Too many fans seem to be blown away

Brilliant and touching

Better Late Then Never

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

While in a fight with her psychotic and cannibalistic mother, "Kika" (Yumiko Hara) has her heart ripped out at the exact same time a meteorite hits both her and her mother "Rikka" (Eihi Shiina). Both are essentially wrapped in a strange cocoon and frozen in time. Meanwhile the ash from the meteorite blankets a certain portion of Japan and those who breathe it are turned into zombie-like creatures about an hour later. What then transpires is a bizarre political debate on how to treat these infected people with one side arguing that they should be killed and the other side demanding that they be protected. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this particular type of film apparently appeals to a certain niche of movie-goers who really enjoy action and gore regardless of how ridiculous some of the scenes turn out to be. And there were more than a few ridiculous scenes in this movie. Naturally, this movie was never meant to be taken seriously but even so the continuous action and gore got more than a little annoying. Again, those who enjoy action and gore to the exclusion of everything else will probably love this movie. But I am not one them and I have rated it accordingly. Awful.

Maybe it's just me and my odd liking of corny horror movies but I liked HellDriver a lot. I haven't really seen any other films by Yoshihiro Nishimura so I didn't really have a bias on this film compared to the others. To me, this movie was just a lot of crazy, bloody fun with random chainsaws and exploding heads.I found the designs for everything were fantastic, from Chainsaw Katana to the car made out of mutilated body parts. I liked how the zombies were different than the usual moaning, shuffling, beasts and actually had some character to them. The characters were also very well made in my opinion, and their attire and weaponry even more so.The only thing I did not like about HellDriver were the small parts that took place in the "Zombie Bar" scenes. The blood spewing nipples and the random zombie with multiple penises were a bit much, and I really don't see why those things were necessary. I did like the other "boss" zombies that appeared in those scenes though: the battles with Katana-filled zombie, the baby lasso zombie, and the zombie made from multiple arms were so corny that they were awesome.If you're not the fan of hack-and-slash, than this isn't a movie for you and if you don't have an odd sense of humor, than it isn't for you either. The point of the movie was just to be ridiculous and silly, so why look at it any other way than that. Overall, HellDriver was a ridiculous over-the-top horror comedy that I guess you have to have certain tastes to enjoy.

"Everything is glorious!"These kind of ultra-violent, chaotic Japanese movies are very tricky. When they work, they're awesome. An amusing, bemusing, exciting mishmash of craziness that gives new meaning to the word "ridiculous". But Helldriver, like so many of these gonzo films, just doesn't quite pull off what it's aiming for. And that's certainly not for lack of trying. This tale of zombies and chainsaw swords throws everything at the viewer possible, and I have to commend the filmmakers for the sheer levels of WTF they came up with. Zombie women using zombie babies attached by zombie umbilical cords as weapon, truck versus zombie sword fights, and a zombie car are just a few of the insane ideas you'll see on display, here. I can't count the number of times I simply had to shake my head and smile at the fact that someone came up with all of this stuff. There's even a battle near the end that's eerily reminiscent of The Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, except with way fewer humans and WAY more blood. The inventiveness of Helldriver is the best thing it has going for it, by far. But amidst all the blood fountains and giant flying zombies made out of smaller zombies, the director and writers forgot to add the entertainment. How a movie can be absolutely insane and so dull at the same time is a mystery, to me. The plot is non-existent, even for this kind of flick. Our main character has a back-story with an evil mother and uncle that leads to the entire zombie infestation and her transformation into a half-mechanical warrior, but the scenes dealing with that are among the most boring in the entire movie. There are really no likable or interesting characters, either, which would have gone a long way towards making Helldriver easier to enjoy. It might be worth checking out for the undeniable strangeness of it all, but I still have to say I was more disappointed than pleased with Helldriver.

Interesting mix of Zombie and Gore action film, with many references to many modern fantasy and sci-fi movies and Japanese gore taste for fine bleeding fans. With some elements taken from the 'trifids', some post-apocalyptic scenes like Carpenter's Rescue from NY, some characters like Blade Runner's ones, references to I'm Legend and many more, this extra-large mesh-up film can be either disgusting and creative the most of times. Following with the well known Japanese tradition of telling the story with a bunch of flashbacks and flash-forwards, it contains lots of absurdities and null deployed characters, lots of story lines, irregular tempo and several flashes of very very intense action with astounding sound. For these actions it deserve to be watched, but for the others it's a waste of time, unless gore zombie films are your main interest.