An action-packed slog

Absolutely Fantastic

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

A crazed, gory, wonderfully absurd and furiously kinetic piece of Asian supernatural horror hokum; it's a feverishly inventive, turbo-charged, hard-driving trash terror item that's deliriously overloaded with demented imagination, wild-eyed passion, devilishly frolicsome wit and rip-roaring flair to spare. In short, it's a real pip.A brutal, lethal, nearly unstoppable all-powerful otherworldly force wreaks plentiful grisly havoc in a remote rural school, decapitating students and transforming their severed noggins into swift, deadly creatures which are jet-propelled by speedy, ultra-sinewy spider legs. Two teenage guys bravely attempt to thwart the wildly out of this world supernatural mayhem, with the expected madly disastrous full-throttle four-sheets-to-the-wind insane nerve-jangling and life-threatening results.This baby's got it all: briskly efficient pull-out-all-the-stops virtuoso direction, handsome, hyperactive vertiginous cinematography (the quick, super-smooth scuttling POV shots of the killer heads on the prowl are great), an intense, ominous, flesh-crawling mood that gradually escalates into all-out pandemonium, a few breathtaking moments of serenely surreal beauty, frenetically headlong pacing, gorgeously slick high-gloss production values, some pretty pastoral visuals, and a funny, appealing oddball nonconformist bespectacled dweeb protagonist -- he's a rogue, family-tradition-be-damned archaeologist named Hiruko, to be exact -- who's undoubtedly the best scrawny, weak-kneed, chicken-hearted limp dishrag unlikely savior of mankind since Zalman King's sweaty, constantly twitching dippy hippie dropout from "Blue Sunshine" (Hiruko's shrill, girlish screaming is especially hilarious -- and the bulky suitcase full of ineffectual state-of-the-art technological hoodads is a nice touch, too).The splashy, excessively nasty and explicit splatter f/x really deliver the ghastly groceries: Heads are messily ripped off so blood can copiously spew forth like a bright red crimson geyser, gruesome eviscerated corpses are strewn about the school's hallways, one character develops a burning (and smoking!) boil on his neck, a spider head tries to fatally French kiss one dude with its harmful elongated prehensile tongue, and other such gleefully grotesque stuff. The truly off the wall final, in which our bumbling, but stalwart heroes are attacked in a dark, dank cave by a murderous multitude of encroaching spider heads and do their best to fend off the vile beasts with cans of insect repellent (!), deftly walks a fine line between blackly comical bedlam and grimly apocalyptic horror; it induces both nervous giggly laughs and genuine scared shudders in equal proportion. A delectably deranged and enjoyably over the top gem.

If you were going to pick a director to helm a zany comedy horror, Shinya Tsukamoto would not be high up your list. Though a master artist and a consummate professional, Tsukamoto's mainstay is obscure art-film like Tetsuo and Bullet Ballet. Yes Tetsuo is effectively a horror and is as balls-to-the-wall frenetic as you're ever likely to see, but it's not a straight horror and it certainly isn't funny past the madcap energy it's possessed with.This is why Hiruko just plain doesn't work. It's apparently Tsukamoto's only foray into studio movies, and I can see why they never brought him back. For practically the entire movie, Hiruko threatens to A: Make the characters believable and B: Let loose with the creatures and the silliness, but Tsukamoto gets distracted every time by the possibility of a well-shot flashback or artistically edited kill sequence. Newsflash, if you're going to decapitate somebody in a horror movie, do it properly. No one will be shocked, so get on with it and don't hack it into 75 different shots to try and justify the violence.Hiruko manages to at times pick up the psychotic pacing and energy of the Evil Dead series, and Tsukamoto is obviously influenced by Raimi's style, but hasn't picked up on the silliness of the Evil Dead films. The gleeful overkill and total disrespect for realism they showed is in part present in Hiruko. However, sequences like when the goblin traps itself under a saucepan and wanders about aimlessly, or another bit where a character crawls away from the goblin at speed and accidentally traps his arms in a cardbard box are genius, but they're sandwiched between constant dull plot exposition.And oh lord, the dullness. Instead of concentrating on the cool things about the characters and plot, like Hieda's habit of making anti-goblin equipment out of his kitchen utensils or the fact that the other fella is growing little heads on his body every time the goblin kills someone, Tsukamoto falls into textbook Asian horror cliché A. What is that folks? C'mon, you know it and so do I! That's right! The 'oh god I did something awful and must atone for it by fighting with supernatural forces beyond my comprehension and OH LORDY you appear to be some kind of reincarnation/chosen one and ALONE have the power to stop this' cliché. My god, if I see one more film from Japan where the main character accidentally let someone die and their mate has to save them I will resign and start watching romantic comedies. Seriously, write something else, and preferably don't make yer horrors overly complicated. Basically, splatter horror (which this basically is, arty and overly-complicated as it is) is like R-Type. It sure as hell didn't need much of a storyline in the 80s and it still doesn't now. Leave the clever stuff to psych-horror like Shutter.Hiruko the Goblin is unfortunately a textbook exercise in how to over-think making a genre flick. If Tsukamoto stopped thinking (unnecessarily) about an incredibly ropey plot and minor details and concentrated on making a kick-ass horror comedy about head-stealing spider-goblins (which this movie could so easily become with a few minor tweaks) it would have rocked, but unfortunately it just stands as an awkward and at times extremely dull art-house stab at a genre movie.

This has the stiff direction and sterile feeling typical of many Japanese films, pretty deadly for a horror movie, especially one that's intended to have a number of wacky and wild moments. The story is extremely confusing, missing even token explanations for many things; it's like it expects us to be familiar with the story from its original source. When it's not boring, it's extremely bewildering. Some of the special effects aren't bad for what was a low budget, but they tend to be derivative of other (and better) horror and science fiction movies. See how many such references to other movies you can spot, if you should decide to see this movie despite what I've said.

I found a copy of this film without the benefit of English subtitling, but was able to figure out the story... vaguely, anyway. I have been a fan of this director's work for many years, particularly the excellent TOKYO FIST, so I was very happy to find this obscure little film.It seemed at first to be much more mainstream than the rest of Tsukamoto's films, but it did have its share of bizzare scenes... It is essentially a cross between EVIL DEAD II, THE THING, and THE CHURCH... but in Japanese. Mainly enjoyable, and a must for anyone interested in this guy's work. It is very strange indeed...