The absurd, the gross, and the funny all collide in Kenichi Ugana’s silly, goopy, comedy horror.
Three friends drive to check on another friend who they haven’t heard from in a while, arriving at his house to find all the windows papered out. Upon entering, the three see their friend is living in squalor and there are strange ominous sounds coming from out back of the property. Upon investigating and removing what seems like a charm that is keeping evil at bay, two of the group are turned into cackling ‘Evil Dead’ style demons. Said demons are quickly dispatched and we then cut to three months later where we find a man tied up in a bar and a seeming demon apocalypse taking place. To say anymore is to spoil the fun of ‘Visitors’ as what unfolds is anything but predicted but certainly entertaining, and goopy.
Expanded from his short of the same name (which makes up the first part of the film), Kenichi Ugana’s flick is the story of a demon apocalypse told in three parts. After the opening segment, proceedings jet forward three months and then for the last segment a whole year to show how the lives of the survivors of segments one and two intersect and ultimately converge on the house where all the demon chaos began. Less concerned with the apocalypse and more with the set of characters’ lives who are transformed by the demon uprising, ‘Visitors’ may start ominous, dark and very gory but soon switches to become more of a bumbling demon comedy. But still with a lot of gore.
Owing a lot to likes of ‘Evil Dead’ (and other 80s style demon/zombie/gore films) Kenichi Ugana puts enough of his own spin and Japanese style quirk into proceedings to make it his own. It certainly starts off quite ominous and weird before going full comedy as the survivor of the second segment shacks up with the demons from the first segment, and the whole thing becomes kind of a comedy of manners as demons and humans co-exist. Sort of. There’s still a ton of gore (or green goo the possessed like to spew!), Troma legend Lloyd Kaufman pops up in a short cameo, and the whole thing bumbles along on the charm of its leads: the trio of friends from the beginning making surprising likeable screechy demons and the protagonist from segment two drolly staring bewilderingly at all the madness unfolding around him.
At just over fifty minutes the silliness and blatant absurdness doesn’t outstay its welcome and while those who would have liked a full-on demon/zombie gore mayhem may be disappointed, fans of offbeat Japanese gore films will certainly get a kick out of the shenanigans Kenichi Ugana cooks up here.
‘Visitors’ is streaming exclusively on SCREAMBOX in the US, and you can sign up to watch it now at screambox.com.
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