Kite Liberator – Angel of Death (2007) Yasuomi Umetsu.

Another adorably Kawaii killer is called into bullet-blasting action after an experimental off-world foodstuff goes rogue, once exposed to solar radiation, two space lab technicians are transmuted into terrifying monsters, and there's but one pony-tailed, pistol-packing pop-tart who can vaporize their fugly asses into space-dust! Somewhat unrelated to the 98 Grindhouse Manga classic, Umetsu's 2007 space-raged shoot 'em up lacks not in compellingly gun-happy Manga mayhem! When Voorhees was reimagined in space, it lacked atmosphere, whereas the eerily extraterrestrial, thunderously entertaining Heroically blood-shedding triumph Kite Liberator is anything but lost in space! A-1 student Monaka moonlights as a part-time waitress, and when she's not serving customers their chow, she's acrobatically blasting sinister skells into blood-mottled oblivion! Arguably more politically correct that its rawer 90 incarnation, Monaka is an engaging figure, and the armour-plated mutants provide for some righteously splashy gore-blasting! I openly admit to being a sentimental old sausage, but I got deeply involved in the emotional final act, and it's a great shame this exciting story didn't continue.

 Kite (1998) – Yasuomi Umetsu.

Sawa is a strikingly beautiful, absolutely deadly teenage assassin, groomed and manipulated by corrupt cop Akai to kill on his command all those he claims are paedophiles/sexual deviants. Isolated, and increasingly distrustful, she befriends fellow assassin Oburi, through their shared histories, they become close, and this bond ultimately acts as a powerful catalyst, sending their subjugated lives onto a more autonomous trajectory. Thrillingly gory, madly bullet-blasted, sleazy, bracingly raw, and never less than exhilarating, Umetsu's Kite remains an explicit, wickedly satisfying CAT III Manga overload, with rampantly OTT visuals, gonzo heroic bloodshed, and scads of queasily wrong-headed rumpy-pumpy, there's plenty to stimulate a good filth-loving mind to a tumultuous gore-gasm! It may simply be a case of acute arrested development, but my fascination for ultra-splattery Manga remains undiminished, if anything, I can now appreciate Kite on a far deeper level today, then when I initially got into the more hardcore iterations of animated Asian carnage. Kudos for the Jazz-inflected brutality, Sawa's super-gnarly combat scene in the W.C., and DOUBLE-kudos for the breathtaking downer ending; that got me like an incendiary bullet right between the eyes....BLAMMO!!!!!!!!! While the lurid subject matter is unapologetically raw, with unsavoury tangents, the dazzling animation is exquisite, Yasuomi Umetsu's turbulent Kite is one explosively bullet-shredded Manga whose lofty rep is well deserved!

 Harawata Man (2019) – Yu Nakamoto.

A rather ill-fated film club starts to shoot illegally in an authentically grim-looking abandoned factory, only to succumb gorily to the maniacal, hammer-fisted wrath of lumbering killer Harawata Man...or do they? Micro-budget madman Nakamoto ramps up the Video-Nastiness in his kinetic Ikenie Man follow-up, delivering plentiful rampant gore-blasting in the riotously entertaining snuff-slasher, and all-round untamed splatter-beast Harawata Man! Moderately less overtly comedy-inflected than Ikenie Man, Nakamoto continues to amiably spoof 'Typical Slasher Patterns', yet he still puts his plucky film club protagonists through some righteously grisly splatter shenanigans. Slip the noggin into neutral, prodigiously imbibe one's preferred mood enhancer, and let this generous feast of bloody carnage wash exhilaratingly over your gore-loving synapses! I dug Harawata Man a fraction more than Ikenie Man, as in my terminally movie-sozzled think sponge, I subjectively likened Harawata Man to snuff-gore classic Last House on Dead End Street, and to Nakamoto's great credit, it really moves, never a dull moment, dude! Performances are sound, with a sprightly text, and kinetic gore-mongery, Harawata Man is gonzo J-splatter that really matters!

 Ikenie Man (2013) – Yu Nakamato.

'But, WHAT kind of meat is this?'

Able film-maker Yu Nakamato boisterously presents an intentionally goofy retro-Slasher about the uneasy revelations borne when a micro-budget film crew and an esoteric foodstuffs clique meet uncutely in the woods! Plainly a heroically blood-soaked, irony-stuffed homage to no less goofy 80s US Slashers, Ikenie Man provides inventive kills, amiable good-guys, and a lively series of blackly funny gory jackanapes. Made on a penurious budget, Ikenie Man fizzes with high-energy incident, and the premise is an engagingly playful riff on the formalized 'Typical Patterns' of Slasher lore. While it might be somewhat facile reasoning, but I felt that I was in capable hands, especially when the main dude name-dropped the likes of 'I Drink Your Blood' and 'The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin! I don't wish to sound unkind, but it did occasionally feel like the director was flogging a dead horse, but ultimately, it's simply far too much of a good-natured splatter-romp to sweat the small stuff. One thing Nakamato's Ikenie Man does quite brilliantly is to prove unequivocally that anyone foolish enough to bring a knife to a Chainsaw fight is destined for meatloaf!

 The Creeper (1948) – Jean Yarborough.

During an exploratory expedition in the shadowy backwoods of the West Indies, a conflict between two rival scientists fatefully escalates, finally coming to a terrible climax following the discovery of a malign bioproduct that disturbingly transforms all who take it into absolutely feral, feline killers! With the exception of The Uncanny, Yarborough's claw-some cult classic The Creeper is one of all too few Creature Features to have have a profoundly neurotic protagonist with a hugely debilitating case of extreme pussyphobia! I have long been an admirer of our fuzzy, feline companions, so I am not exactly unbiased on the subject of marvellous moggies, but I feel that only the most abject pussyphobe would fail to be beguiled by the slinky, shape-shifting shenanigans presented by splendidly kooky B-shocker The Creeper. While Yarborough's vintage Freudian fright-flick is prone to lapses of expository blarney, The Creeper has a winningly hysteria-laden, off-beat quality, and often captivates by its compelling usage of eerie In-camera trickery.

 Blood Thirst (1965/1971) – Newt Arnold.

'There have been strange rumours of a Blood Cult???!!!!!'

NYC Cop, and hunky eroto-crime specialist Adam Rourke (Robert Winston)is tasked to solve a macabre series of brutal murders of young women linked to a racy Filipino nightspot. His initial theories of a sex-psychopath prove false, as he later suspects that an infinitely more sinister anthropoid is at work! While the pulpy plot is no less uninspired than the cookie-cutter performances, the exotic Filipino backdrop provides additional aesthetic interest, but ultimately Blood Thirst is mostly sluggish, routine schlock, momentarily enlivened with some tantalizingly lissom totty, and a winningly goofy, stalagmite-faced blood-fiend! Photographically, Blood Thirst is sound, the wallpaper jazz score isn't completely awful, but even avuncular genre icon Vic Diaz can do little to sweeten the tawdry text. The more avid fans of Rene Cordona, Al Adamson, Ted V Mikels, and Jess Franco's monochromatic, Fumetti-flavoured 60s fantasies might well be less critical of Blood Thirst's relative anaemia. Originally paired with sloppy UK Grindhouse gem Bloodsuckers (1971), which would no doubt have provided more entertainment value than by watching this cheapnis, fitfully amusing 60s Filipino/US creature feature on its own.

 The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio (1976) – Eric Jeffrey Haims.

Delectably nubile trainee nurses at the famed Florence Nightingale Institute are being brutally slain by a mysterious malefactor, and detective Kincaid(Don Greer) is tasked with attempting to unmask this serially sadistic slayer of sultry sirens. While the 'whodunnit' elements of The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio prove somewhat undernourished, the saucy 'who's doing who' content is tantalizingly generous! Haims uber-cult Grindhouse gem The Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio delivers a luridly libidinous cornucopia of slinkily Sapphic shuntings, alongside a no less abundant voluptuary of hot-blooded hetero grab-ass! I can't imagine that it hasn't already been suggested that Haims deliciously camp period Slasher winningly operates in the same hyper-theatrical, wonderfully wonky paradigm as beloved Grindhouse impresario Andy Milligan.