Quickie Review: The Boy From Hell

The Boy From Hell (2004)
Dir:Mari Asato (Samurai Chicks/ Tge Grudge:The Girl in Black)

This short film is part of the Hideshi Hino Horror Theater series of shorts including 6 films in the saga all based on the writers popular Dark Manga. Hideshi Hino is also popular for ding work in putting together the popular and infamous Guinea Pig series of similar yet more graphic shorts.

This tale follows Setsu Emma a successful surgeon and her son. One afternoon while out on a drive with her son and her co-worker , Setsu's son Daio hangs his head from the car window to feel the wind against his face when he is decapitated by a truck passing by in on coming traffic.

After Burying her son Setsu is approached by a strange old woman who offers her a way to resurrect her son from the dead provided she can find a child to sacrifice over her sons grave with a magical fang she gives to Setsu.

After finding a dying boy at her hospital, Setsu decides to give the ceremony a try and she successfully brings back her son, But there is a problem. Now young Daio is disfigured and craves human flesh to live.With all that aside Stesu tries to convince herself things are back to normal even though she now has to keep Daio in a cage to keep him from attacking anyone in sight.

The following morning a Homicide detective arrives at Setsu's doorstep questioning her about the dead elderly women found on her front steps and the child missing from the hospital. She denies everything and later that evening Daio manages to escape, taking to the streets to feed.

The next morning Setsu finds her son attempting to play with some neighborhood kids and once arriving at home she decides to attempt a brain transplant in order to remove his deadly urges. this at first appears to work as he returns to looking normal, Yet that night young Daio has a dream of being in hell and reverts back to his demonic form and again runs the streets to feed his hunger for flesh. Now after being witnessed several times, the news picks up the story of this beast child and the homicide detective continues to follow Setsu as a main suspect in the case.

In attempt to keep her house stocked with food for her young boy, Setsu stages a birthday party for her son and invites several children from the hospital to her house and after the festivities she chops the children up to keep her house stocked. this of course does not work.During one night Daio see's himself in a mirror while out on the hunt. This upsets him and while he is crying on the street the homicide detective spots him and Daio is shot while fleeing back to his house. Once returning he begs his mother to kill him as he does not want to live like a animal. But she insists one trying one more surgery.

During Setsu's second  attempt at surgery her co worker requests that she turn herself in as the homicide Detective arrives at the scene. A struggle ensues and Setsu takes daio and escapes through a trap door only to have her son turn on her and this leads to the detective finally disposing of the young boy.

This short comes off one of the strangest episodes of Tales from the Crypt ever. I am a fan of J-Horror shorts , I mean I loved 3 extremes and I enjoyed a few of the Guinea Pig series films and this one is a fun watch too, But the effects and acting really hurt this one. I can give some leeway to stuff like that but some of the scenes and dialog in this short were just awful.I am however interested to check out the rest of this series to see what they have to offer and being that each film is directed by different people they all must have different takes on the Source manga.If you enjoy splat-stick comedy or movies like Creepshow and 3 extremes then you may enjoy this little stinker. As I said it is a fun watch and being that I bought this as a fluke just because the cover made this a must have for me dawning one of the strangest looking creatures ever to grace film, I was not to let down by this one.I think this film was better suited as a short because I am not entirely sure how well it would have played out as a full length feature.

Gore:6

Story:5

Characters:4

Nudity:N/A

Overall ; 5 out of 10 ( for a short film)