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Reviews
Route 9 (1998)
Inferior rip-off
The premise of the movie is basically an inferior American rip-off of "Shallow Grave", a really great British thriller starring among others Ewan McGregor (famous from Trainspotting). In Route 9, two sheriffs in a calm rural county stumble upon a drug deal gone bad. All the criminals have shot each other dead, and in one of the cars is a briefcase filled with money. Sheriff Booth Parker (Kyle MacLachlan) wants to report in, but his partner Dwayne Hogan (Peter Coyote) persuades him that this is the great chance they have been waiting for; a miracle from God that will save them from the hell of being, basically, white trash without a future. They take the money and torch the car to (as they believe) cover their tracks before reporting in. To their horror, they then discover that one of the badly injured criminals is still alive and might have witnessed their theft. Hogan argues that their lives will be ruined if the man survives long enough to tell on them, and he "helps the man along" by suffocating him with his jacket. After this, they are forced to more and more evil acts as they desperately try to cover up their tracks. The acting is fair. Peter Coyote is not as convincing as Kyle MacLachlan, but MacLachlan does have the advantage of playing the Nice Guy With The Conscience. The plot is pretty predictable with a moralistic ending. See Shallow Grave instead, it is much more scary, realistic, fast paced and unpredictable.
Chôjin densetsu Urotsukidôji (1989)
Very disturbing
This movie has probably done more to tarnish the reputation of the Japanese and Japanese cartoons than any other. Urotsukidoji belongs to the Japanese school of animation known as anime (or manga). There is a special sub-group of manga called Hentai, which refers to erotic material. Some Hentai is humourous or erotic, but some contains bizarre and violent imagery which would have been instantly banned in most countries. Urotsukidoji belongs to the latter category. The world of Urotsukidoji is really three worlds, the world of Humans, the world of Man-Beasts (the Jyujinkai) and the nightmare world of the demons (the Makai). Beings from all these worlds are very sexual creatures. Man-beasts are basically humans with some animal features, supernatural powers, and very few hang-ups about sex. The demons come from a dark world of violent and perverted sexuality. Sex is the driving energy in the world, but it is not the healing life energy Orgone imagined by the idealistic crackpot Wilhelm Reich. Sex in the world of Urotsukidoji is a force that seems to come from women, but ultimately kills them in the most gory ways and transforms men to violent demonic creatures with incredible endowments. Legend has it that every three thousand years comes a god-like being called the Chojin, whose destiny it is to unite the three worlds into the Land of Eternity. The teenage hero Amano of the man-beasts and his sister come to a Tokyo high-school to find the person who is fated to become the Chojin. Unfortunately, several demons have also tracked the Chojin to this school and all hell is about to break lose. The plot after that is just a lot of sex and fighting. The film is pretty well animated, and it is obviously not a low budget project by anime standards. Those who like to be shocked and provoked (liked I used to be when I was younger) might be drawn to this movie, but believe me, the sex and gore is not amusing or exciting and you will feel depressed after seeing it. The plot is very disturbing and you will probably feel rather sick after a while. I lost count of how many attempted rapes there were on the heroine, and women in that world seem to exist literally only to be willing victims, to be raped and ripped apart by demonic lovers. Most of the people who dubbed the voices chose to remain anonymous in the credits. Understandable.