War of the Insects

[Gigantis_99]

[August]

The Japanese title is KONCHU DAISENSO; "Konchu" is "Insect(s)" and "Daisenso" is "Great War." Shochiku's title for overseas sales of the film is GENOCIDE.

I love this film... It's completely sleazy and totally bonkers (in a good way, of course), but slickly produced. Kazui Nihonmatsu's GENOCIDE is populated by weak, brutal, insane, and twisted characters, which reminds one of some of the Filipino schlockers by Eddie Romero (MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND), but with studio polish. Beautiful photography, Japanese artistic sensibilities, coupled with pure exploitation subject matter, makes for a delirious motion picture experience (especially if you're into this kind of trip).

A survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Annabell (Kathy Horan), is crossbreeding insects for strength and higher intelligence, in order to exact her vengeance on all mankind. The insects attack a nuclear-armed U.S. Bomber bound for Vietnam, causing engine failure, and forcing the crew to crash land on the island. Then things start to go terribly wrong for the inhabitants...

Standout performance kudos goes to Chico Roland as "Charlie," the bomber crewmember who looses his marbles.

This needs to be licensed and subtitled for an unsuspecting world outside of Japan.

[jaymazing]

[August]

Jay, I wasn't saying that Chico Roland's performance was good (look again), I said it was the standout perfomance, because he sticks in your head for being completely over the top, and within the tone I start my review: completely sleazy and totally bonkers. Cathy gets a little hammy, herself, but against the other gaijin thesps, most notably Rolf Jessup and Harold Conway, she does indeed rise to the occasion.

[jaymazing]

[Gigantis_99]

[jaymazing]

[ryuuseipro]

Also, Shunsuke Kikuchi did the music score. While it's not his greatest score (rather subdued compared to, say, Body Snatcher from Hell, let alone his numerous other movie & TV works), it's still pretty good.

[August]