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Another Hole in the Head 2011 opens up with a Japanese film from Yoshihiro Nishimura named Helldriver. It seems almost like tradition that I open my coverage of a film festival with a film that I missed at a previous film festival and this is no exception. Helldriver was the secret screening at last year’s Fantastic Fest. While most of the reactions I got from that screening were annoyed moans of yet another blood splattering Japanese gore extravaganza, I somewhat enjoyed the questionable mix of absurdity. It’s what these genre festivals are all about, right? This is just the opening night film of Another Hole in the Head…you have no idea what’s still in store!


Helldriver is a family story centered around Kika (Yumiko Hara). She and her father have been abused by her mother and uncle and eventually must protect the rest of Japan from them. Initially, they were already horrible…Kika’s mother and uncle were wanted cannibal criminals who even ate the legs of their own kin. But then, while chasing Kika after she stumbled on them eating her father’s legs off…Kika’s mother rips out her daughters heart and then gets hit by a meteor! But wait, there’s more! The meteor releases a strange ash which turns half of Japan into zombies with antlers. These antlers are the zombies’ only weak spot and become a rare drug for the surviving humans.

If you thought that was the end of it, the meteor actually turns out to be an alien slug which turns Kik’as mom into some kind of antler zombie queen! Plus the Japanese government is in an internal battle determining whether to give zombies their human rights or destroy them all. Needless to say, the movie title intro doesn’t come in to play until about 40 minutes into the movie! But once that rock music does start, so does the beef of the movie. All of what I just described was just the background story and introduction. After the new Japanese Prime Minister named Osawa (who has a Hitler stache) takes over, he captures Kika who has been turned into an experimental android to go and destroy the antler zombie queen and extinguish all the remaining zombies. On her journey she joins with a volunteer worker whose father was a kamikaze pilot, an orphan whose sister is missing and a sharpshooter ex policeman with nothing to lose.

The movie has so much going on and so many different cliche stories that it’s just a typical zombie movie with the kitchen sink thrown at it. The fun part of this movie is the continued ridiculousness that keeps getting pushed in front of your face. Once you think they couldn’t go any farther, they certainly do. The movie has every type of zombie you could think of and every body part’s blood splattered over the screen. The costumes and weaponry are also something to take note of…they are pretty unique and well defined. The makers of this movie sure have one hell of an imagination. The only thing missing was a cohesive structured story, character development and something to actually care about in the movie. It turns out to be a loud action flick filled with filler. I have no idea why it’s actually called Helldriver or why anything happened at all. But it sure was a fun ride…for the most part.



Helldriver is the Opening Night Film on Friday, June 3rd 2011 at 9:20pm – Buy Tickers Here
It plays again on Monday, June 13th at 9:20pm – Buy Tickets Here

Tags: AHITH, Another Hole in the Head, Part 8, helldriver, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Yumiko Hara

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2011 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Another Hole in the Head, Part 8, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.