I love Noboru Iguchi's films, but when I saw a mention of Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead, I thought Noboru-sensei had finally run out of ideas. I am often wrong, and not afraid to admit it.Yes, this sounds like it is going to be the most scatological film since Salò, but the excrement factor is at a minimum. The "ass" part of the proceedings has to do with the cause of zombieism, and is only moderately disgusting... relatively.
I have only seen the film on YouTube, in Japanese with no subtitles, but as with all zombie films you can follow along easily enough. I am sure there is some clever dialogue I am losing, but for now I was interested in watching something wacky.
Spoilers here:
The zombies are created by a digestive parasite, rather than some mystery disease that is the Post-Romero cliche. The only poo-related action is the "Shit Zombie", which is no more repulsive than the Golgothan from Dogma. There are quite a few fart jokes, and the parasites do poke their heads out of their hosts' rectums to attack. This leads to a bizarro world Scooby-Doo scene with people running backward on hands and feet chasing their prey. Asami Sugiura makes a brief appearance here. There is a scientist studying the parasites, who turns out to be one of the bad guys.
Spoliers end here:
If you love Iguchi's films, you'll enjoy this one. Even without the dialogue, which is typically funny in his movies, it has all the typical Iguchi flair and is a nice turn on the typical plague-zombie trope. The DVD is coming out in the US, but the Bluray seems to be on delay and non-Region 1 friendly. I am tempted to get the Bluray instead, as the DVD is Japanese, and it seems the Iguchi Blurays have English audio options (at least, Robo Geisha did).
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