A superb and highly underrated cult slasher horror that every genre fan should watch! Looking at the title I thought it would be lame Evil Dead rip-off, but this is simply not the case. What it was however is a truly fantastic, creative and sickeningly brutal horror/slasher film with a very cool twist. Quite simply - brilliant!
Nami (Miyuki Ono) hosts a late night TV show specializing in the weird and bizarre. However, ratings for the show are sadly dipping- it's just not getting the viewers it should because the topics aren't interesting enough to gain audience's attention. As her producer tells her that the show will soon be cancelled altogether, twisted luck prevails. Nami finds a package on her desk addressed to her with a video which shows a camcorder recording showing directions to a secret location. Then it cuts to a scene of a woman being tortured. It's hard for her to watch, but curiosity prevails. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it a prank? Brave and determined and with nothing to lose, she decides to investigate further- after all, her job was at stake- and this could be just the story she needs to get ratings for her TV show back and possibly make it an even bigger success than it was before. Together with her film crew, they embark on following the strange video's directions which leads them to an abandoned warehouse where, unbeknown to them, will result in a terrifying night of sickeningly brutal ordeal as they realise the building is actually a glorified torture chamber rigged to the rafters with a variety of demented deadly death traps harboured by menacing monstrous murderers of which there is no escape!
This film was a real surprise for me, I wasn't expecting it to be any good but I was really, really impressed. Reminded me of a mix of the Saw and Phantasm series as well as inspired by classic Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and other Italian/Giallo horror movies, complete with a very "Goblin"-esque/inspired soundtrack. Excellent direction, atmosphere, music, style (especially the use of some excellent camera angles and black and white photography) and some really wonderfully nasty special effects and gore- some of it was so convincingly well done that even I was reeling back in shock! The film was quite surprisingly unnerving as it features some very disturbing and disgusting imagery; from gratuitous scenes of sex and rape (the film stars Hitomi Kobayashi, a Japanese adult porn star who was very popular at the time, so it doesn't skip on nudity or graphic sex), to sick scenes of torture, violence, amputations and altogether relentlessly harsh death scenes executed in very fierce and creative ways. It really had a bit of everything and done really well providing some very good and unpredictable scares. A horror fan really couldn't ask for anything more.
A surprise at every corner for poor Nami in this hellhouse of horrors!What I especially loved about it is that it was just refreshing to see a Japanese/Asian horror movie that didn't deal with curses, ghosts and freaky girls with long black hair covering their face like Asian films have been for the last 10 years or so. Before that trend got popular and overdone, here the Japanese were experimenting with some proper straight up sick slasher/snuff/splatter ideas with some insane imaginative flair that was really cool for a change (even though Japanese movies are now ditching the ghost/curse theme and going back to insane crazy gore/splatter stuff now). But this was cool and creative, 80s style, that really stood up well as something unique and special. Director Toshiharu Ikeda really has created something landmark here, it's a shame the film is so unfairly underrated as hardly anyone I know has heard of it and it hardly ever gets mentioned. But those that do will always be gushing about it! It's a must watch movie, highly recommended for all horror fans, especially if you love 80s horror with a good dose of lovely gore! In my view- it's a classic.
9/10
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