in the original—make for a noble cause. Paige’s J.J. is an activist, a legitimate self-sacrificing idealist in the usually everyone-for-themself Tromaville. Whether these changes represent a welcome humanizing touch, or a sellout of Troma’s laugh-while-burning-society-to-the-ground ethos, is a matter of personal taste. I think it generally works.

    What the remake keeps from Troma is the reliance on comic violence and gore, which is in fact amped up to even higher decibels. Yep, arms get yanked off and heads split open aplenty, and the finale sprays megagallons of blood. The makeup also hearkens back to Troma’s glory days; the Avenger has an inarticulate rubber mask, and the chief baddies (a “horrorcore” band called the Killer Nutz) feature characters like a giant chicken with a mohawk. The comedy, however, misses even more than a Troma production. I didn’t hear a single hearty laugh ringing out at a lightly-attended screening, only occasional muffled chuckles. The humor is not transgressive or politically incorrect in the slightest; targets are kept safe (who could be offended by making fun of health insurers or narcissistic CEOs?) The mostly PG-13 jokes are similar to, but not quite as funny as, those in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. It would have been nice to see the script go a little harder; one of Troma’s few virtues is their willingness to be equal opportunity offenders.

    In the end, the new Toxie is neither the disaster nor the success it might have been. At a minimum, it fulfills what the project promised: a look at what the 80s superhero spoof might have looked like with a reasonable budget. It corrects some of the original’s shortcomings, but abandons some of the outsider charm in the process. Next up: a big budget remake of Pink Flamingos with RuPaul as Divine, Pedro Pascal and as the Marbles, and Lizzo as the Egg Lady.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…a weird, messy, heartfelt little beast that finds a surprising amount of soul beneath its buckets of blood…  Against all odds, The Toxic Avenger has grown up, just a little, without losing the sense of gonzo fun that made him a cult legend.”–Nicolas Delgadillo, Knotfest (contemporaneous)