Day #14 Hideshi Hino lets the Dead Girl Strut her stuff

For Day #14 of the Halloween Horror Challenge I stopped back into the work/studio of Japanese Madman Hideshi Hino and his THEATER OF HORROR!!!


HIDESHI HINO'S THEATER OF HORROR: DEAD GIRL WALKING (2004) D. Kazihiru Yokoyama ????? S.O.V.

Another entry in the shot for the home video market of short horror flicks based on stories by Japan's Manga comic master of the macabre Hideshi Hino (see the entry for BOY FROM HELL for details about Hino). This episode deals with a teenage girl who suddenly when morning dies without any rhyme or reason while watering her precious flower in her bedroom. the problem is that she is still mobile and moving around like normal. The local doctor pronounces her dead and her family immediately starts treating her like a pariah. They encase her room in plastic and ignore her as much as possible. But when she begins to stink they decide she is too much to bear and promptly decide to embalm her, against her will. All this does is make her mobility even worse, causing more bruising and rot to set in. So the family bonds together deciding to cremate her to get her out of their lives leading to a bedroom blood bath, that leaves her mother with one less eye and her little sister dead. Neither of which is her fault, but causes her to go on the run nonetheless. On the road she will encounter her old friends who are naturally terrified of her, an unsympathetic farmer and a charleton who wants to add her to his freakshow. All while rotting away even further.

This neat little short seems to be making some commentary on inter-family relationships and how parents can't seem to relate to their children. How they only can deal with them when they are perfect in their eyes, but there is a problem they rush to get rid of them as fast as they can. The movie also seems to be making a commentary on dealing with death as well on how some folks refuse to acknowledge it. Wanting instead to immediately get rid of every ounce of the loved one, so they don't have to feel their presence anymore. Better they should be gone for good than to feel any sort of pain or sorrow. The parents in this movie, never feel any sadness or regret at their daughter's passing. As soon as she is announced dead they immediately go to shame, and then anger without passing go. Perhaps there is a very Japanese commentary in there, but of course not being from Japan, I cannot be sure on that. The end of the movie, which I will not give away, comments on the whole circle of spirit thing, with how one cannot die, without feeding the cosmos in some way, continuing the cycle.

Stylistically this is very interesting. Even though shot on video, there is a lot of care in the look and feel of this episode. It starts out in color, and then once she dies, it goes to black and white and remains that way, except for one flashback and the final shot. The entire movie is from the dead girl's point of view as the world has been drained of all color. It is also shot and scored like a classic 1930's horror film. The dead girl becomes a classic monster ala Frankenstein or one of Lon Chaney's creations where she is put upon and hunted, though she is a pathetic creature who has done absolutely nothing wrong and deserves our sympathy. She is hunted for being different and suffering. Even the score reminds one of the movies from that era. Another nice touch is that she has no dialogue once she is dead. All she has is an internal monologue that we see as on screen inter titles, not unlike a silent film would use. So her world is completely alien and closed off, with only us the viewers being part of it.

The only thing that doesn't really work is the climax. I can see were it would have worked in a comic book (were I am sure this originated) but as a movie it comes off cheap, silly and out of place. the movie is clearly going for a tragic climax, then tries to go around it, and then circle back. Plus the digital effect used is sub-public access phony and takes you so far out of the proceedings that it is hard to get back in for the final bit, which is rather touching.


With this being a movie called DEAD GIRL WALKING I am sure the gore hounds are wanting to know if it delivers. There is some gore on hand as she falls apart, with her tongue and arm falling off. Most nasty is a scene where her colon and intestines drop out of her ass while she is on stage at the geek show. That even took me for a loop, though it is more sad than outright gross. The slaughter/ knife fight with her family at the mid-point has some arterial spray that you have come to expect in Japanese movies as well.

All in all a fun and fairly rewarding entry into this series. I'm looking forward to the rest of them.



This APHEX TWIN video for RUBBER JOHNNY doesn't have a god damned thing to do with HIDESHI HINO or this series. But it is super damn creepy and the deformed monster kid in it reminds me of something that would being one of Hino's comics. Since i can't find anymore clips on line from this series, this will have to do.




Reviews © Andy Copp

A true Heretic abuses expectations

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) - The Director's Cut/ Fan edit D. John Boorman Warner Brothers 1.85

For years I have heard nothing but how this movie is an unmitigated disaster. One of the worst sequels ever made and just a train wreck of a film from beginning to end. Misguided, miscast, incomprehensible and just plain unwatchable, unless taken as a comedy. Being that I consider The Exorcist one of the greatest films ever made, I just didn't want to sully that film in my mind and so I never bothered with this one. Now, that never stopped me from seeing The Exorcist: The Beginning, so I really have no arguable point to my madness. Also there have been many alternate cuts to Exorcist II over the years, with the final DVD that Warner's released being the longest one. this apparently was the same as the version that Warner's released to theaters in winter of 1977 that was universally panned by audiences and destroyed by critics. So much so that director John Boorman agreed to the film being pulled from release and personally recut the movie from 117 minutes to a much tighter 110 minutes and re-arranged much of the storyline, using some stills and footage from the original film to make it flow better.

This fan edit that I watched tonight originated from the tracker site Demonoid and was put together from a cat named PhineasBg who has lovingly reconstructed that 110 minute "director's recut" from the available DVD and an ancient VHS tape. His goal to replicate what many consider to be John Boorman's true directorial cut of the film. I have no frame of reference as to whether or not he succeeded in doing so, except to say that I thought the movie was far better than people have led me to believe over the years. This was in no way the flaming pile of shit people have accused the film of being.

After an awkward opening explaining the incidents of the first film through still frames and voice overs we are introduced to Father Lamont, played by Richard Burton. He is in Africa on missionary work but confronted with an exorcism of a local woman that goes horribly wrong. seems the woman was a local healer but the demon won't let her go and she dies in a wall of flames. Back home the Church sends Lamont to investigate the death of Father Merrin from the first film. He discovers Reagan McNeil (the now quite gorgeous teenage Linda Blair) in some sort of experimental hypno-therapy with a new age Doctor played by Louise Fletcher. The three of them begin to use a new strobe light driven device to go into deep hypnosis trances to get at Reagan's memories of the demon possessions only to realize the demon's themselves are very much still alive in her.

So far so good. A little Sci-Fi heavy, very New Age, but a very interesting take on the material. Not scary, but headed into a different direction and in no way rehashing what we have already seen from the first film. Then the film takes a hard left turn that has left many audiences really cold. It delves hard into the African native cultural beliefs dealing with things like plagues of locusts destroying the land, being driven by demons and taking on spirit animals to confront such demons. The film mixes these native approaches to spirituality with the new age hypnotism therapies, and a constant questioning of faith in Christianity. Christianity starts coming up very short by the end of the film. But the elements that seems to put people off, at least among my friends, is the dealing of spirits with representational animals and insects. The locusts, which throughout the bible have stood for the destruction of the land, are prominent in this film representing damnation. they represent the spread of the demons and the force of evil. The image here being, literally, a large locust flying around leading hordes to the next bit of prey. We get to see James Earl Jones as a tribal Priest dressed in the skins of a giant Locust whose spirit animal is a giant Leopard who is able to control the locusts. when it is revealed he is not a God at all but a scientist that has studied locusts a lot of the imagery that has come before falls into place. He explains how the locust spread destruction when they are agitated and angry, especially in large packs. He then explains how they have bred a new locust that will have the power to calm the other locusts. Something we see a local native boy who was a faith healer trying to do, when he falls possessed earlier in the film.

The whole while Pazzuzzu the demon inside of Reagan is trying to become unleashed but is battling the positive side of Reagan as well which will become the Black locust, the healer. Which we see in action when she, without trying, heals an autistic child just by talking to her at the psychiatric hospital earlier. The final battle will be between the Evil doppelganger Reagan, possessed by Pazzuzzu and the healer Reagan, the Black Locust. With poor Lamont having to fight the final battle to tear the heart from the demon to stop it once and for all.

What we end up with here is really a film that is quite unlike anything else. A child progeny of the drugged out, coked up, weed smoking late seventies, when people were wearing crystals, checking out new religions and questioning anything and everything to do with faith and the universe. While the first Exorcist movie was in essence a very Catholic film that re-enforced Christian and Catholic dogma and morality at the end of the day (I still love it anyway, and most people totally miss that it is a very moral, and pro church film) Exorcist II is looking in a completely different direction. Here the director (and ghostwriter with partner Rosco Pallenberg) are exploring the conceits that maybe organized religion isn't the answer when faced with raw evil. The film rather smartly pits Catholicism against science, against new agism, and most importantly what many would consider outright Paganism with the African magic and tribalism. By the end of the film it is the African Tribalism that has the answers, leaving all the other systems of worship and faith trialing behind. If the film is watched carefully it is as much a conical of Father Lamont's spiral out of his faith as it is a weirdo horror/fantasy about demons and Locust Spirit Guides.

Still the movie is far, far from perfect. It's over ambition renders several scenes on the pretentious side, and even cut down to 110 it is a bit too long. Richard Burton was reportedly drinking quite heavily during production and his still performance and profuse sweating shows this to be true. There are a couple of scenes that are clearly supposed to be directed in a dreamlike manner but just come off as goofy instead.

But most of the movie is a visual feast, with breathtaking cinematography, great locations, both on site and in studio. an incredible score by Ennio Moricone, solid acting form most of the cast, and Linda Blair right as she is hitting her stride into adult hood. There is a lot to appreciate in this film. Is it an appropriate movie to be a sequel to the classic The Exoricst? Probably not. Is it a good film, ripe for rediscovery, full of mental stimulation, incredible imagery, and lots of interesting and challenging ideas? Yes sir, that is exactly what it is. And I will take that.



Andy Copp