Movie Review: 'Corpse Party'

In making a movie out of a video game, there is a lot of risk involved. In one, you risk alienating the loyal fanbase that game has, or simply making a mockery of it. The Super Mario Bros. movie had a few good things going for it, a few nods to the game series, otherwise, it was a title about and otherworldly dystopian world with little to do with the source material, and sadly, the bad outweighed the good. Then came Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, I could go on. In fact, these days, you see more movies based on games than the other way around, especially when Acclaim was still in business during the 16-bit era. Another thing to consider is most of these game franchises were created in Japan, with American and Canadian film studios making the movies.

So what happens when a game made in Japan has a movie based on it which is also Japanese?

As I mentioned in my article about the Corpse Party game series, Corpse Party is huge in Japan. There are comic books, anime movies, a theme park attraction, and a movie. Actually, two movies. I will be talking about the first movie, Corpse Party.

It starts much like the game, where the students of Kisaragi High School perform the "Sachiko Ever After" charm, which plunges the group into the darkened halls of Heavenly Host Elementary School, which was closed down and demolished after a series of grisly murders took place there.

The movie does not stray far at all from the source material. In fact, some of the events in the movie mirror the game, with Naomi finding Seiko hanged in the bathroom, and finding out she did it while possessed by Sachiko. Also, Satoshi's sister, Yuka, ends up being killed by Sachiko, one of several possible deaths for her in the game. The infirmary scene, however, is different. In the game, Naomi is attacked by a shadow ghost, while in the movie, she is attacked by ghost children you haunt the school.

The actor who played Sakutaro Morishige captured his insanity perfectly, where Morishige keeps taking pictures of corpses he finds on the floor, while looking for Mayu. If you've played the game, you know how that ends. But his demise is different in each media. In the game, he commits suicide. In the anime, Yuuya (absent in this film) kills him. In the movie, Yoshikazu kills him. Yoshikazu, the man with the hammer, is quite scary in this movie.

This movie has a huge gore factor. I imagine that Tom Savini himself would turn away from the gore effects, with Mayu's guts all over the wall, Sakutaro's head being mashed into slop, and the blood that pours from Yoshikazu's mouth when he dies. This movie is not for the faint of heart and weak of stomach!

It isn't as psychological as the game is, but in playing the game, you've got plenty of time to explore the school. Movies, by nature, have a set time to run, and the conclusion must be reached, unless there's going to be a sequel. The ending is more shocking than in the game, ending like the anime, but I won't reveal it here.

I actually enjoyed the movie. It was very well done. The suspense was where it needed to be, and the story stayed true to the source material while becoming it's own entity. All in all, well done.

You can find this movie on Amazon, subtitled, as well as the anime, Tortured Souls.