Evil Dead by way of Animal Crossing!

My first month at FF, and I’ve already had the pleasure of engaging with two international festivals. This time, it’s Brazil’s FANTASPOA (now in its 20th year)—the largest genre film festival in Latin America. 2024 has a huge program under its belt, with 237 features and shorts from 54 countries! The festival runs from April 11th through to the 28th in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

I looked at the list of films and Japan’s Visitors-complete Edition stood out like a (good) sore-thumb. Japanese title: Akuma ga Harawata de Ike ni e de Watashi, which, according to Google Translate, means “The Devil Sacrificed my Intestines”, which sounds just about right.

After blowing up at festivals around the world, what was originally a 17-minute short film (of the same name), director Ken’ichi Ugana beefed it up by adding another 44-minutes onto the existing run time to expand this very bizarre universe. A feat I’d never seen done before; the first portion wasn’t reshot, they just added on more footage, and honestly that’s pretty damn smart because why would you reshoot? That costs money!

With a runtime of an hour and one minute there isn’t much to specify other than for who this movie is for.
The trailer’s inter-titles do most of the talking:

BLOOD SPLATTER • CHAINSAW • MYSTERIOUS LIQUID • SPLATTER • AGRICULTURE • DANCING • HAPPY CIRCLE • FRIENDSHIP… AND THE MOVING LAST SCENE.

I love this crack because, unlike some pretentious entries into exploitation, this movie is so whacky and wild. It never, not even for a second, takes itself seriously. It’s ridiculously absurd, and the less questions you ask, the better time you’ll have.

It starts off like any old “Cabin in the Woods” film, which ends after only 17 minutes (the short). Suddenly, it’s three months in the future, then a year. These are the 3 acts. There’s a bunch of Sam Raimi-type unhinged violence where the rules of the human body do not apply. A style also made famous by the likes of Robert Rodrigues and Quentin Tarantino.

In the vein of Mexsploitation, there’s a lot of Rock-N-Roll in this soundtrack, which immediately made me think of 1999’s (also Japanese) Zombie comedy Wild Zero. The Rock-N-Roll element brings about thoughts of Tokyo’s Roller Zoku culture and the way it has become so entangled with Anime and Manga. A spirit joyously channeled throughout.

There are nods to the work of Noboru Iguchi, like 2008’s Machine Girl, and a general guise of Transhumanism, seen throughout Japan’s Shonen (Manga aimed at adolescent boys), namely Takashi Fujimoto‘s Chainsaw Man. The Japanese just love a Chainsaw limb, which obviously brings to mind Ash in Evil Dead II, which then brings to mind a classic Japanese film of the haunted house ilk, Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell (a film that runs exactly 1-minute longer than this).

After meeting our soon-to-be possessed cast: Shiho (Tokyo Vampire Hotel), Saki Hirai & Haruki Itabashi (what possesses them I have no idea) we meet our protagonist(?) Keisuke Nomura who plays a music producer, and eventually has a chance meeting with the rest of the gang.
Then, they do stuff.
I know this sounds vague as hell, but I honestly don’t know how to better describe it.

The bulk of the film is made up of nothing. More ‘nothing’ than Seinfeld.
As earlier stated in the inter-titles, the Zombie-Demons go about their business to the point where a large chunk of the film is, I kid you not, monsters, farming and giving out produce to a local monster (who likes to keep human slaves, like pigs on a leash.)

That’s really all I have to say, because I don’t want to spoil the absolutely nuts ending, or any of the little visual gems throughout. BUT, there is a cameo from Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman, which is an appropriate touch.

If you like zombies doing people things, and aren’t afraid of a schlocky gore-fest, get ready for Visitors- Complete Edition. FANTASTPOA 2024 runs from April 11th through to the 28th in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

“Unlike some pretentious entries into exploitation, this movie is so whacky and wild…ridiculously absurd, and the less questions you ask, the better time you’ll have.