Review: Hiruko the Goblin (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1991)

Gory Japanese creature antics with an old-skool flavour . Flawed, but fun.

Shinya Tsukamato (writer/director of the cult Tetsuo: The Iron Man) returns to the horror genre but this time, instead of doing something experimental and "out there" like Tetsuo, decides to adapt and direct a much more mainstream tale of horror. Based on the novel by Daijiro Moroboshi, the story is of a rural Japanese school in the middle of lush green fields which houses an underground lair home to seemingly thousands of "Hiruko"- which are, literally, small spider-like arachnids with heads of either their previous victims or their original alien forms. Sealed away by the spells of old Gods and legends, they are unwittingly unleashed by an archaeologist excavating the area. As a teacher and his student (played by Naoto Takenaka and Megumi Ueno) go missing within the area, crack goblin hunter Reijiro Hieda (Kenji Sawada) is called upon the site to deal with the shenanigans, who along the way meets Masao (Masaki Kudou), who is also there as he searches for his father who has mysteriously vanished there. Cue some monster-fighting fun as the two discover they are dealing with more than they bargained for, and with the help of Heida's home-made monster-busting tools and traps as well as the school's janitor Watanabe (Hideo Murota) who knows the truth, they plan to end this onslaught attack of spider-like creatures who enjoy stealing the heads of their victims.

The film has a great look with excellent colour and lighting. It also houses some pretty cool special effects in the form of severed heads, animatronic spider-like creatures (most of which sprout from these heads) and some use of stop-motion animation- so all in all, if you love low budget vintage horror (especially from the 80s), then you will definitely find something to like about this film. Tsukamoto was definitely inspired by the likes of Sam Raimi and John Carpenter and the influence shows as their fingerprints are rife throughout- the way scenes are shot, the style, the camera angles, how the monsters look and such, are all heavily inspired by films like The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and The Thing (1982), it even has essences of the oddball antics of Ghostbusters (1984) and even James Cameron's The Abyss (1989) in there too (Tsukamoto was already inspired by Cameron's The Terminator (1984) with his previous work of man and machine techno-bio-fusion). The story is also quite interesting as it heavily uses lots of traditional Japanese folktale lore, which to me was cool as it gives it it's own unique slant against other films, though the execution is rather dull at times. The acting by the cast is fine and they all do their job well. The music is also fantastically 80s- some cool electronic/synth beats, again inspired by Carpenter, but used to equally great effect. The charm of the film is because it's so retro, and that's what makes it fun.

The film's weak points are that it tends to drag on a bit and might be a bit boring (and confusing) in parts as the film takes some long breaks in between the action. There is also an ending which was quite cringe worthy (it had the intention of being sweet but came off as cheesy because it takes itself too seriously and, with age, hasn't fared well with it's use of effects, even though the rest of the film is solid in it's use of old-skool SFX).

Other than that, it's decent 80s creature feature schlock which delivers on some bloody gore and carnage, cool monsters, fun SFX and a cool style/atmosphere that is as good as the directors and movies it was inspired from, just don't expect too much and you'll have a blast with it, it's definitely got some creative ideas in there to make it worth a watch at least once. Definitely not up there with the best of Tsukamoto's work, but a decent enough effort for his first mainstream feature.

6/10