Dead Sushi (2012, Noboru Iguchi)

The new-wave of Japanese splatter is really going down the tubes lately. It's been a while since I've checked out one of these, but it doesn't seem like that long ago that I actually enjoyed some of these types of flicks, such as "Machine Girl", the ever-so epic "Tokyo Gore Police", and I even remember kinda liking "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl" a little bit. I'm not really sure what's going on in the world of mainstream Japanese cinema these days, but their sense of humor and overuse of CGI has reached an all-time pinnacle of shittiness with garbage like "Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead", "Big Tits Zombie" and this hunk of fecal waste, "Dead Sushi".

Basically, a young aspiring female sushi chef is berated by her master sushi chef father for being a girl and sucking at the art of rolling the perfect sushi. So, she runs away and finds a waitressing job at an inn where a former scientist seeks revenge on the evil business men guests who fired him years ago for coming up with a serum that brings dead animals back to life, only vicious. This entails bringing tuna to life as flying man-eaters to quench his thirst for vengeance. Yeah, I know...

I don't think I'll have to convince many of you that this shit gets old very fast. "Dead Sushi" is a class-A example of Japan trying to be Troma and failing miserably. Not that Troma doesn't fail miserably in countless instances. Call me crazy, but I find nothing funny about sushi monsters or rice spitting zombies. Especially for 90 goddamned minutes! This was a terrible idea for a movie and the gag wears thin painfully fast. What saved movies like "Machine Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police" - aside from the fact that those weren't non-stop fart joke-laden, infantile comedies - was the over-the-top, wall-to-wall gore and fairly impressive use of practical effects. This shit just worked better when they mixed in some cyber-punk elements. These zany zom-coms just aren't cutting the mustard. "Dead Sushi" is shockingly light on gore and the CGI blood spray and... flying sushi rolls (I'm so annoyed by that concept) is fucking embarrassing. The movie lacks style, charm, direction and any enjoyment factor. It's a total and complete mess and I'm pronouncing the new-wave of J-splatter officially dead. RIP.