Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell Review
The first thing that was going to come into my mind when I saw this was obviously going to be Hausu and Takeshi Miike. This mostly due to the fact it takes place in a creepy house in Japan and is an unusually violent horror movie. Yet as it went along I saw it less like a Miike film and more like someone who had been a fan of Raimi’s films yet was caught in between the years that same Hausu influenced the Evil Dead films with the mid 90s, when the former had yet to leave an impression on horror films. As the film begins it gave out the kind of aging vibe E. Elias Merhige emanated with his black and white films, only with color, in order to give them an early 80s feel. Of course since this was a J-Horror film influenced by Evil Dead the same violence was not only going to be excessive, it was also going to be strangely off-kilter to the point it was too creative to be disgusting (or at least just disgusting). Yet as the film went along it showed how what it lacked in settings or maybe budget it more than made up for in ambition, lore, and even skill in order to have an amply engaging narrative to match its classic yet absurdly horrifying atmosphere. As an homage to Evil Dead it does the job maturely yet enjoyably (one of the characters even says “Groovy”). As a standalone horror movie it does a quick yet fair job with shoddily fun effects to the point it pulls off ending on both a scary and funny note.