Hiruko The Goblin (1991) ***1/2

I was aware of (and had been meaning to watch) Hiruko The Goblin (1991) since not long after I first discovered Shinya Tsukamoto's previous film, the seminal Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)—one of the first truly transformative, cult pieces of cinema I'd ever seen (and one that holds up to this day)—via VHS tape in 1993. I'm glad I finally got around to seeing Hiruko and in the best quality possible via Mondo Macabro's recently released Blu-ray (Mondo also previously released Tsukamoto's great 1999 film Gemini (my review here) on Blu-ray here in the States).

It's odd to think of calling a film as strange as Hiruko "conventional," but compared to Tetsuo that description applies, to some degree. It's even odder to hear Tsukamoto, in an interview on the MM disc, say that he actually gravitates more towards this style of film, but because Tetsuo was so popular (sparking an excellent 1992 sequel, Body Hammer and a not so good 2009 sequel, The Bullet Man—my review here), he continued to make films in that experimental vein. 

Perhaps it's partly because Hiruko is based on the Yōkai Hunter series manga by Daijiro Morohoshi, and perhaps it's partly because this was only Tsukamoto's second widely distributed feature film (and backed by a major Japanese studio) that the film does come off in a more conventional sense. It could also be the folkloric background of the story and that the characters presented are a bit more traditional than the outcasts, loners, and freaks of Tsukamoto's best pictures.

Make no mistake, there's lots of creepy imagery, wonderfully weird practical f/x, and director trademarks still crop up. But here it feels more like Shinya is riffing on The Evil Dead (1981) (my review here), The Thing (1982) (my review here), and Aliens (1986), while also adapting another's work, than outright creating his own. Tsukamoto is never one to deny his influences though, and Hiruko never feels like a copycat. There is lots here to appreciate; I only wish I had seen this film much sooner. I have a feeling it would have blown my teenage mind (though probably not to the same degree that Tetsuo did).

You can find my Shinya Tsukamoto Films Ranked list here.