Since I'm not into sports outside of pro football, I could find nothing to watch the other night as every fucking channel in the free world is broadcasting the NCAA basketball championship (March madness, indeed). To the Netflix cue! I put movies on my waiting list for different reasons: I like the actors, the premise, it’s simply horror, or a classic I’ve never seen before. But the movie I’m reviewing today had Cinema Head Cheese written ALL over it.
Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead comes to us via Japan. Helmed by former porn director Noboru Iguchi (this IS my shocked face), ZA begins with a young girl suffering from unbearable stomach pains. Her father/doctor tries to help her as best he can by punching a zombie in the stomach until it throws up some wriggly stuff into her mouth.
Wow, the Japanese really ARE different.
After that appetizing tidbit, we move to our main characters: Megumi, a young girl suffering guilt after her sister’s suicide; Aya and her drug addled boyfriend, Tak; model and all around bitch Maki; and goober Naoi. They’re all heading out to the woods for a camping trip but Maki wants to find a parasite. If she eats one, it’ll feed off her fat and then she can be Super Skinny, get hired for lots of Super Jobs, and finally become a Super Model. Geez, whatever happened to good ol’ anorexia?
Unfortunately she finds one, a nice juicy tapeworm, and promptly gulps it down. Megumi has to go barf over that one and while she’s off alone, Tak attacks her. After fighting him off, a strange man shambles over and bites off Tak’s finger. The gang runs away and are now on foot (because someone stole their van) when they find a nearby village and, hopefully, help.
While most of the village appears abandoned, it really isn’t. Bodies are bursting forth from the outhouse right as Maki is crouched in there when her stomach pains become overwhelming. Too late for her but the others find a building in which to hide. As they fight off the undead shit horde, they discover that destroying the brain kills the zombie. Once they do that, though, the parasites controlling the villagers’ bodies are now free to attack/invade someone else!
The energy is insufficient to express the fear in my mind.
And who should come to their rescue but the doctor from the opening scene and his young daughter, Sachi. Turns out the doctor is studying the parasite, the Nekurogedoro. He informs the group that just one bite from an infected human lays parasitic eggs into a new host. That’s how the infection spreads so fast. Wait, didn’t Tak get bitten...? Yeah. Bad news for druggie Tak. The parasites react a bit differently to his tainted blood and in the most awesome of ways.
While the remaining friends deal with this latest tragedy, Megumi stumbles upon the doc in the process we see at the beginning of the film. He must feed these parasites to his daughter because they fight the leukemia raging in her body. In exchange for this service, the doctor provides victims for the parasites. It’s okay if these lovely young people know. He’s already fed them a plethora of eggs mixed in the food he made for them earlier. They’re all doomed. DOOMED!
Not to worry! Megumi saw some anti-parasitic medicine the doc used for his little princess and THAT will save them. Aya and Naoi just have to run and hide until she can return. Yeah, I’m sure that will work out for the best.
Cue the most bizarre fight scene I’ve ever been privileged to witness. You know those fights when the defenseless hero is on the ground and the bad guy stands over him with a spear or some other stabbing implement and continues to strike back and forth, trying to pierce the hero? It’s like that but the spear is the parasite and the bad guy is a zombie’s butt.
Megumi must now fight the bat-shit crazy Sachi who is being assisted by the Queen parasite from Maki’s ass. All I can say is this parasite looks like one of those worm dudes from Men in Black but with wings and in the middle of a roid rage. In the climactic battle between good and evil, Megumi can finally put aside her pride and fart in public which jet propels her (yes, jet propels) through the sky where she defeats the evil queen and that insane parasite gobbling bitch.
Who needs a hovercraft when you have built in jet power!
What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened.
It wasn’t until about 1/3 of the way through this movie that I finally understood this was just the Japanese version of slap-stick campy comedy. The entire movie was one enormous fart joke accompanied by long fanged tape worms with rotating heads that looked like upside down cock and balls with sacks shaped like little brains.
The director’s porn roots show through the many exploitative elements in the film: the dancing girl in short shorts eating a hot dog and shooting light out of her butt every time she bends over and slaps herself during the opening credits; the final battle with Megumi’s boobie hanging out of her slashed school girl uniform; there are even sensual/sexual elements to the various ‘violation’ scenes involving the phallic parasites and the young nubile victims. It’s all rather disturbing.
Japanese to English translations aside, there were some fantastic one liners in this movie. A few of my personal faves are:
This is without a doubt crazy!
I killed him with my butt.
Anal volcano!
Curse you rear end monsters!
The flick never takes itself seriously, though I’m pretty sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere about sacrificing your pride in service to others. I giggled, I cried, I shook my head in confusion. Not a great film but definitely entertaining.
2.5 Hatchets (out of 5)
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