'The Guard From Underground' (1992) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

The acclaimed Japanese horror maestro inaugurated an extraordinary filmography with the smart, ironic, thrillingly nasty noirish horror gem 'The Guard From Underground'. Referencing both Crime, and menacing B-slasher tropes, Kurosawa's fiendishly compelling examination of a former sumo wrestler, turned security guard's brutal murder spree provides a wealth of tantalizing depravity! Made with consummate skill, with superb performances, gripping plot and memorably sinister set-pieces, The Guard From Underground has much to recommend it to those who appreciate a more twisted alternative to the prosaic masked maniac formula. For such a low budget feature it looks remarkably polished, having oodles of tense atmosphere, and the looming killer's bludgeoning kills are disturbingly inventive! While there are a number of eccentric slashers I genuinely admire, it isn't my favourite genre, yet Kurosawa's idiosyncratic take on 80s slice n' dice remains a spectacularly muscular exercise in sheer bloody terror!