31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 13 - Hiruko the Goblin



Hiroku the Goblin
89 mins
Dir. Shin’ya Tsukamoto
1991/Japan

From the insane Japanese director that brought us Tetsuo the Iron Man, comes another tale with heads attached to spider-like crab monsters that only the wacky Japanese could pull off.  Tonight we go into a gateway to hell and meet Hiroku the Goblin.



Yabe, a junior high school teacher and Reiko, one of his students discover a gateway to hell under their school and vanish.  Before their disappearance Yabe tells his brother-in-law Hieda, a ridiculed archaeologist because of his supernatural beliefs, about his discovery.  So Heida makes a trip to the school with all his homemade Goblin hunting equipment and teams up with Yabe’s son Masao to find out what the hell is going on.

And just what the is going on in this movie?  Things are a little vague in their explanation. Apparently a gateway to hell has been opened and Hiroku the Goblin is out on reconnaissance mission to gather heads for his fellow goblins so they can all break free and wreck havoc.  This seems to be done by getting the missing Reiko’s head to sing a song like a siren and it lures people into cutting off their own heads, or something close to that.  And every time someone dies Masao’s back gets an image of their face burned into it.  Not sure why this appears, but also not sure about a lot of what is going on here.



Bottom line is the goblins in this story are basically human heads attached to a spider-crab type thing.  Totally off the wall creature, that one would expect from a Japanese flick based on a manga.  These things look pretty bad ass, only problem is, we don’t get to see them too much and most of the basis of the movie revolves around them.  Lots of talky scenes, lots of flashback scenes, lots of scenes you are hoping the goblins show up again.  While nowhere near as insane as his Tetsuo films, this one was actually made for a studio so it is reeled in a bit more, but still features some blood spraying decapitations and aforementioned goblin creatures.  And while this may sound like a wild ride, and it kind of is, I felt it to be kind of dull and drawn out even with its short running time.  The pacing is all over the place.  It’s takes a little while to take off, then it gets going, then it slows down, and picks up and slows down and then ends and keeps going. 

A little bit Evil Dead, a little bit the Thing, make this one almost enjoyable.  It should be a lot better than it actually is.  If you are into batshit crazy Japanese movies, this is worth checking out, I just wish it was a little more batshit crazy.  Don’t get me wrong, the creatures in this are awesome, but they leave you wanting more.  Kind of like eating sushi, unless you do that all you can eat, then your ass is full and if you watch this movie afterwards it will probably put you to sleep.  But I haven’t seen anything else like Hiroku the Goblin, so we will give it props for that.




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