Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The Boy from Hell (2004)

The first film in the "Hideshi Hino's Horror Theater" series - based on the manga artist's grotesque tales - is "The Boy from Hell"; a grim and oddly stylish film.

Following the sudden, violent death of her young son, a surgeon is approached at her son's grave by a witchy old woman who offers up a way to resurrect the boy. This entails spilling the blood of another, similarly aged boy, on her child's grave, which she does... However, he returns completely different: evil and monstrous looking. His mother isn't willing to throw in the towel, though, and begins plucking terminally ill children from the hospital where she works in order to perform brain transplants on her devilish, flesh-eating 'son', but her methods to curb his appetite for human consumption aren't that successful...

I'm not all that familiar with Hideshi Hino (aside from his role in the Guinea Pig entry, "Flower of Flesh and Blood"), as I don't typically read manga or comics in general (which I know is ironic, considering I've made several, myself...). That said, based on what I've seen of this series of films so far, I'm fairly impressed, overall. "The Boy from Hell" definitely has a strange 'tone' to it in using superimposed back-drops that add a dream-like, comic book-style 'vibe' and bright, neon colors at times. Some of the effects infer obvious budget constraints - such as the make-up job on the boy-creature, which looks kinda silly, but it's not horrible enough to drag the film down too much. In all, I enjoyed this one as a quick (hour or so long), entertaining, occasionally gory watch.

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