Terracotta Distribution has released the first trailer for alow-budget horror-thrillerthat must be seen to be believed,Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell. This Japanese retro gore fest has been described as a cross between the 1977 Japanese horror classicHausu(House) andSam Raimi’sThe Evil Dead. While fans won’t be able to enjoy this bizarre film on the big screen, it will be available on DVD April 24.
Terracotta Distributiondebuted this new trailer on their YouTube channel. From the land famous for cursed VHS tapes, comes a forgotten nasty video. ‘Discovered’ in a dusty second hand store in Tokyo and released for the first time in the UK, the Bloody Muscle Body Builder invites fans of bizarrolo-fi cinemaon a far out journey, into hell. After a surprise phone call interrupts his daily workout, brawny bodybuilder Naoto (Shinichi Fukazawa) agrees to meet his photojournalist ex-girlfriend to help with her research on haunted houses.
Accompanied by a professional psychic, they visit an abandoned house once owned by Naoto’s father. But inside the house a dark secret lingers and they find themselves trapped and tormented by a relentless ghost with a 30 year grudge. This film has had an arduous journey to completion, with writer-directorShinichi Fukazawafirst working on the script in 1995, but he had trouble financing production and post-production, which lead to the film not being completed until 2009. The film did receive aJapanese theatrical releasein 2012, followed by an altered version of the film known as the “Complete Edition” released theatrically in 2014, before arriving on home video in Japan later that year.
Thesupporting castalso includesMasaaki Kaias the psychic Mizuguchi whileAsako Nosakaplays Naoto’s ex-girlfriend Mika.Shinichi Fukazawaalso portrays Naoto’s recently-deceased father, whose actions at the now-abandoned house decades earlier help set the plot in motion. The film only has a runtime of 61 minutes long, although it isn’t clear if this DVD release comes with any special features or not, but we’ll find out for sure next week when this film debuts on DVD.
Aside fromThe Evil Dead, this movie “borrows” a number of elements from otherclassic horrorfilms.Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Helllifts a device used inHellraiser, where the flesh and blood of a living human being is used to revive a rotting corpse. Fans will also notice an animated severed hand similar to the one fromThe Evil Dead II, along withThe Thing’s spider that is formed from a disembodied head and the flexing muscle/shirt burst effect fromIncredible Hulk. Take a look at the trailer forBloody Muscle Body Builder in Hellbelow.
