Zombie Research Society
Helldriver (2010) is one of the craziest, goriest, over-the-top horror movies to come out of Japan since Tokyo Gore Police (2008) (both directed incidentally by Yoshihiro Nishimura). What it doesn’t have in a cohesive plot, it more than makes up for in sheer splatter-ific creativity.
Meet Kika — part machine, part woman– all zombie slayer!
We’ve seen zombie slayers with Samurai swords. We’ve seen zombie slayers with chainsaws! But we’ve never seen a hot cyborg zombie slayer with a Samurai chainsaw-sword and pole dancing skills!
In this version of dystopia, the “infected” are people afflicted by a virus that causes antlers to sprout from their brains (much like the real-life ant-attacking Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus. The fungus is also mentioned in the game Last of Us. By the way, Helldriver came out three years before Last of Us).
The origin of the affliction is extraterrestrial as well as familial– Kika’s mother is a psycho-bitch from hell (with Kika’s heart, literally– which is why Kika is a cyborg) and Kika’s uncle has a Swastika burned into his forehead (ala Charles Manson).
Kids being kids, can’t leave well enough alone, and are grinding up the zombie antlers to experience a new kind of high.
To keep the infected at bay, a great wall has been erected to separate them from the rest of the population. But other nefarious forces are at work, and the wall is breached.
Now, on Death Row, Kika and cohorts are presented with a choice: face what will ultimately be an unfair trial, or volunteer to take out her mother, who has essentially become the “Zombie Queen.”
What ensues is sheer mayhem, as our group battles its way through the zombie horde. But not just any zombie horde! We are witness to the following:
- Zombie women hurling zombie babies attached to them by their umbilical cords!
- Zombies playing T-Ball with zombie heads
- A Female zombie boxer (just one).
- Zombie people-wranglers.
- Zombies doing Michael Jackson’s Thriller (badly, because, well, they’re zombies).
- A Samurai Pin-cushion zombie (looking more like a grotesque porcupine than, say, Hellraiser’s Pinhead) who plays a game of chicken with (wait for it) a truck!
- A flailing mutant zombie thing with small baby arms growing out of its face like mandibles (holding a fork and and a knife in its small baby hands). Words alone can not adequately describe this creature, but it ultimately (d)evolves into a “General Grievous” (Star Wars)-like fighting machine with swords and machine guns for legs!
- Oh, and a Zombie Car made entirely out of zombie body parts!
Did we mention the gore? Dismemberment and fire-hose gushers from every body part and orifice are spaced out about every minute or two.
Hell Driver has a tremendous amount of style and fountains of blood, guts and brains… lots of corny prosthetics and absolutely zero logic. It’s silly to the extreme– but that is the point. A messed up cartoon for adults, if you will. So grab the pizza and more than one case of beer, and hold on to your hats!
Did we mention Helldriver deals with zombie rights?
Watch it Right Now on NETFLIX, or check out the trailer below: