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At an archeological dig, professor Yabe (Naoto Takenaka) discovers an ancient
tomb near his son's highschool, but when he enters it with student Tsukishima
(Megumi Ueno) they are both attacked by something evil & dragged
underground ...
Before entering the tomb though, Yabe has invited his colleague, self-styled
demon hunter Hieda (Kenji Sawada) to join him in the fun.
& it's a good thing he came too, since Yabe's son Masao - who was
desperately in love with Tsukishima - almost gets killed by some kind of
invisible demon when searching both his dad & his love in his highschool,
which is abandoned during the summer months, wouldn't it be for Hieda's help.
At first though, Masao is little impressed by the clumsy Hidea & his weird
apparatuses for demon-hunting - that changes though, when some of his friends
turn up decapitated, & he is starting to get rashes on his back that not
only start to burn (with visible smoke) everytime someone is killed by the
demon, but also start to take the shape of the faces of those killed.
Masao & Hidea soon know they are up against something way bigger than they
have bargained for, but there's no turning back, since the demons - mostly in
form of giant insects with human faces - are already after them ... & they
almost get Masao too, when one of them tires to lure him into a premature death
by sporting the facial features of Tsukishima.
Soon they form an unlikely alliance with the grumpy school janitor Watanabe
(Hideo Murota), who lets them in on the school's history, that it is built upon
one of the gates of hell, the tomb of demon Hiroku whom he has seen defeated 60
years ago, with Watanabe installed as the gatekeeper of his tomb, but who was
brought back to life when professor Yabe opened the tomb, & the gate to his
tomb (& thus to hell) can only be closed by Masao. Having recounted that
story though, Watanabe goes & shoots himself, leaving the others to find
the entrance to the tomb & the gate of hell on their own ... & once
they have found it, they find out hell is not a pretty sight, as it's inhabited
by any number of insect- & reptile-like demons, who are all out just to
attack them ... & only with the greatest of efforts can our heroes fight
off the demons & Masao recite the spell to close the gate.
Now, Masao's destiny is determined though - he has to take over fronm
Watanabe & become the new gatekleeper of the tomb.
Arthouse director Shinya Tsukamoto's first excursion into mainstream horror
(a genre he might even fit into due to his sometimes extreme imagery) can be
called interesting at best (disappointing at worst), since it - despite
delivering great special effects & some inventively arranged images, &
even adding some irony to the mix - follows the tried-&-true but also
overly clichéd teen-horror formuly a little too closely, 6 offers Tsukamoto
way too few opportunities to go off on his own, wbhich makes Hiruko not
necessarily a bad movie, just another in a long line of teen shockers.
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