THE RAW AND THE OVERCOOKED
DEAD SUSHI Starring Rina Takeda, Shigeru Matsuzaki
and Kentarô Shimazu Written by Noburo Iguchi, Mariko Iguchi and Jun Tsugita Directed by Noburo Iguchi Millenium Entertainment
Since this is a movie about killer sushi, you should
already know whether or not you’re going to like it on premise alone. But if you’re still unsure if you want to check this out, allow me to set the table. It begins more like a hard-luck tale than a hilarious
horror movie: Keiko (Rina Takeda) runs away from the borderline abusive tutelage of her sushi chef father and takes a server job at a se- cluded inn. On her first day, executives from a large drug company show up to stay for the night and pig out on sushi. Dinner is interrupted, however, when a disgrun- tled ex-pharmaceutical sci- entist arrives with a serum that brings dead cells back
to life. He injects said serum into the sushi served to the big pharma execs and, you guessed it, the sushi attack! Since the hotel is filled with hysterical idiots, Keiko teams up with chef-cum-janitor Sawada (actor/singer Matsuzaki Shigeru) to rid the place of its fishy infestation, using their karate-like sushi prep skills.
Most of the fun to be had in this cold-served gore-
comedy is watching the sushi situation escalate to lu- dicrous heights and boy, oh boy, does it ever. This movie is packed to the gills with flying sushi, fornicating sushi, razor-sharp sushi, acidic sushi spray, sushi zombies, anthro- pomorphic fighting sushi, and much more. It’s just the kind of insanity we’ve come to expect from writer/director Noburo Iguchi (RoboGeisha, Mutant Girls Squad). That means cheap gore effects, over-the-
top arterial spray, crotch hits and fart jokes aplenty. There’s also a large helping of well- executed chop-socky slapstick, thanks in no small part to new fighting favourite Takeda, who possesses the comic prowess of Hong Kong legends such as Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow. To sum it up: Dead Sushi does for Japanese cuisine
what Ghoulies did for toilets. Convinced? PATRICK DOLAN
PRETTY DOPE
RESOLUTION Starring Peter Cilella, Vinny Curran and Zahn McClarnon
Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead Written by Justin Benson Tribeca Film
There’s a telling moment in the first five minutes of
Resolution. Michael (Peter Cilella) cautiously ap- proaches his best friend Chris (Vinny Curran) as the latter, his brain clearly drug-fried, haphazardly fires a gun from his front porch. Chris crouches as he walks, as if to avoid any stray or not-so-stray bullets, but still
wants to appear amiable and casual, so for a few steps he awkwardly shambles forward in a hunched- over stance. As a film, Resolution pretty much forces us to do the same thing – it invites us to make ourselves at home even as it keeps us off balance through its air of gentle menace. In fact, few films in recent memory have made unease so entertaining. But does that make Justin Ben-
son and Aaron Moorhead’s fest favourite a horror film? Well, I’ve al- ways used this as the litmus test: does the story feature a monster, and not just a villain? Certainly there’s no shortage of
potential monsters in Resolution. Chris is battling the proverbial “inner demons” of substance abuse, which threaten to turn him violent without warning. Then there’s the apparently well-intentioned Michael, who handcuffs his buddy to a pipe as part of a cold-turkey regimen. Neither is the monster? You’re sure? All right, then how ’bout the creepy UFO cultists who eventually show up, or the local gangsters? The weird recluse out in the desert? By refusing to localize the monstrous in a single
entity while gradually heightening the atmosphere of dread – our leads discover ominous recordings and photos apparently directed at them – Benson’s script effectively projects a sense of lurking evil out into the universe itself. For parallels, recall the feeling of om- nipresent malevolence in Argento’s Tenebre or Evil Dead’s invisible, Lovecraftian force but without the subjective shots to tip us off to its intentions. Yet for all this, could Resolution simply be termed a “dark” indie fantasy or an arty alt-thriller? I guess
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