Different film genres, during different eras, from different countries make for some interesting movie watching. You’ll almost always find something totally unexpected 
. Hollywood isn’t the be all and end all of movies you know?
(Potentially disturbing images up ahead.. you’ve been warned)
School In The Crosshairs aka The Aimed School (1981)
OK. Seriously, I don’t usually say this.. but this movie SUCKS. I mean, there are movies that suck, but this movie sucks pretty much all of ‘em. I cannot believe that this is what teenagers back in the 80’s used to enjoy watching. The story is about a psychic girl who tries to save her school, when all of her friends begin to get brainwashed by this entity from Venus/the future?? with his beautiful sidekick?? It’s sooo wacky and trippy, the producers must have been on crack or something when they made this. The special effects weren’t just bad (for its time), it was.. it was.. I’ll just let you see some of the screenies for yourself..
The ONLY redeeming factor was the cute girl lead (Hiroko Yakushimaru) who apparently goes on after this movie to become a singing and acting sensation and dominate a large chunk of the J-Pop scene. She’s 43 years old now (she was 17 in this movie), and she’s still acting.
Meatball Machine (2005)
Aliens invade earth and infest humans, transforming them into super ‘Necroborgs’ - a blend of metal, flesh (and plastic rubber).. Objective? to fight one another so they can eat each other. Throw in a guy and a girl who’s just fallen in love, and infect them, and there you have it - a plot! Tonnes of B-grade gratuitious violence, literally drenched in gore and blood (and even a little bit of alien hentai). Even though I already knew what to expect, I still had my fair share of WTHs, WTFs and OMGs ’splattered’ throughout. It’s soOo bad, I can’t help but love it. 
At dinner table immediately after the movie..
FoOie : Oh look.. *points and sweet & sour fish fillets*.. Meatball Machine!
Mum : You all ar, watch this type of show.. waste time only..
FoOie : But it’s so ridiculous! Only the Japanese can come up with something this crazy..
Mum : *with a serious face* Japanese memang crazy wan.. you dont know meh? Ultraman and all that..
Kihachiro Kawamoto Film Works (1968 - 1990)
This is a DVD collection of 11 amazing short animated films by Kihachiro Kawamoto - one of Japan’s oldest and most respected stop motion puppeteers. Kawamoto has dedicated the last 50 years of his life to his craft, and one can actually see his growth, the stretching of his abilities with the experimentation of new techniques, throughout the progression of his short films here. Many of his stories draw influence from Japanese folktales, but there are a number of them with modern philosophical messages behind them.. regardless - they were all so atmospherically surreal, I couldn’t resist being drawn into each of their worlds.
Don’t expect a high budget Hollywood production - these are mostly filmed with just a handful of crew under low budget conditions. Despite 2 hours 30 mins of staring at wooden puppets with singular expressions, my imagination has never quite come alive like that before (or I’ve forgotten how nice it was to just ‘believe’ in animations like I did back when I was a kid). The ingenius use of lighting, film transitions, music, both 2D and 3D props and the sublime story-telling (some even without dialogue) comes together to create beautiful masterpieces of art in their own right.
For a simple synopsis (with screenshots) of each of the stories, you can visit here. You can also read a review in the middle of this comprehensive article about Japanese experimental animation.
Violated Angels (1967)
Well, I’m no stranger to experimental movies (particularly Japanese ones), but this ranks as one of the hardest I’ve had to swallow. It is one of the earlier ‘pinku eiga‘ films, and is shot almost entirely in black and white. Violated Angels is simply put - a softcore porn movie, with an extremely disturbing, dark, and bleak back-plot which is based on the actual killing spree of Richard Speck in 1966. The story is about a misogynistic twisted man who enters a nurse dorm and begins killing them off one by one despite constant begging and pleas to be spared their lives. I think the movie is degrading, as the women seem to be incapable of standing up for themselves or even help each other through the ordeal. Furthermore, the man’s motivations were vague, and the ending script was really cryptic. Keep in mind that this was released in 1967 - before the birth of the VHS - when people actually paid to watch stuff like this in theaters… *shakes head*
Sorry guys, no screenshots for this one.. The DVD cover is bad enough already.. movie stills just wouldn’t be right.
