Hiruko the Goblin

A forgotten gem from Japan.

Hiruko The Goblin was an interesting film that could have been better.The plot elements have the making of a good story and it actually starts off that way. In it, Yabe and two of his friends are on summer break and venture to their school to find his father, and another student, Reiko. Yabe has a crush on Reiko, but he's mostly admired her from a far up to this point. He also dislikes the fact that she shares an interest with his father, which is archeology. In any case, the boys get to the school grounds where they find Reiko, but something's amiss. Reiko appears to be with another student, who's she's already involved with romantically. This devastates Yabe, but everything's not as it seems as the film progresses. Eventually, the boys discover that the school has been overrun with Goblins. At some point, an amature archeologist, Heda, also shows up at the school. He's been trying to prove the existence of goblins with his work and that's why he arrives on the scene. Together, he and Yabe try to determine what's been going on at the school, and what's been happening to the others. The film eventually reaches a melancholy conclusion, I won't spoil it for you.Well, I did like some elements of this film. Yabe's crush on Reiko and wondering what happened to her, works well. The addition of the goblins, and how they choose to present themselves, was rather creepy and creative at the same time. Taking the head of a human and making it your own, on a spider body, was a good idea. It also gave the film an opportunity to do a lot of quick, chaotic, ground level filming. I also liked the fact that Reiko would sing periodically throughout the film. There was a reason for this, which I won't share, it would only spoil things for you.But the film's not perfect. My main complaint is it focuses way too much on Heda and Yabe wondering through the school. The others exit the film too soon in my opinion. They should have stuck around for more plot development. And Reiko's fate adds an interesting dynamic to the story, since Yabe still has a crush on her, but it didn't play out as well as it could have. Also, Heda has several home-made gadgets, which he uses periodically on the goblins, similar to the Ghost Buster guys, with their off the wall devices. But they're mostly used as a form of comic relief. They wern't a serious element to the movie.So in the end, I gave the film a three. It's not particularly scary, although it did jump me a few times. It's mostly a horror/comedy/fantasy story. It's not the kind of flick you have to see before you die or anything, but it's mildly entertaining, if you're interested in it. I'd say one of the best elements in the film overall, is the soundtrack. Between the synth based score and Reiko's occasional vocals, it could be the type of soundtrack I wouldn't mind having. An ok film at best, if you're into campy horror.

I loved all the Tetsuo movies and I am a big fan of Tsukamoto directing/acting. I believe I have seen all his directed movies. This movie was a lot of fun to watch and I enjoyed the craziness involved. It had a bit of everything in it including humor and the Goblin was worth seeing.

Asians know how to make a surreal ridiculous Story, in to a Fun Imaginative Acid Trip of a Movie!

Always wanted this when I read about it in Fangoria magazine. Was a great horror movie.

Shinya Tsukamoto made this after Tetsuo and instead of the monochromatic cyrber punk madness of that movie, he's somehow taken a manga by Daijiro Morohoshi and made a movie that is at once horrifying and charming, as if Spielberg wanted to make a Fulci movie and decided that it should be as cartoony as possible while having nightmare fuel embedded insie every frame.Archaelogist Reijiro Hieda (Kenji Sawada, the only Japanese person other than Yoko Ono to be on the cover of Rolling Stone) has some out there supernatural ideas that get him almost disbarred. Yet his brother-in-law Takashi Yabe (Naoto Takenaka) has discovered an ancient tomb built to seal in a yokai behind the school that he teaches at, but has disappeared along with a student named Reiko Tsukishima (Megumi Ueno).Tabe's son Masao (Masaki Kudou) is searching for his father when he sees Reiko at the school, but several people he knows get murdered and each of their faces appear on his back as smoke rises off it. The culprit? Her singing head, floating around the building.Yeah, Hiruko the Goblin has just started and it's already beyond wild.It turns out the Masao's grandfather had the same faces on his body sixty years ago and he had promised to keep the school sealed, as it contains a demon named Hiruko, who has turned all of her victims into spiders with human heads that chase our heroes through a system of caves as monstrous mouths come out of the ground and scream for them.Monster hunting homemade technology, fighting demons with bug spray, demons that crawl on the floor and come shooting at your throat, incantations and rituals, plus slapstick? Man, they don't make movies like this ever. Get this now -- it's really and truly unique and wonderful.

I saw the previews for this on shriek show movies 8 years ago. "Half good, half bad"

Loads of fun