Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell

This short film was made during the early period of 90s Japanese straight -to-video entertainment, but never got released until 2012. It's full of campy fun, obvious references to Evil Dead series and the character of "Ash" to a Japanese body builder.

It's also can be been seen as a pre-Grudge (or J u-on) film since the villain is Hell bent on a grudge toward the living! It worth of look, for earl attempts on Japan V-cinema -- at the beginning of directors like Miike.

Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell (Originaltitel: Jigoku no chimidoro massuru birudâ) - 1995 (This Film Rates an A ) A man stabs a woman to death and her blood gets soaked into a metal necklace. He attempts to bury her in the floorboards, but she comes alive. Flash forward to a bodybuilder named Shinji and his ex-girlfriend who is into photographing haunted houses. They get together with a psychic and visit abandoned and seemingly haunted houses. The three visits one in particular, it was owned by Shinji's father. The psychic senses something is watching them. He tries to summon a woman's spirit and starts having horrific visions. All does not go as planned of course and its all-super bloody fun from here. The gore isn't extensively realistic but there is plenty of good spurting blood scenes. Its satisfying even if over the top in so many ways. The comedic moments are very funny and effective (28 min mark, 43 min mark. 52 min mark) and are often followed with lots of blood. You'll laugh but you'll love. The soundtrack is good and has some creepy moments that enhance and highlight the scenes (12 min mark, 18 min mark, 27 min mark, 28 min mark, 33 min mark). No T&A. The overall film quality isn't there but what's present is artistically fantastic in that Japanese WTF sort of way. Plus, he said "groovy".

This is exactly what you'd expect from a movie called Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (AKA Japanese Evil Dead).

The first half drags a bit, but the second half is so much fun. Never has a movie felt so much like it got incrementally better as it went along, as quite literally every scene was better than the last.

There are obviously technical flaws and limitations aplenty, but most add to the charm of the movie. And while the first half is comparatively show compared to the second, at least it doesn't stretch those tamer 25-30 minutes to 45-50 in order to get this in the more traditional 80-90 minute range.

I hope Sam Raimi's seen this, too. He'd probably really like it. And while it is derivative of Evil Dead 1 (and 2!), it does just enough to make it feel like its own thing. And being filmed before Ringu, it did a creepy scene with a tv first.

Also: the very last shot was surprisingly kind of unnerving.

Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder In Hell definitely deserves more attention. It feels like a bunch of collage students watched the first two Evil Dead films and collectively thought "we could do that' and they did. The film starts with a wife trying to kill her husband. The husband gets the upper hand and kills her only for her to return from the grave. The film cuts to thirty years later were a body builder, some sort of physic priest and a news reporter are visiting the old house were the events took place thirty ears earlier. From 12:48 to 23:17 some of the shots of empty hallways, rooms and staircases are generally unnerving before every thing kicks into a fun and cheesy gore fest. The blood, guts and gore of the film looks like its made of play dough and red jello but it still has lots of low budget charm. The low quality camera only adds to the fun and adds a grindhouse type quality to it. There is a lot of fun stop motion in this film that reminded me of Basket Case. In conclusion Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell should be more recognized for its low budget charm.

Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell calls itself 'the Japanese Evil Dead', because it's Japanese and it shamelessly rips-off The Evil Dead (and EDII). Seems reasonable enough to me. And like the Evil Dead, it's a total blast once director Shinichi Fukazawa begins to pile on the excessive gore and splat-stick comedy.

The film starts off relatively restrained, with a prologue set in Tokyo, 1978, that sees a man, Naoto, killing his wife and burying her body under the floor of his house. Years later, Naoto's son, bodybuilder Shinji (who still has a long way to go before rivaling the likes of Schwarzenegger), inherits the property, and takes his girlfriend Mika there so that she can write an article about the supposed haunted house. A psychic accompanies them on the trip.

Once inside the house, the psychic examines all of the rooms, detects an evil presence, and begins to see ghostly apparitions, and soon after the fun really begins...

Mistaking Shinji for his father, the vengeful spirit of the murdered woman possesses the psychic, and Fukazawa lets loose with the craziness, piling on the blood and guts, missing no opportunity to give his own interpretation of key scenes from Raimi's horror classics: the possessed man pops up to provide shocks, but is decapitated with a shovel; the body is chopped up, quivering parts scattered all over the floor; these pieces suddenly have a life of their own; Mika is bitten and becomes possessed herself; and Shinji arms himself with a shotgun and utters the Japanese equivalent of 'Groovy'.

It's all totally devoid of originality, of course, but the whole bloody shebang is imbued with such energy and a clear love for Raimi's films that it's hard not to like. 7.5/10, happily rounded up to 8 for IMDb.