Junk

Junk (1999)

www.horrortheatervideo.com

Directed By: Muroga Atsushi

In recent years if you wanted to see a great zombie movie, you have to go back to the Italian features of the 80's (Burial Ground, Zombie, Gates Of Hell, Etc.). If any American movie genre has become antiseptic, it is the American zombie film (look at the absolutely terrible recent release "Resident Evil" for instance). The last great American zombie film dates back to 1978 with George Romero's "Dawn Of The Dead" (his follow-up "Day Of The Dead" was drastically edited by the studios, thus wasn't the movie he wanted to make). But in 1999, zombie fans can rejoice, because a new zombie classic has been born, not from America, or Italy, but from Japan, famous for their atmospheric, gore, fantasy films. The film is entitled "Junk" , no reference is made as to why it has this title. It's tagline is "Everybody Fights" and everybody does. The films mixes the zombie genre with action, some comedy, and a minor sub-plot involving the Japanese Mob (Yakuza).

The film has both Japanese and American actors and has both American and Japanese dialogue (mostly Japanese with associated sub-titles.) It has a beginning that steals directly from the film "The Re-Animator". An American scientist and his assistant use a serum in an attempt to bring a dead Japanese woman back to life. The needle even has the bright green fluid as in "Re-Animator". After injecting the woman she of course comes back to life, and viciously kills them both.

We then meet a group of thieves ready to rob a jewelry store in trade for cash from the Yakuza. As the group enters the store wearing rubber masks, the getaway driver Saki (played by the beautiful Kaori Shimamura) awaits in the getaway van, receiving a phone call from a Porsche dealer, a car she intends to buy with her cut. The movie shows Japanese car dealers to be as sleazy as American dealers. The group inside rob the store but a brave woman worker uses some sort of tool to impale the foot of one of the robbers. The robbers complete their job, make their getaway, and call the Yakuza for a place to make their exchange (of course the Yakuza plan on killing them instead of paying them). They arrange to meet in an old deserted factory. The factory though is not deserted, but was the sight of a prior scientific experiment of bringing the dead back to life. The American army has continued with this program, but the program's Japanese founder, who thought the experiments had stopped years ago, is brought back in to help destroy the facility after the initial killings. But the now reanimated woman has made her way to the factory and begins reanimating many dead bodies that have been stored there. As the group of robbers and the Yakuza meet at the factory, the bloodbath begins. The zombies begin to viciously tear them apart. This film does not hold back on the blood and gore. Necks are bitten off squirting blood, intestines are eaten, and the dead roam ala Romero's zombies. The army, along with the Japanese scientist, enter the facility in an attempt to blow it up. The Japanese scientist then finds that the reanimated woman is his wife, who had been dead two years. The facility is rigged to blow with a turn of a key, but the woman zombie kills the army soldiers, and her husband, then takes the key. The showdown between the zombie woman and Saki is classic. The zombie woman swallows the keys, but in the end, Saki split's the woman in two, and in a very gory scene, reaches up into the zombie to retrieve the keys. Saki, and the only other remaining group member, set the explosives and jump out the window as the factory explodes. With a comic twist scene, the sleazy Porsche dealer, who was contacted by the other group member to meet them on a deserted road, delivers a Porsche. Instead of being paid, he is laid out by the male and Saki and her partner drive off.

Some reviewers see this film as a poor comparison to other zombie films. Junk may not be the most original movie made, but it is presented as gory, horrific movie, something many recent American and European films lack. It makes no excuses for what it is. It's in your face and I loved every second from beginning to end. The gore scenes are the most realistic on screen in decades. Even the effects by Tom Savini, who made the zombies for Romero films, seem rubbery in their execution. Here, the gore is plentiful, more realistic, and completely no-holds-barred.