#Japanese evil dead

[japanfilmclub]

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell 『地獄の血みどろマッスルビルダー』(2009) Written & Directed by Shinichi Fukazawa 深沢真一 

[mater-argento]

[kenro199x]

Evil Dead Trap aka Shiryō no wana (1988)

Unearthed Films Blu-ray 2021

[brokehorrorfan]

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 5 via Visual Vengeance, Wild Eye Releasing's new sister label dedicated to micro budget genre films. Stefan Motmans designed the new cover art.

The 1995 horror film is also known as The Japanese Evil Dead. Shinichi Fukazawa writes, directs, and stars. Asako Nosaka, Masahiro Kai, and Aki Tama Mai round out the cast.

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell comes with a slipcover with alternate art, mini-poster, VHS stickers, liner notes, and video store rental card. The contents are pictured below, where you’ll also find the special features, trailer, and synopsis.

Special features:

Audio commentary by filmmakers Adam Green and Joe Lynch

Audio commentary by Japanese film historian James Harper

Interview with director Shinichi Fukazawa (new)

Liner notes

Mini-poster

VHS sticker set

Video store rental card

Trapped inside a haunted house, a body builder must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a demonic ghost that is hell-bent on revenge.

Pre-order Bloody Body Muscle Builder in Hell.

[alfredsnightmare]

Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki (Izo Hashimoto, 1992) 

[catvcr]

Evil Dead Trap 『死霊の罠』(1988) Written by Takashi Ishii 石井隆 Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda 池田敏春 Cinematography by Masaki Tamura たむら まさき Poster by me :) 18 x 24

[paquesnoires]

Evil Dead Trap 1988

[splatteronmywalls]

Legendary Japanese splatter from 1988 inspired by Italian horror.

[brody75]

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

[japanfilmclub]

Evil Dead Trap 『死霊の罠』(1988) Written by Takashi Ishii 石井隆 Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda 池田敏春 Cinematography by Masaki Tamura たむら まさき

[conchelle]

Corpse party on the switch now please

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/14/2020: BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER FROM HELL

In the last couple of years, I've been paying a lot more attention to shot on video (or SOV) genre movies than I was ever compelled to do before. Platforms like the webzine Bleeding Skull and the restoration house American Genre Film Association have taken up the task of bringing this material greater attention, and treating it to the same kind of serious discussion that foundational film-based grade B-to-Z movies already enjoy. If I'm being completely honest, I don't always understand the appeal of these productions, which is part of the reason that the current SOV moment has me pricking up my ears. At the very least, I have a desire to understand it.

Not to suggest that I always find SOV production so impoverished. It is very often full of innovative special effects, envelope-pushing sex and violence, and bizarre narratives that a movie with more professional aspirations would never dare to attempt. Also, the umbrella term Shot On Video can include movies that were shot on smaller film formats, as long as a title demonstrates a certain style of grotty homemade charm and it arrived during the right era, it can be included in the SOV canon (as I’m seeing with BODYBUILDER now)--so this designation doesn't exclude the warm glow of film stock, which many of us prefer to the cold crunch of video. I like all this stuff as much as the next guy, but it feels like SOV movies are often regarded with a kind of uncritical indulgence, as if anything that is free from the oppression of the studio system--or even the basic production orthodoxy followed by the independents--is automatically a beacon of free-thinking, unfiltered personal expression...which is just not always an accurate description.

I'm familiar with, and often guilty of this attitude as regards independent and regional movies of the pre-video era; it's like, why bother criticizing something whose flaws are so plain, when it's so much more fun to discuss its hidden virtues? But I feel like SOV production faces a challenge that is unique to the time of its origins. By the 80s and 90s, the archetypal horror fan had been born: a connoisseur who became erudite through the miracle of home video, who writes and enjoys xerox-and-staple zines involving a mix of crude punk humor and intellectual analysis, who knows and repeats every line of every one of their favorite movies, no matter how badly you might want them to stop. Nerddom is great because it keeps alive wonderful things that would otherwise die from mainstream neglect, and it is terrible because it can have a calcifying effect, turning everything it consumes into a cliche of itself through rote repetition and imitation. The double-edged sword of production by and for nerds makes its mark on a lot of SOV output, and the recently exhumed BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER IN HELL is no exception. This movie was made with the passion that only a real nerd can sustain, shot and edited between 1995 and 2009 with no guarantee that anyone would ever see it. That's a pretty exciting proposal, but in practice, BODYBUILDER is not as weird as one might expect.

The lone 8mm creation of producer-director-writer-star Shinichi Fukazawa is equal parts fabulously original, and disappointingly familiar. Also known as "The Japanese Evil Dead", BODYBUILDER describes one terrifying night in a haunted house in which a demonic presence pits a group of young people against one another in a fight to the death. Fukazawa makes a handsome leading man and he knows it, punctuating the proceedings with regular inserts of himself smoldering and mugging in his best imitation of Bruce Campbell. Many of the makeup designs are as familiar as the plot, and the laudable no-budget special effects have some of that same "necessity is the mother of invention" quality that one associates with EVIL DEAD. While I certainly identify with Fukazawa's passion for the often imitated, never duplicated Sam Raimi classic, I wish I could tell him how much more valuable are his own signature innovations. The title BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER IN HELL is the best thing about the movie for sure, and it points to the second best thing about the movie: that Fukazawa is a bodybuilder, and this is a key part of his character. I'm so much less interested in him twirling a shotgun and slinging catch phrases like "Groovy", than I am in him flexing his considerable muscles, posing with obvious pleasure, and swinging a barbell like a bo staff to crack some zombie skulls.

So BODYBUILDER is kind of a mixed bag, and the 62 minute movie can drag surprisingly, because of a peculiar feature: It's essentially very competent. A lot of the writing is fairly typical of mid-grade supernatural thrillers, and the slow burn tour of the sinister house before the shit really hits the fan is, like, fine. It reminded me of a sound bite from Brian Eno in which he complains about the volume of perfectly-good music that people submit to him all the time; something that is just-fine can be intensely boring, much less stimulating than something that is interestingly bad. This is not to say that I would prefer that Fukazawa make more of a fool of himself for my amusement; it's just that the movie feels less alive when it most resembles what more people would consider a "real movie", following certain foregone conclusions about how these things are structured. BODYBUILDER succeeds more when it is unbeholden to conventions, serving up a feast of inventive FX solutions, and bathing its beefy hero in a halo of neon fog as he discovers the secret anti-demon weapon he's been questing for all along: his own muscles. Obviously I didn't love this as much as some viewers will, but it definitely earned my respect with its unique qualities, and despite my ambivalence for this kind of thing in general, I'm deeply grateful that folks like Wild Eye Releasing are out there, sharing the joy of discovery with us all.

[ladamarossa]

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

[catvcr]

Evil Dead Trap 3 Broken Heart Killer 『ちぎれた愛の殺人』(1993) aka The Brutal Insanity of Love

Written by Takashi Ishii 石井隆 Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda 池田敏春

Poster by me :) 18 x 24

[royvalentine]

news that only roy cares about: turns out one of my favorite seiyuu (asami tano; saki in zombieland saga, sarah in love live, overall total babe) is in the japanese dub of ash vs evil dead (as kelly’s voice).

so now i guess i have to finish it. 

[thecuriousowl]

Art by Ching Yeh