The Stranger

Ruka is a self-mutilating cop who specializes in the field of fighting dangerous mutant serial killers called “engineers.” If you’re a fan of the “what’s-grosser-than-gross?” genre that is Japanese nouveau splattercore, this movie is the grossest: severed arms become chainsaws, giant mutant penises shoot projectiles at cops, and blood repeatedly sprays all over the camera lens; for gore fans, this is the pure stuff, the gore-porn. Ruka’s pursuit of a murderer who uses a key-shaped tumor to turn people into monsters involves amputees in S&M outfits and delightfully stupid subtitle translations like “You have a righteous job, right? Then you should sit here boldly!” But, like a DragonForce concert, all the relentless over-the-toppedness adds up to numb monotony. Despite Gore Police’s imaginative and never-ending use of gore effects, Machine Girl (which Nishimura worked on as effects supervisor) still stands as the better-made film, and the one essential splattercore movie. Gore Police is for diehard splatterpunks only. By Paul Constant