Visitors - Complete Edition (2023)

February 12, 2024 11:41 AM

Evil meets comedy: creatures, flying eyes, chainsaws, musical heads, Lloyd Kaufman, mystical apparitions, sci-fi horror comedy and a host of other gleeful shenanigans. Director Ken'ichi Ugana expands his sixteen minute short into a loopy, surreal 61 minute feature.

Starring Ryûta Endô, Saki Hirai, Haruki Itabashi, Lloyd Kaufman, Kento Miura, Keisuke Nomura, Shiho.

Available for digital rental. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (1 comment total)

Most people would hate this. I am quite certain. So this is not at all a broad spectrum recommendation. And me, I liked it but I didn't love it. I'm gonna recount the entire thing because I think it might be more interesting to hear about than it was to watch.

So the first 16 minutes is Ken'ichi Ugana's short film about three friends who go to check in on a bandmate who has not been around or answering calls. It's a bent, funny little bit of mostly unexplained Evil Dead mumbo jumbo where there's green goop in Sota's house that makes people go all Deadite. It doesn't have much story, but it's energetically made and has solid low budget effects. The recurring joke that Sota barely notices and is super chill about the demons is funny.

Then, we go to a different scenario, where a guy wakes up elaborately tied to the bar of a ransacked restaurant. He notices another guy lying on his side across the room who is in better position to escape. He manages to wake the guy up and talk him through where he can reach a knife. The guy cuts himself loose and then rises to help the first guy. And half his face is demonic and bloody. Our guy freaks out, the demonic faced guy doesn't see where there's a problem, and when our guy runs, he comes across the lone survivor of the first segment, who now has chainsaws for arms. Low budget CGI for that, but all of the monster stuff before looked terrific. It plays like a second, interesting, light-on-story short. But it's fun and well-made.

Then, we go forward in time a bit where our survivor from the bar, who makes music, is saying he wishes he could play his music for the woman who saved him from the monster. And then he sees her! She's a monster now too with a horn on her forehead. She's using her chainsaw hands to till garden soil.

He stops and they chat. Well, he chats. She says "AAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAA!" monsters are everywhere now, including a very classy monster lady with two fats human dudes on leashes.

She takes him home where the other two zombified friends are living a pretty chill life, hanging out, gardening, playing games, cooking. He plays them his music and they love it. They all constantly say "AAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAA!"

The effects go way downhill here, with low level community theater makeup and plushy entrails. It hardly matters. It's weird and wild. Maybe an allegory about immigrants? It's weird.

Then for the close, there's a group of anti-monster vigilantes looking to kill all monsters. Our guy from the bar says, Hey man, these monsters didn't do anything wrong and they're actually very nice! Then there's a conflict and the demonic faced guy from the bar comes and saves our people. Then he vomits out a few hundred gallons of the green goop. So then chainsaw girl kills the vigilantes. And they dance to bar guy's music. Chainsaw girl accidentally pushes a red button. Everyone except her disappears.

She wanders around lonely for a bit, then comes upon a monolith on the beach. Aliens open a door and appear. They play bar guy's music and they and chainsaw girl dance.

The end.

Was this a good movie? I mean, not really. But it was bonkers and interesting and if the filmmaker could do this much with zero money, two sets, and 10 actors, I'd be into seeing what they could do with even six figures.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:58 AM on February 12