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Worried about their friend Sota, who has of late withdrawn from humankind the best he can, Haruka, Nana and Takanori have decided to pay him a visit to check up on him, but find his place plastered in newspaper, as if to keep the real world out - and yet, he invites them in, makes them tea ... and when Nana and Takanori turn into monsters he doesn't even blink an eye, but at least lends Haruka a chainsaw to cut them up ...

Three months later, music producer Kosuke finds himself tied up in a basement with a man who has half turned into a monster, he can pretty much just free himself before being attacked, and when all seems over for him, Haruka steps in who has chainsaws for hands now, and she takes care of the monster - but not before being covered in monster slime herself ...

One year later: Kosuke's eaten up by guilt that he has just left Haruko, who has stepped in to save him, to fend for herself and just bolted back when, so he has been travelling the countryside to find her - and play her a song he has written for her. He finds her alright, but she has turned into a monster. She's happy to see him all the same and invites him to her home - actually Sota's place where she lives with also monster-fied Nana and Takanori, and still human Sota. They show Kosuke around and he learns that the monsters have created their own society and have learned some basic agricultural skills - nothing of course compared to human civilisation, but a system that works. And the monsters not only bear Kosuke no ill will, they also love his music. And Kosuke starts to enjoy the monsters' company - when there's news on the radio that the gouvernment has sent troops to clear the area they're in of monsterkind ...

Visitors has started life as a short a year prior to the feature version and was only extended after that movie's success - and it sure is great fun, a film that might start with your standard J-horror mainstays but soon adds slapstick and dry humour to the mix, to eventually blend the absurd and the grotesque to come up with a pretty unique one-hour-and-change genre trip that in some scenes might be pretty visceral but in others also shows lots of heart, and that manages to surprise its audience time and again, with the next dismemberment or silly sight gag seemingly always just around the corner. Sure, due to plenty of blood and guts, this might not be a film for everyone, but if your sense of humour's dark enough, you will find more than enough to enjoy here.

... and if this has gotten you at all interested, this movie's currently streaming on https://www.screambox.com/

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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