Hiruko the Goblin
Dig up this hidden gem about digging up a monster!
by "Doc" Hunter Bush - contributor, host, and podcast czar
Hiruko the Goblin is a SpookyJawn-friendly ghost story combining monster-hunting elements, a dash of teenage melodrama, a hint of ominous prophecy, and some really fantastic and varied practical effects. Based on a manga by Daijirô Morohoshi, and directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto (director of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)), the movie was originally released in 1991. It was remastered in 2021 for its 30th anniversary for a brief return to theaters and a blu-ray release from Mondo Macabro, which was where I was lucky enough to finally lay eyes on it.
I had heard of it in some circles, almost always being positively compared to (one of my favorite films) The Evil Dead (1981), alongside a film with the incredibly memorable title Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (1995). These films - their titles at least - were some of my first in-roads to Japanese horror. Over the years they, as well as Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's House (a.k.a. Hausu) (1977) were the titles that I kept hearing about but never seemed to catch on in popular culture. Oldboy, Ichi the Killer, and etc. would become popular, or something like The Ring (a.k.a. Ringu) or Ju-On: The Grudge would get U.S. remakes, and eventually the originals could be found on the shelf of the video store, but it took for-ev-er to finally track down Hiruko, House (thanks, Criterion!), and Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (thanks, Visual Vengeance!). Just a casual reminder to support physical media!
If, like me, you watched The Last Drive-In Nightmareathon on Shudder at the end of August, you might have also seen BMBBiH. While I think that film totally earns its sobriquet as "the Japanese Evil Dead", it does so by lovingly copying the original. Hiruko the Goblin on the other hand, more accurately captures the feeling, energy, and humor of Evil Dead while being playing in a totally different space for the most part.
I mean, it's a haunted location movie. I should get that out of the way. The title Hiruko the Goblin can be a little misleading. There are monsters, but for the first big chunk of the film they act largely more like ghosts than something like the Gremlins or Critters from their respective franchises. Hiruko is a yōkai, a catch-all term for Japanese spirit that, in practical usage, is highly contextual. There are legions of yōkai, some being mean-spirited, some benevolent, and some almost neutral. The translation to "goblin" seems to designate Hiruko as either small or more animalistic (one character consciously corrects himself from calling it a "demon") but still troublesome and dangerous. I bring this up so that we're all on the same page: Hiruko is not what you might think of as a "traditional" goblin.
But, oh man, this is a fun movie.
After a cold open involving an archaeologist and one of his students being beset by some unseen force, we're introduced to Masao (Masaki Kudou) and his friends, sneaking onto school grounds in the off-season to retrieve a hidden stash of beers and looking to spend the day by the lake. They're driven off by the scythe-wielding groundskeeper / janitor Watanabe (Hideo Murota) and split up. Just as Masao is about to be pounced upon by the unseen evil (the camera seeing through its eyes, à la Evil Dead), he is rescued by his uncle Hieda Reijirou (Kenji Sawada), a paranormal investigator.
Turns out, the archaeologist from the cold open is one of the school's teachers, AND is Masao's father, AND is missing, which is what brought Hieda to town. He had been corresponding with Masao's father and they both believed the dig site was potentially supernatural. Now they're smack dab in the middle of things.
The first chunk of the movie is all dramatic irony. We the audience know the movie is called Hiruko the Goblin, but Masao, his friends, and uncle Hieda all seem to think the occasional decapitated bodies they've been coming across are the work of Watanabe and his scythe. Even when things begin to really push the envelope with regards to believability, the film never becomes frustrating or tiresome. Everything moves at such a brisk pace that it's almost impossible to be mad at anything. There's also Hieda.
Hieda is a bit scattered. He gives off an Egon Spengler type of energy what with his DIY spirit detector gear. Added to that, he and Masao spend a lot of time fleeing danger through the halls and across the grounds of the school precariously balanced on a single bicycle. It's really charming and he would be easy to see as purely a comic relief character, but he has a tragic backstory that also means Masao is hesitant to trust him completely. The character is written well, with information fed to us piecemeal enough to remain interesting, but actor Kenji Sawada makes it all land just perfectly.
Eventually, Masao and Hieda witness enough that they can no longer pretend this is a slasher flick. It is officially goblin time!
The supernatural elements are initially depicted as the severed heads of Masao's classmates, moving via unnatural means, occasionally with long gnarly tentacle tongues. That's all well and good, and plenty scary, until the creature Pokévolves six huge, gross crab-like legs and starts scuttling up walls and across ceilings (sometimes realized via puppetry, sometimes via stop motion; always perfectly janky)! It's so unsettling! The sound effects develop clicky-clacky noise as the legs move that's just skin-crawling!
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