Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (1995) Review

“Hey, Sam Rami-san, can I copy your homework?”

“Sure thing, Shinichi Fukazawa, just change it a little so no one knows”.

And thus Bloody Muscle Body Builder, aka the Japanese Evil Dead, was born. Shot in 1995, but worked on and finally released nearly twenty years later, Bloody Muscle is basically, well, a Japanese take on the Evil Dead. And that’s a good thing. From Savage Harvest, to Braindead, Demons, and Demon Wind, I’m a big fan of this specific type of horror film.

Bloody Muscle is the debut and, so far, only feature from Shinichi Fukazawa, who not only wrote, directed, and produced it, but also starred in it. He plays Shinji, a wise cracking bodybuilder who gets dragged along by his ex-girlfriend Mika, a paranormal journalist, to investigate an abandoned house. They bring along a psychic for good measure, but the ghost waiting inside turns out to be the angry spirit of a woman murdered decades earlier by Shinji’s father. One of the best gags involves severed arms crawling around stop-motion style, latching onto Shinji like they’re auditioning for Re-Animator.

Once the doors lock behind them, however, all hell breaks loose. Literally. But instead of the psychic going all Derek Acorah and pretending to be channeling a Victorian chambermaid or something, the movie becomes a manic parade of possessions, blood geysers, rubber limbs, and stop-motion weirdness that proudly wears its Raimi worship on its sleeve.

Shinji – who skips the virgin Evil Dead Ash Williams phase, and goes straight to being Evil Dead 2 chad Ash – is forced into a grueling fight for survival. What follows is more or less the same basic premise as that of all the Evil Dead films, save for Army of Darkness. Shinji is alone against the spirit of the murdered woman who has an increasing number of bodies at her disposal to possess and transform into its twisted minions. The monsters here are a cross between Raimi’s zombie-demon deadites and onryō from Japanese folklore (basically angry ghosts).

The set-pieces are what make this one special. Early on, the psychic gets taken over and attacks Shinji with a kitchen knife. This leads to a fight that results in said knife being driven through the back of the psychic’s skull and popping out his eye. There’s a shotgun in play, naturally, and in true Evil Dead fashion, it blows apart possessed bodies only for them to reassemble seconds later. One of the best gags involves severed arms crawling around stop-motion style, latching onto Shinji like they’re auditioning for Re-Animator.

What makes the film work is its scrappy, DIY spirit. Every splatter effect feels like it was built out of glue, latex, and stubborn passion, and the sheer amount of blood and goo is a joy for anyone who grew up on video nasties. At just over an hour, it never overstays its welcome, and once the chaos starts, it rarely lets up. You can’t miss the Raimi influence – the camera zooms, punishing slapstick violence, demonic shrieking, manic energy – the whole thing feels like a fan film that accidentally stumbled into cult greatness. And that’s because it is.

The finale seals this cult status: backed into a corner by the unkillable ghost, Shinji finally turns to what he knows best – bodybuilding gear. In one deliriously silly shot, he swings a barbell like a medieval mace, smashing into the demon with absurd determination. And there you thought the absurd title was some kind of innuendo for the steroid shits.

This is not a polished movie. The acting is flat when it’s not manic, the sound is echoey, and the practical splatter looks simultaneously cheap and ingenious. There are stretches where the whole thing feels less like homage and more like straight-up duplication, and the dialogue isn’t going to win any awards. Outside of the finale, Shinji doesn’t really shine as a character – like Duke Nukem, all of his best quotes are stolen directly from Ash Williams.

But none of that matters. Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is pure splatter passion. It’s short, nasty, and crammed with effects that show just how much mileage you can get out of latex, stop-motion, and buckets of fake blood. It’s the kind of obscure late-night VHS film you throw on with friends who are into these sort of movies, and it earns its place in the pantheon of scrappy cult horror. An easy recommendation for anyone who thinks they’ve already seen every weird horror flick out there.