One of the things I love about exploring lesser-known franchises from other countries is that you’re essentially deep diving into the weirder nooks and crannies of another culture and your chance of unearthing something awesomely and incredibly bizarre goes up like a rocket.
It’s with this hope that I approached 100 Monsters, a fantasy horror film that became the first of what became known as the Yokai Monsters trilogy and that delves deep into the many varied creatures that lurk, hop and leer their way through Japanese mythology. Bankrolled by Daiei Studios – the home of child loving, Kaiju turtle, Gamera – and helmed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda – a man responsible for a whole clutch of installments concerning the blind swordsman, Zatoichi and the introduction of the vengence-seeking statue, Daimajin – 100 Monsters is a fascinating oddity that may occasionally tell the occasional fib (there’s nothing even close to a hundred here) and boasts slightly odd plotting, but I’ll guarantee that there’s not much else like it.
The residents of a tenement house in the City of Edo are having something of a crappy time of it as late as an unscrupulous magistrate, Tajimaya, has decided that to raise his wealth and standing with the similarly cruel Lord Buzen, and tear down a the tenement house in order to build a brothel instead. Of course, in order for this to happen, the residents, including building’s owner and his daughter, Ôkubi, are due to be ousted from their homes and despite their complaints, the rich folk out to ruin their lifes, seems to have all the bases covered. Not only do they have leverage on the house owner as he’s in hock to them for thirty gold pieces, but any time someone seems to find a way out, they are beaten or even killed in order for these fat cats to get what they want and even the actions of heroic Ronin, Yasutaro, seemed doomed to fail.
However, the greedy villains haven’t counted on one, bizarrely random thing and in their rush to make their plans work, they’ve also arranged for a nearby shrine to be eradicated too and didn’t even make sure to hire the right guys to do the correct ritual to remove any of the various curses that come with such a disrespectful act. As a result, various creatures from Japanese folklore (also known as Yokai) start popping up everywhere, both in creepy stories and in real life and embark of righting a few wrongs by driving the Magistrate and his various henchmen madder than your average Gary Busey rant. Be it an umbrella monster – no need to read that back, I did indeed type the words “umbrella monster” – that befriends the Tajimaya’s mentally challenged son, or huge, Joker-mouthed face that tangles people up in its hair, the corrupt, wealthy bastards have some misshapen monster justice headed their way.
Earlier in this review, I mentioned that there isn’t much else like 100 Monsters, but if I’m being brutally honest, that isn’t strictly true. The plot, which sees vicious, rich men eventually get their just desserts at the monstrous hands of a supernatural avenger harkens back to the plot of Yasuda’s own Daimajin that took its gargantuan bow two years earlier and has virtually the same plot. However, instead of an indestructible statue fighting the wrongs perpetrated by the class divide, we get a menagerie of off the wall beasties who show up in the final reel to reduce and wrong doers to a gibbering wreck and then make off, dancing through the streets with barrels of sake like a mob of football hooligans with vaguely lumpier heads.
It’s a great concept and during some noticable moments, Yasuda actually manages to realise its giddy potential as he utilises some of the more outlandish Yokai to provide some truly memorable scenes. The best of which doesn’t even technically take place in the story as someone tells the legitimately eerie tale of two Ronin who fish at the wrong lake and pay the price when the missus of one suddenly is possesed by a Rokurokubi that causes her neck to elongate to the size of an monster anaconda. It’s a magnificent scene that positively drips with atmosphere like the saliva of a xenomorph if it’s jaw had been shot full of novocaine and later on we get another moment that ranks so high on the weird shit-o-meter, you’ll be convinced that someone must have spiked your drink. I mean, it’s not every movie that features a monster that looks like an umbrella and that sports a single eyeball, spindly arms and a disconcerting habit of licking the face of a giggling man-child and if I’m being blunt, the rest of the movie struggles to match it.
It’s not that 100 Monsters isn’t well made; its actually a very glossy production with some solid performances, beautiful sets and a script that actually makes its human characters central to all the hullabaloo – something of a rarity for monster movies. But considering that the film is called 100 Monsters, sometimes you’ll feel that the story could have been a little less preoccupied with the exact details of precisely how shitty those on the richer end of the class divide can really be and been less stingy with their creature usage.
Still, you can’t fault the film for a lack of variety as its gaggle of outlandish co-stars literally come in all shapes an sizes, especially in the final moments as they all descend upon Lord Buzen in order to drive him crazier than a crazy guy singing Crazy by CeeLo Green while huffing crazy glue. There’s an acrobatic one that has the face of a fire breathing old woman, one seems to be a rubbery ball and a moment that sees one of the villain’s underlings suddenly visions of everyone around him missing a face feels like something out of a late sixties version of Silent Hill. Yes, the monster effects are fairly primitive and take the form of baggy suits, lumpy masks and marionettes that judder like they’re afflicted with some sort of palsy, but in a Japanese theatre/pantomime sort of way, it makes perfect sense for the tone the piece.
However, you just can’t help but feel a twinge of impatience as you constantly wait for the film to fully throw off any and all sense of logic and just hurl itself into the void of utter chaos like Nobuhiko Obayashi’s infamous spaz-fest House; due to Yasuda’s rather controlled, sensible style, it never quite happens. However, lovers of gonzo, Japanese monster cinema who want to go beyond just the Showa Era of Godzilla will find much to love in 100 Monsters, it just doesn’t go as freakish as you’d hope.
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