Hero Hero Ghost Show!

Hey, gang! What do you know, it’s a new episode of The Dark Parade! This time, we are kicking off the rust with the help of the amazing Cort Psyops to unearth a J-horror gem called Sweet Home. Why this one? Well, it’s directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa of Pulse and Cure fame, and it has been called the inspiration for Resident Evil. If that’s not enough, the goopy effects work is done by The Exorcist‘s Dick Smith! What are you waiting for? Let’s get to some jawing about an underseen horror curiosity.

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Richard Glenn Schmidt returns for a look at the gonzo J-horror silliness that is Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell. We discuss the joys of earnest rip-offs, the downsides of polo shirts on muscular bods, and oh so much more! Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is available streaming on Shudder, so don’t be shy about watching before you listen!

Come back Wednesday for a new Found Footage Fool on Apollo 18!

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It’s Miike time again, and that means bringing in Asian horror enthusiast Derek Bourgeois for a look at Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body. We talk about the blurring of the real world and that of the play represented, dig into the themes of the movie, and wrap up with three things you might not know about this film. Be careful, you just might learn something!

Thanks to Derek Bourgeois for joining me! You can find more from him on Cinema Attack, They’re Here!, No More Room in Hell, and Underwater Kaiju from outer Space!

You can join the discussion live on Sundays at 5pm CST at YouTube.com/LegionPodcasts and you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music and Audible, iHeartRadio, Podchaser, Google Podcasts, and anywhere fine podcasts are found!

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We wrap up our inaugural Listener Request Month with a return to some Asian horror roots with a look at part one of The Bloodthirsty Trilogy and The Vampire Doll. Joined by Don Anelli, we look at the Hammer horror origins of the movie, the amazing Gothic vibes, and how fun it is to see the familiar redrawn through this Japanese lens. 

You can find more from Don Anelli on The Horror Countdown Podcast!

You can join the discussion live on Sundays at 5pm CST at YouTube.com/LegionPodcasts and you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music and Audible, iHeartRadio, Podchaser, Google Podcasts, and anywhere fine podcasts are found!

You can find all the episodes right here and say hello on Facebook or Twitter!

Get ready for the (mildly) crazy, it’s the Prisoners of the Ghostland review!

It was a match made in movie Heaven. Sion Sono, the auteur behind Suicide Club and Exte and the underappreciated Tag teaming up with Nicolas Cage, an actor who embodies a peculiar bravado. Pepper that cinematic meal with Bill Mosely and Sophia Boutella and you have all the makings of a cult classic. While I’m not certain that Prisoners of the Ghostland can achieve a lofty cult status, it is a sight to behold.

The story is simple. Cage, playing the archetypical Man with No name, is a convict imprisoned after a bank robbery gone bad. Following the escape by a group of women, Cage is charged with braving the apocalyptic landscape known as the Ghostland to bring one of them home. The man behind the mission is a white-clad ruler known as The Governor, played by Bill Mosely with typical gusto. And that’s it. Get the girl, bring her home.

What distinguishes Prisoners of the Ghostland is the man behind the lens, Sion Sono. The script borrows heavily from Escape from New York and The Road Warrior, coupling Cage’s quest with a leather suit rigged to blow arms and testicles off, and a wasteland populated by weirdos and villains for Cage to muscle and yowl his way through.

Sono uses a colorful palate to paint the scenery, bright reds for the more civilized town run by the Governor, and dusty yellows for the villains, who may or may not be actual ghosts and are assuredly victims of radiation poisoning. Some of the shot compositions are glorious and gorgeous, and the movie almost gets by on the strength of the production design and moment-to-moment beauty of Sono’s framing.

Yet not all is well in the Ghostlands. The action sequences are uneven, some quite exciting while others fall flat, especially those where Cage is asked to be more acrobatic than his age might allow. Boutella acquits herself well as Bernice, the woman Cage must rescue, probably due to her background as a dancer. Likewise, Tak Sakaguchi, who you may recall as the lead in Ruhei Kitamura’s Versus, kicks all kinds of ass as Yasujiro, a samurai pressed into service by the Governor. Some of the gore goes over the top, but not enough to place it in the splattery annals populated by Tokyo Gore Police or the aforementioned Versus.

And that may well be the tale of Prisoners of the Ghostland. It is a movie that dances near the absurd, but never goes full tilt. Sono operates in a metaphorical space, and this is no different. But the wasteland’s denizens literally holding back time and Cage’s stranger haunted by ghosts is less intriguing than didactic. All these half-measures leave the viewer more disappointed than thrilled or captivated, and so the whole of the movie is more of an interesting experiment from visionary creators rather than a work of vision itself.

That’s not to say there isn’t fun to be mined from the film. There are more than a handful of moments that elicit laughter or wonder or eye-widening at the strangeness unfolding onscreen, but it simply doesn’t amount to a great experience. It’s a strange trifle in Sono’s body of work, an interesting diversion that was filled with promise. Maybe that promise could never be fulfilled, that no movie could live up to the imagined collaboration between Cage and Sono. Regardless, I had my fun with Prisoners of the Ghostland, and there are moments I don’t expect to forget soon, but what is left behind is an odd hollowness, a sense that greatness was approached and not gained.

Sono has said that he wants to work with Cage again, and I can only hope their next effort is a more substantial one.

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On a new episode of Hero Hero Ghost Show, we kick off a sub-series called Ghost Show Classics with a look at the influential and surreal silent-era film A Page of Madness from Teinosuke Kinugasa. I look at everything from the effect of firebombing on silent Japanese cinema to the roots of this once-lost classic of Japanese film. Jump in!

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Welcome to the finale of our look at the One Missed Call series with One Missed Call 3. Joined once more by Derek Bourgeois, we take a look at this final sequel, look back at the series as a whole, and discuss the best in Asian horror movies series. Also, Derek gives some of his personal recommendations for Asian horror movies you should check out!

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Derek and Bo are ack to finish a look at 2005’s One Missed Call The Television Series. We celebrate Tokumei Watch, parse out all the twists and turns, and evaluate the series as a whole before next episode’s One Missed Call finale, One Missed Call: Final!

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We are joined once more by Derek Bourgeois to explore the hard-to-find but wonderful One Missed Call The Television Series aka Chakushin Ari. We talk the novelization, the similarities with Miike’s film and how terrific Yokumei Watch is. 

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Just when you thought it was safe to answer your cell phone… it’s One Missed Call 2 2005! Returning champion Derek Bourgeois is back to comb over this tale of ghosts and curses, cell phones and coal mines, confusion and disappointment. Without the hand of auteur Takashi Miike at the helm can the One Missed Call series take a step toward greatness? Find out on the latest episode of Hero Hero Ghost Show!

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