gettin' lippy with it.

Crazy Lips (Hakkyousuru kuchibiru, 2000)
Dir: Sasaki Hirohisa
Cast: Miwa Hitomi, Suzuki Kazuma, Osugi Ren, Abe Hiroshi, Natsukawa Hijiri, Yura Yoshiko, Kuribayashi Tomomi, Yumi Yoshiyuki, Suzuki Ikko

Obviously aiming for the title of world's most dysfunctional family (or at least a Jeremy Kyle show all to themselves), the Kuramashi's are a tough act to beat.

Not only have they spent years in hiding due to the fact that daddy Kuramashi was executed for being a depraved serial killer but it looks like number one son Michio (Kazuma) may be following in his fathers footsteps after being accused of the vile slaughter of four teenage girls.

Unfortunately for the rest of the family Michio has gone into hiding, leaving his heartbroken mum (Yoshiyuki, star of Killer Pussy and the classic Queen Peach) and his young sisters, Satomi (long faced Hitomi, she of Ju-On: The Curse, Last Supper and Misa the Dark Angel) and Kaori (Hijiri, don't recognise here from owt, sorry) to face the snide comments, bullying ways and verbal abuse from the local police, the gutter press and even the neighbours (tho' not Madge because she's a nice lady).

Japan's answer to Mulder and Scully...minus
Gillian Anderson's post stroke face.

They family rise every morning to find paparazzi scum and teevee news crews camped out amongst their begonias, a filthy bastard copper (Ikko from the lactate-tasic Visitor Q) kicking at their door, wearing his shoes in the house and slurping his coffee loudly whilst taking every opportunity to mess up the family kitchen and strangers lobbing rubbish bins thru' their windows.



It's not too surprising then when the Kuramashi's youngest daughter Satomi, desperate to find the identity of the real killer hires a spooky psychic named Mamiya (Yoshiko from the arthouse classic Spanking Love) and her ratty Michael Barrymore of a minder Toumato come over to the family home to perform a séance with the hope of contacting the victims who, in turn can name the mentalist murderer.

It's a wee bit like Eastenders really, but without the ugly birds.


On paper this may sound like quite a good plan till you realise that the dead girls had their heads cut off so are unable to spill the beans.

Arse.

It's Pants.

Resourceful as ever Mamiya has a back up plan and orders Satomi to search across town for the missing heads (obvious really) but her help comes at a price.

Realising that the family don't have a spare ¥5,000,000 lying around (or even hidden in the mattress) the psychic offers to continue helping if Satomi allows Touma to forcibly take Mrs. Kuramashi from behind.

Sorry, did I say Eastenders? I really meant Emmerdale.

My kind of people like it up the arse. Yesch.

Unable to concentrate on her chores with all the noise coming from her mother and Touma, Satomi sneaks out to the local kiddies play park for a nice wee musical interlude and a quick chat with the tres foxy (and very ginger) FBI agent Lucy (Tomomi) and her Japanese sidekick, Narimoto (Hiroshi the one that wasn't the giant lizard in Godzilla 2000).

Recruiting her to work for a secret organisation dedicated to fighting evil cults and rubber monsters, Satomi is given her orders by the even more mysterious bespectacled 'Colonel' (Ren) who disguises himself as a reality teevee host and communicates to her via the TV set in the living room.

"Where's me washboard?"

You see, it appears that the FBI have evidence that Mamiya and Touma are leaders of a maniacal cult determined to awaken an ancient Lovecraftian monster by harnessing the sexual energies released from taking Mrs. Kuramashi up the casino and forcing Satomi to have sex with the hanging (yet still stiff) corpse of the bad boy copper from earlier.

Whilst all this is happening the ghostly girl victims are getting closer to finding their heads but will they be able to reveal the killers true identity before the evil monster returns from his slumber or someone accidentaly launches an all out nuclear attack on the unfortunate Kuramashi family?

I drew this.

From the writer of Ringu, the producer of Ju-On: The Grudge, and the executive producer of Audition (as the DVD cover proudly proclaims) Crazy Lips was heralded as Japan's answer to the (by then long dead) teevee hit The X Files but with added anal violation and death by dildo but minus the drawback of having to look at David Duchovny's horse like face.

"Rubber cock in mah mooth!"

Lulling it's audience into a false sense of security by starting out like any number of bog standard late-90’s J-horror movies, thirty minutes in Crazy Lips takes a sudden and unexpected U-turn, overturns and smashes any preconceptions the viewer may have about the unfolding story before morphing into into a chaotic car crash of a movie, throwing headless ghosts, dark cults a smattering of kung fu and necrophiliac rape into the mix as if the film makers were hoping at least one of the ingredients would work in context of the story.

It's not sexist, it's just a very pretty bra.

Not always enjoyable (hell some of it isn't even that watchable) but always interesting to look at, Crazy Lips (and it's sequel Gore From Outer Space) is the type of lazy Sunday afternoon movie that both you and your gran will enjoy.

If, like mine your gran likes a wee bit of necrophilia at the weekend.