by: KFear
Posted on 02.08.10 in All Horror Films > Thriller/Suspense > Torture
Release Date: 2000

I can’t say that it’s a “nice” change of pace to see the Japanese actually remake an AMERICAN horror classic, but it did catch me off guard, and I guess the idea intrigued me enough to give Living Hell a watch.

Japanese horror has always been the front and center of my DVD collection. There are a number of ghostly and eerie images that have stuck in my mind from many of the genres classics. These films certainly have their ways of terrifying the audience, and in most cases, they come hand and hand with enough mystery and storytelling to keep my interest in the films from start to finish. Living Hell is no different, but what it does do is pay homage to Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’ll admit, at first, this sounded like a terrible idea, and it took me awhile to finally pop this film into the DVD player to see how it would all unfold. Once I did, like many other J-Horror films tend to do, it sucked me in. Still, although the film does build suspense and terror in all the right ways, it manages to find difficulty in fulfilling the many moods that it tries to produce from scene to scene. This, of course, was something that Tobe Hooper had no problem doing in TCM.

Much of Living Hell in straight-up torture film making. Our Antagonist is a younger gentleman who is bound by his wheel chair. His family is unfortunate enough to welcome in two very strange (and soooo creepy) relatives. These relatives are seemingly unknown to our main character and right off the get-go they are hell-bent on seeking him out as a target. Throughout the film, the two relatives torture our antagonist with throwing darts, electric shocks, pulled teeth, and of course the good ol’ hammer to the hand fiasco! It all sounds brutal, but the film keeps an odd sense of humor to each of the torture scenes until you almost believe that our main character isn’t in as much pain as you might anticipate. Now, he far from enjoys all this violence, but it’s not the directors intend to build the suspense through all the bloodshed. Rather than this, the film focuses more on the mysteries behind the family, and what secrets the two evil relatives are hiding from its unknowing members. Again, it’s the story that will keep you interested in this film, and if not that (not digging the TCM crutch?), the mysterious relatives have the presents and posture that is associated with many of J-Horror’s most ghostly characters. Shugo Fujii, the film’s director, luckily shows the right talents needed in order to create wonderful character presentations. The only gripe I had with his techniques was the fact that too much of the time a very tense scene would be diminished to awkwardness on the account that humor and sadistic behavior had to someway correspond in nearly every scene. If anything, this was distracting. It made Living Hell seem like less of a horror film, and more of an experiment on how talented the director and actors can be at mimicking the insane members of the cannibalistic family in TCM. Again, why bother when it seems as if Shugo could have made a fantastic horror film without all the classic imitations.

It’s best to take Living Hell as a completely separate film from Texas Chainsaw, but I’ll have to say, that’s hard to do. Toward the end of the film, you’ll find some blatant similarities, and it’s actually those scenes that will make you want to leave the story and give up on the film all together. BUT, if you try to NOT wrap your brain around all of the comparisons, take each scene with a grain of salt, and bring your sense of humor on board…you might find yourself enjoying the better parts of Living Hell. If you stick with it till the end, the story will also offer enough twists and turns for you to feel that you not only didn’t waste your time with Living Hell, but that within all of it’s mimicked mishaps, an original story still wanted to jump out and grab your attention…and it will.

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall:

Iron Man is good, especially if you are into Japanese comics. It gets a little carried away with itself but it's still a good watch.

I loved TCM so I'll be watching this soon. Have you seen Tetsuo the Iron Man? It's a little more on the sci-fi side but might be worth checking out.