All language subtitles for The.Last.Drive-In.with.Joe.Bob.Briggs.S38E03.Tokyo.Gore.Police.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BFM_track3_[eng]

-Okay, Darcy,
we are rolling now.

We got through the first half
of Transgressive Night

without getting arrested
or taken off the air.

-Yay!

-I expect you to do
transgressive cosplay

at Halloween and Christmas,

if you know what I mean.

And I think you do.

-We'll see.

-Meanwhile,

I will now explain

how the word transgressive
was coined by Georges Bataille,

the French cultural theorist,

but probably popularized
by Michel Foucault attempting

to explain Bataille,

but for our purposes,

meaning explicitly connected
to film criticism by Amos Vogel,

the Austrian who ran New York's
Cinema 16 in the 1950s

and then wrote the book "Film
as a Subversive Art" in 1974,

a book I'm confident
that we've all read,

because who could truly
understand "Bloodsucking Freaks"

unless you had filtered Vogel
into your consciousness

and understood
how it violates narrative norms,

perceptual norms,
and bodily norms, right?

-Right. Of course.

-Don't say it
unless you mean it, Darcy.

-Oh, I mean it.

-You want to make
the Jonas Mekas argument,

go ahead.
-I'm good.

-I don't want to disrespect
Jonas Mekas,

the greatest Lithuanian
film critic who ever lived.

I mean,
when three people would show up

for the Stan Brakhage premiere

at Anthology Film Archives,
Jonas was right there

on the stage with Stan
telling all three people

how transgressive
that they were.

-Did you take something
between the movies,

by any chance?
-Nope.

I'm just pointing out that there
is a long tradition in America

of celebrating films that make
you scream at the screen.

-I love films
that make you scream.

-I mean
scream in not a good way.

-I love those too.

-All of the guys
who created "transgressive"

were talking about -- they
don't use this term anymore,

but what they were talking about
is underground films.

-I feel like if the film creates
an emotional reaction

like screaming,
then it's a good film.

-What if the audience
is screaming, "Kill Jonas Mekas,

we don't want to watch this"?
-It's still a good film.

Emotion.

-All right, so when we were
planning Transgressive Night,

"I Spit On Your Grave,"
that was a no brainer.

But then we had to face
the difficult question,

what film can compete with
this Meir Zarchi masterpiece?

And somebody said, "Well,
we got to go to Asia for that."

And then all together,
as if we had one mind,

we go, "Japanese splatterpunk."
-Hell yeah.

-Because what were
the Japanese thinking?

-They were thinking,
"Let's make some badass movies."

-The Japanese are spooky.
-Yes, they are.

-Because they're the politest
people in the world, right?

Maybe the most formal people
in the world.

Maybe the most reserved people
in the world.

But then they decapitate babies
and split old women in half.

-Hell yeah, they do.

-I mean, they create images
not just in film,

but in manga,
in literature, in art.

They create these images

that would have made
Josef Mengele go, "Oh, no,

you can't do that.
That's too much suffering."

-I love the Japanese.

-Remember
when Mick Garris put together

that anthology series
for Showtime

called "Masters of Horror"?

-I know
where you're going with this.

-What?
What am I going to say?

-That the Japanese one
got censored.

Showtime refused to show it.

-Yes, even though that series
was billed as hardcore horror

on a premium cable channel.

So there were no censors.

But that hour-long film
by Takashi Miike

was deemed "too disturbing
and too graphic."

-And the directors were
being told they were encouraged

to test the limits.
-Yes.

And I guess American limits are
different from Japanese limits.

I mean, but if you tell
Takashi Miike to go for it,

you know he's going
to go for it.

I mean, you're asking the guy

who made "Ichi the Killer" to
make the movie he wants to make

if he has no censorship
whatsoever.

And so he does that.

And the reaction is,

"We didn't really expect that
to be in your brain, Takashi.

And now we don't want to know
what else is in your brain."

-I want to know what's
in all Japanese brains.

-Yes, you were a Japanese film
lover from way back.

You have journeyed
to the land of the Rising Sun

to indulge your Japanophilia
or whatever you call it.

And we here at the Last Drive-in

have journeyed deep
into the splatterpunk archives,

and we have reached
the conclusion

that the foundation film
of Japanese splatterpunk --

Let me correct myself.

The foundation film is
"Tetsuo the Iron Man,"

which we've already featured
on the show,

but the apogee
of splatterpunk aesthetics...

-The what now?

-The biggest
gross-out film of all time...

-Okay.
-...is "Tokyo Gore Police."

And we're going to talk about
every blood-spurting second

of it tonight

in an attempt to psychoanalyze
the Japanese psyche.

-Yay!

-There were lots of candidates
for this,

but this, you know, biggest
gross-out film of all time.

That's a pretty major category.

This one checks all the boxes.

Graphic gore.
-Yes.

-Not just jump scares,
shock scares.

-Yes.
-In-your-face energy.

-Definitely.
-Anti-establishment.

-Yes.
-Anti-good taste.

-Hell yes.
-Cynical.

-True.

-Nihilistic.

-If you say so.

-Satirical.
-Definitely.

-Not just over the top,

but over the tip-top,
around the bottom,

circling the planet, landing
on a nuclear bomb over the top.

-You nailed it.

-From the mind
of Yoshihiro Nishimura.

Here comes the sensitive story
of a young woman

suffering from PTSD
ever since her cop father

got his head blown off
right in front of her.

So she becomes a cop herself
in a world

where all law enforcement
has been turned over

to a private company,

and the chief criminals are
mutants called engineers

that have the power
to turn body wounds

into biomechanical weapons,

creating a universe
of monsters and thugs

that is not what it seems.

Sure, we've seen it before,

but have we seen it with
cheery commercial interruptions

for self-mutilation tools?

I think not.

So let's look at those drive-in
totals and get started.

We have...

Better known as
a missile-launching

phallus cannon.

It's kind of an indie
musical comedy, you know,

as you can tell.

Drive-In Academy Award
nominations for

Eihi Shiina as Ruka,
the girl cop who says,

"The snow of death falls
and accumulates."

Shun Sugata as the deformed
Tokyo Police Commissioner

for saying, "Are you going
to repay kindness with evil?"

Itsuji Itao as the Key Man
who says,

"I will become king
of murderers."

And Yoshihiro Nishimura,
the director,

for setting the world record
for blood spray.

Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.

I'm sorry.

Come on.
That was good.

-What a movie.

-I feel like we should have one

of those blood spray parasols
like Ruka has in the movie.

You know?
-Shane?

-Yeah.
The images are so vivid,

you feel like
you're getting assaulted

when you watch this movie.

What was the MPAA rating?

-Oh, they didn't even
bother trying.

-They put it out unrated,
right?

-Yeah, but they did submit it
to the Japanese ratings board.

-Japanese ratings board.
And?

-Recommended for 18 years
and up.

-Just recommended
for 18 years.

-Yeah.
Because Japan is cool with gore.

-I can see why they skipped
the MPAA ratings board

because Takashi Miike
submitted "Ichi the Killer"

and he couldn't even get
an NC-17.

They basically told him,

"We're just going to send
this movie back to you

and act like it never existed."

-That's awesome, actually.

-Yeah. What a stud.
-Yeah.

-You know, I was talking about
Cinema 16 at the beginning.

Back in the '50s,

when movies were
actually banned for content,

you could join Cinema 16.

It was a "film society"
and your membership would get

you into these secret screenings
all over New York City.

Now, that's definitely what they

would have had to do with
"Tokyo Gore Police"

if it existed in the 1950s.

You would get this phone call,

"Provincetown Playhouse,
7:00 p.m. Tuesday,"

and you would show up there
with your membership card,

and you would watch
Brigitte Bardot get naked in

"...And God Created Woman,"

or you would watch
"Salt of the Earth,"

the one made by all
the blacklisted filmmakers.

And Cinema 16 would
have been irresistible to me.

Movies that were screened
in back alleys like drug deals.

-Wow. They had to hide
"Salt of the Earth"?

-Well, yes,
because that was boycotted

by the projectionists union.

So even if a theater
wanted to show that movie,

the projectionist would refuse
to project it.

-What?
Then how did they watch it?

-Ninja projectionists, Darcy.

Intrepid undercover nerd
projectionists.

-Aww. Did they wear masks?

-I'm sure they did.

"Are you here
to project the movie?

Don't tell me your name."

Press a couple Benjamins
into his palm

while doing the Cinema 16
secret handshake.

-Did they have
a secret handshake?

-I like to think
that they did, yes.

-I do too.

-Don't you hate it
when nothing happens

in the first 24 minutes
of a movie?

-That was awesome.

-Okay, Darcy,
but that was gross, right?

I mean, it's minor
by the scale of this movie.

It's like a warm-up
for future gross outs.

But I don't think -- And I don't
think I'm doing any spoilers

when I say the guy in the
brothel failing to pay his bill,

followed by
the money-minded madam

getting her body penetrated

by multiple blood draining pipes
does not have anything

to do with any scenes before
that and any scenes after that.

So why is it there?

-To have more blood,
more gore.

-So the whole sequence is
gratuitous?

-Yes, and I am okay with that.

-Would you say that one thing

this movie reveals
about Japanese culture

is that everybody in Japan has
extremely high blood pressure?

-That's one way to look at it.

-I mean, some of those scenes
where limbs and heads

get cut off
have arterial blood spray

that goes on for so long

that you expect the victim to be
a little puckered pile of pus

on the floor,
just skin and bone marrow.

-A puckered pile of pus.

-Yes, a putrid,
puckered pile of pus.

But the only reason
we're having this conversation

is that this is one
of those rare movies

that's directed not by a
cinematographer turned director,

not a writer turned director,
not an editor turned director,

but a special effects
makeup artist turned director.

Yoshihiro Nishimura
grew up in Tokyo.

Conventional family.

One of the most conservative
parts of the city, Asakusa,

which is where tourists go
to see the so-called old Japan

of rickshaws and food stalls
and fireworks and izakaya bars.

And then he studied
to be a lawyer

at Aoyama Gakuin University,
which is an old,

respected Christian college

in the bustling Shibuya
neighborhood of central Tokyo.

Shibuya is sort of the --

It's like Japan's LA
and New York combined, you know,

because it's got the
fashion industry, entertainment,

trendy nightlife, clubs,
you know.

But in the early '90s,

he got a job working in
practical effects.

And that plus reading a lot
of
Fangoria
magazine

changed his life.

He soon founded his own
special effects makeup company

that got involved
in the J-horror movement.

We've talked about that
before -- "Ringu," "The Grudge,"

"Pulse," "Dark Water,"

a whole bunch
of those '90s movies

had Nishimura special effects,
both credited and uncredited,

because he was just everywhere.

And he did almost all

the practical effects
in those movies.

He was the guy you called

when you needed
a blood and gore sequence,

or just anything that was odd
or supernatural.

And his big breakthrough movie
was "Meatball Machine,"

which is probably
where he got some of the ideas

for "Tokyo Gore Police."

"Meatball Machine" was directed
by a couple of guys,

Yamaguchi and Yamamoto,

and sounds like a two-man
vaudeville comedy act,

Yamaguchi and Yamamoto.

But anyway, it was a movie
about an alien parasite

that uses the flesh of humans
to create biomechanical weapons.

And that was the big sensation

at the 2005 Tokyo International
Fantastic Film Festival,

and he got so much attention
for those special effects

that he got his shot
at directing.

And this movie is the result.

This is his debut as a director,

and he finally got to pump
all the blood spray

that he always wanted to pump

when he was working
on other people's movies.

And because he supervised
the gore effects on films like

"Rubber's Lover,"
"Machine Girl," "Suicide Club."

And so anyway, because of
his connection to the J-horror

in crowd, you could call them,
from the '90s,

the top directors,

he was able to get Eihi Shiina
to star in this movie.

She was the actress
from "Audition"

that many of you said
was the scariest woman ever seen

on screen when we showed it.

When did we show "Audition"?
We showed it...

-Season three, the same night as
"Class of 1984."

-Wow.
-Yeah.

-Anyway, the wrist-cutting cop
in the mini skirt,

splitting chainsaw-armed
cannibal engineers in half,

that's the girl from "Audition,"

Eihi Shiina, who doesn't make
that many movies,

but dang if she wasn't
perfect for this role.

-Love her.

-So let's follow our
self-mutilating super cop

further into battle
as we roll it.

Go.

Are we transgressive yet, Darcy?

-Oh, we're transgressive
as fuck.

-Good,
because I don't want mail.

-Oh, you're getting mail.

-No.

-I enjoy it now
while you still can.

You're getting mail.

-No, I mean, I don't want mail
from those guys

who say "Too much CGI, Joe Bob.
Show some practical effects."

Well, we got practical effects.

We got practical effects
out the wazoo tonight.

These are all practical effects.

These are effects made
by guys sitting around thinking,

"Hey, what could we show
that's so hard to watch,

it might cause governments
all over the world

to ban us from theaters?"

-And that is a great goal.
-I guess.

I assume this was shown
in theaters.

-Not a lot.

-Because we still have
that Puritan thing going, right?

The idea that you should not
depict on-screen body carving.

-Yeah. For some reason.

-The Puritans carved bodies
behind closed doors.

Boo.

-Yay! Yay yay!

Yay!

Yay!

-Oh, no.
Is Ruka an engineer now?

That was some serious katana fu.

Wouldn't be Japanese without
some steel blade action, right?

One thing I should point out
about the subway sequence

is that guys feeling up women
on the crowded subways of Tokyo

is not only a common crime,
it's a porn fetish.

It's an entire genre of porn

where the women want to
be groped on the subway

in the porn version.

So I'm sure a lot
of Japanese women

got some satisfaction
out of seeing that guy get both

of his hands sliced off.

The weird commercials,

like the one
for a cute wrist cutter

and the one cautioning workers
against committing hara-kiri

and the police PSAs
like the one

where they machine gunned
the serial killer on camera,

all of those were shot
by friends in the J-horror world

who had all worked together
at Nikkatsu,

which is the oldest film studio
in Japan, founded in 1912.

It was known for its period
of so-called Roman Porno films

in the '70s, and then
their pink films after that,

softcore sex genres that saved
the studio from bankruptcy

and gave a lot
of young Japanese filmmakers

starter jobs in the industry.

So, Noboru, Noboru Iguchi --

I have so much trouble
with these Japanese names.

Noboru Iguchi filmed one
of the commercials.

He would become famous
later for "RoboGeisha,"

if you saw that movie.
-Of course.

-And the aforementioned
Yudai Yamaguchi

of "Meatball Machine,
he filmed another one.

And these were all the guys

who would form the nucleus
of the splatterpunk movement.

So how would you describe
splatterpunk, Darcy?

-Oh, you're asking me?
-Yeah.

People want to know
what you're talking about

when you say
the word splatterpunk.

-Gory, bloody, in your face.
-Yeah.

-It's really about --
It's really a style word, right?

-Yeah.
-Shock value.

The Japanese owned it
because they were willing

to go farther than anybody else
with movies like "Machine Girl,"

"RoboGeisha," "Vampire Girl
vs. Frankenstein Girl."

And have you seen this one?

"Gothic and Lolita Psycho."
-Love it.

-It would have been a better one

to pair with "I Spit
on Your Grave," actually,

because it's about
a very feminine girly girl

hunting down the men
who killed her mother

and torturing
and dismembering them

without
ever losing her fashion sense.

Anyway, splatterpunk is a term

that's tossed
around starting in the '80s.

It's often used to describe
Clive Barker novels,

but really the film version
of it was mostly Japan,

and it was short-lived.

It was 2008 when this movie
came out to about 2012.

And in my opinion,
we're watching the best one.

-We definitely are.

-And now it's time
to get back to it.

Now that the Key Man has
shoved the key into Ruka's arm.

So roll the film.

But Ruka has that deadpan,
don't bother me expression

on her face, even when
she's being showered with blood

and tortured
and attacked with various kinds

of medieval weapons and what
they call biomechanical weapons.

What do they mean
by biomechanical?

-It's when the weapon is
also a body part.

-And that's happened
several times in history, right?

-Hell yeah. It happens
all the time in splatterpunk.

-Well, in splatterpunk,
but no.

At the Battle of Sekigahara
in 1600, famous Japanese battle,

the Tokugawa warriors
apparently sprouted sword arms.

-Interesting.
-I'm being an idiot.

-I thought you probably were.

-My favorite body part
that becomes a weapon

is coming up now.

And that would be, of course,
the penile bazooka.

-No spoilers.

-I can't spoil it
because no one has ever seen

a penile bazooka.

-You know, I would --
It's more like

a cock cannon to me.
-A cock cannon.

-Yeah.
-That's good.

You could call it that.

Or a dick derringer.

-Oh, I'm sticking with
cock cannon.

-Yeah, now that I think about
it, schlong shotgun.

-That's a good one,
too, honestly.

-Okay.

-Ahhh.

-You know, before I forget,
I should have talked about this

at the last break,

but out of all the elaborate
set pieces in this movie,

the kills, the dismemberments,
the rain showers,

the blood -- actually,
in Japan

they call any gore shot
a "Injury."

And Nishimura boasted that
this movie, shot in two weeks,

has 1,200 injuries.

Anyway, out of all the set
pieces and kills and injuries,

the only time
I was really grossed out was

when that woman with all the
face jewelry stands next to Ruka

on the subway
and eats live worms and bugs

out of a rusty tin can.

When she bites down
on the live worm

with her yellow, rotting teeth
in close up,

and the bug juice accumulates
around her gums,

and then the yellow goo
overflows out of her mouth,

whoa!

You know, Nishimura has
obviously discovered

that Tom Savini principle

that if you want a monster
to be disgusting or a human,

work with the mouth.

Stuff coming out of the mouth
always gets to me.

-Yeah, the mouth is gross.

It has, like,
700 kinds of bacteria.

-Is that true?

-Yeah.
Toothpaste is our friend.

-I don't want to think
about that.

Anyway,
"Tokyo Gore Police" is a remake

of a short film,

actually Nishimura's
very first work,

called "Anatomia Extinction,"

made in 1995
when he was 23 years old.

It won the Special Jury Prize

at the Yubari
Fantastic Film Festival,

which is a huge deal in Japan.

Yubari is this old mining town

on the northernmost island
of Japan, Hokkaido,

and they started the festival
when the mines closed in 1990.

And one of their first guests
was Angelina Jolie.

But in 1990,
she would have had to be there

with her dad, Jon Voight,
because she was only 15.

Anyway, Quentin Tarantino
wrote part of "Pulp Fiction"

in his hotel room
while he was at Yubari.

Steve Martin, Martin Short,
many Japanese stars

have been honored there.

At any rate, "Anatomia
Extinction" won the Jury Prize,

and that was a giant
door opener for Nishimura

as he started getting hired
to do effects

for Japanese horror flicks.

And then the American company
Media Blasters

begged him to make a movie
specifically for them.

And the result was
"The Machine Girl,"

which was directed
by Noboru Iguchi.

But that was the story
of a high-school student hunting

down bullies
who killed her brother,

and she loses an arm

and replaces it
with a high-powered machine gun.

And "The Machine Girl" was
an instant hit.

And that led
to "Tokyo Gore Police"

with Nishimura fully in control
of all aspects of the film

for the first time.

And when you ask Nishimura
what his influences are,

he always cites Salvador Dali,
which I --

I guess I can see that,

but the obvious one he does not
talk about is Paul Verhoeven,

because the basic plot here is
"RoboCop" --

privatized police force,

and the mutant creatures seem

to come straight out
of "Total Recall."

And then all those commercials

and PSAs for the police
are definitely modeled

after the propaganda commercials
in "Starship Troopers."

So Nishimura is
not just a Tom Savini fanboy.

He's definitely
a Paul Verhoeven fanboy too.

Back to the movie.
Roll it.

My favorite commercial is the --

is that virtual reality
toy sword that you use to carve

up people tied up in a garage
far, far away.

It's like -- It's like
those morality questions

that they ask you
in psychology class.

They say
if you could get $1 million

by allowing somebody in China
to be killed,

somebody you would never see,
you would never know,

you would never be detected,

the only knowledge of it

that you would have is
that you caused the killing,

would you take
the million dollars?

And I actually think most people
would take the million dollars.

They would say,
"No, I couldn't do that.

If a person's going to die
because of me,"

until they faced bankruptcy
or had a lot of hospital bills

to pay or they lost their job
or they got divorced

or they had some other setback,
and then one morning,

or more likely one night,

they're doing mushrooms so they
can blame it on the mushrooms

and they go, "Pull the trigger."

-So you agree
with the director?

-Do I agree
that we live in a time

when hurting other people
can be considered entertaining?

-Yes.
-I would have to say yes.

I mean, I want to believe in
he
-- I want to believe in

the Bad Bunny Super Bowl
halftime show.

I really do.

You know, the only thing
stronger than hate is love.

It was in these giant letters,
right?

Look at how many people
hated the message.

They hated that message.
-True.

-I mean, we're screwed.

-We are. We definitely are.
-Well, that was, you know...

That was not an upbeat moment
on "The Last Drive-In."

But it's true.
-We gotta keep it real, man.

-All right.

-Ooh.

-Okay. I call this the club
penis sequence.

We got a lot to talk about here.

-I think we need to turn
this one over to Felissa.

-To Felissa?
-Yes. Yes.

-You're absolutely right.

The world's leading

mangled dick expert is here
with us tonight.

We should definitely
consult her.

Felissa, can you join us?

-Thank you. Yes.
Thank you. Thank you.

-Thanks for coming back.
-Welcome back.

-Felissa Rose,
ladies and gentlemen.

Star of "Sleepaway Camp,"

the movie in which
her dick is mangled,

turning her into a girl.

-Okay,
would you stop saying that?

-Okay,
we won't go into my theory

about the underlying backstory
of "Sleepaway Camp" again.

But nevertheless,
you are the mangled dick expert.

And so I have to ask,
first of all,

as we've seen here in the
sequence that we just watched,

what is your feeling
about a situation

in which the mangling
of the dick actually enlarges,

enhances, and mutates the dick

so that it becomes a weapon
of mass destruction?

-I'm in favor.

-You're in favor
of the cock cannon?

-Yes. Well, the correct term is
biomechanical penile device.

-Really?

Even though it's created by
an alligator jaw vagina chomp?

-Well, that's the only way
to create one.

-And even though this man
is using his cock cannon --

-Biomechanical penile device.
-Oh.

-This man is using
his biomechanical penile device

to massacre police officers?

-Penile devices
don't kill people.

People kill people.

-What do you think, Darcy?

-Oh, I'm whangdoodle positive.
I'm down with it.

-I know you're in favor
of more male full frontal

in movies, but we know that.

-Oh, yes.
-But even --

But even in this movie,

even if the result of that
is blood spouting

from the male's crotch
like a geyser?

-I mean,
it's an amazing scene.

Yeah.

-So I think you're both
in basic agreement

that if you're going to mangle
a dick,

turn that dick into
some socially useful device.

Is that the --

-Exactly.
-Exactly. Yes.

-Okay.
And this movie does that.

The tradition pioneered
by Camille Keaton

in "I Spit On Your Grave."

-You love her.

-Removing the penis
at the emotional --

emotional high point
of the film here

reaches its ultimate
surrealist expression in Japan,

as the schlong then becomes
a twisted, gnarled,

veiny wiener torpedo.

So back to the movie.

-Boy.

-Felissa...
-We needed you.

-Yes, yes, yes.
-All right.

-...may I ask you
a personal question?

-Of course. Go right ahead.

You know I'm an open book.

-How many guys send you
dick pics?

-Thousands.

I mean, I use them for research.

-You keep them?
You keep the dick pics?

-Of course.
I have a mangled dick database.

-Have you ever mangled
a dick yourself?

-Well, only when the dick
signs a release.

Okay.

Okay.
That's comforting to know.

-Whoo-hah! Yeah!

-I was surprised
that they didn't get

more explicit with the carnage

when the bartender girl
gets pulled apart

while chained to the four cars.

They must have been
running out of time on the...

It was a two-week shoot.

Because by this point
in the movie,

you kind of want to
see that in close-up.

The writers, by the way,
are Kengo Kaji,

who's a director, writer,
producer in his own right.

He's best known for his manga
and for "Ultraman."

-Yeah.
-And then Maki Mizui

is not only a co-writer,

but she also plays
the Snail Girl.

-Oh, man.
I love the Snail Girl!

-Everybody loves
the Snail Girl.

-Yeah
-Apparently she has

some screenwriting chops.

And, of course,
Eihi Shiina plays Ruka,

the cop turned engineer.

And now I'm wondering
how much cop is still in her.

Um, Eihi Shiina was a model
for Benetton in the '90s,

and she became
internationally famous

when she starred
in "Audition" for Takashi Miike,

and then she's only made
a dozen or so movies

in the years since then,

and most of those movies have
been for Yoshihiro Nishimura.

She just made one recently
for Nishimura.

She was a transgender
Yakuza boss in "Holy Mother."

Uh, I should also mention
Itsuji Itao,

the guy playing Key Man.

Very well-known character actor.

Over 150 roles.
Works all the time.

But before we close
this movie out

and close this
hardcore summer special out,

I should go ahead and do this.

I was talking about
Japanese splatterpunk

as being the most extreme form
of horror in the world,

just in terms
of getting in your face

and making you uncomfortable.

Would you agree with that,
Darcy?

-Oh, yeah. Definitely.
-And so I came up with

this list of the top nine
must-watch splatterpunk movies.

This is Splatterpunk 101.

Starting in 1989 with
the origin of all J-Splatter,

"Tetsuo: The Iron Man."

Shinya Tsukamoto.

This is the sensitive story
of a man

whose penis painfully transforms
into a rotating drill bit.

"The Body Hammer." 1992.

Shinya Tsukamoto is back
for more body horror.

This is sort of the "Death Wish"
of splatterpunk.

A man's rage about
the kidnapping and torture

of his son transforms his own
body into weaponized metal.

So you can see
just by these first two

that "Tokyo Gore Police"
has not wandered too far

from the controlling formula.

And then we have
"Full Metal Yakuza."

A Yakuza gangster
is brought back to life

by fusing machine parts

and pieces of his dead friend
into his body.

And that's Takashi Miike
getting into the genre.

"Wild Zero" is the only one
that's kind of off brand.

The punk band Guitar Wolf.
I saw them live one time.

They rock. They're amazing.
-Wow.

-Guitar Wolf is summoned to save
Japan from a zombie outbreak,

and Guitar Wolf uses deafening
hard rock to defeat the zombies.

This is mostly on the list
because the gore effects

in that movie
were the most over-the-top,

explicit, vomit-inducing effects
ever seen up to that time.

Um, then, of course,
"Ichi the Killer."

Miike again.

Man gets brainwashed into
becoming a hitman for the Yakuza

at the behest of a super sadist.

More intense, more graphic.

Things are getting
really gnarly now.

"Battle Royale." We're going...

This is-- That's wrong.
It's not--

I'm not talking
about the 1989 movie.

I'm talking
about the 2000 movie.

The genre starts
getting into child death now.

All the middle-schoolers
are taken to an isolated island

and forced
to fight to the death.

If more than one kid is alive
after three days,

their explosive collars
will detonate.

"Suicide Circle."

Continuing with
even more ultraviolence.

To give you some idea,
the opening scene

is 54 Japanese school girls
calmly holding hands

as they leap in front of
a speeding subway train.

So the whole worldview
is now out of sync.

"Meatball Machine."

Crazy effects,
intense body horror,

giant bugs that turn humans
into cannibals.

Yudai Yamaguchi,
who also made "Versus"

and "Battlefield Baseball."

Nishimura worked
on all of Yamaguchi's films.

And then 2008,

the genre is totally defined
by "Tokyo Gore Police,"

which we're watching now,
the ultimate gore movie.

Biomechanical mutation movie.
Decaying society movie.

Nishimura also worked on the
two other splatterpunk movies

of that year: "Machine Girl"
and "Yoroi Samurai Zombie."

And then everything
after that is Nishimura.

He either directs,

like with "Mutant Girls Squad"
and "Helldriver,"

or he does the effects
for movies like

"Gothic & Lolita Psycho,"

"Dead Sushi,"
and "Yakuza Weapon."

Nishimura also directed
"The ABCs of Death" in 2012.

"Meatball Machine Kodoku"
in 2017 with Ei-- with--

-You got it.
-...Eihi Shiina again.

These Japanese words
are driving me crazy.

-I know. I know.
It's a tough night.

-You could almost say
that Nishimura is his own genre.

Just like in Canada
and the U.S., you can say,

"Have you seen
the latest Cronenberg?"

And you know how--

You know how weird a
Cronenberg movie is gonna be.

In Japan, you can say,

"Have you seen
the latest Nishimura?"

Okay.

It's time for the
pretty dang amazing conclusion

of "Tokyo Gore Police," so...

-Yeah.
-...roll it.

"Dead Sushi," Darcy.

-I've seen that one.

-Is that genius or what?

-Sushi-fu. Yeah.

-There's definite sushi-fu.
-Yeah.

-Are you a sushi person?

-Oh, I am,
but I don't eat fish,

so I just get the veggie ones.
-Oh.

-Which counts.
-But you failed to experience

the horror of the reanimated
mutant tuna nigiri

that uses its springy rice outer
covering to fly through the air,

form a snapping mouth with
its sharp teeth so it can attack

and kill unsuspecting diners
in "Dead Sushi."

-I prefer the Makizushi rolls.

-Which ones were those?

-They turn the seaweed
into circular buzzsaws

that go for the throat.
-Oh, yeah!

Yeah. Circular buzzsaw sushi.
-Go for the throat.

Sushi-fu.

-Nothing better than vicious,
violent, bloodthirsty sushi.

-I mean, how could there be?

-You know what I don't like
about the ending?

Ruka figures everything out.
She kills the last villain.

And nothing has changed.

In fact, it seems to be
getting worse.

Now the army
is getting privatized.

So there's gonna be more
random killing of civilians.

I know that it's satire.
I know it's cynical.

I know it's punk.
It's, really, post-punk.

But I wanted Ruka to win.
I wanted her to save Japan.

What do you think, Darcy?

-I think you're overthinking it.
It's fine.

-Well, anyway,
that's "Tokyo Gore Police,"

which we have honored
on Transgressive Night

as one of the two most
transgressive movies in history,

the other one being
"I Spit on Your Grave."

I'm starting to like this word,
Darcy. "Transgressive."

-You should. It's what we've
been doing for eight years.

-Okay.

And another thing
we've been doing for eight years

is we've been going through
all the e-mails and messages

and letters
that you guys send us.

-Yes, we have.
-And I always feel

a little overwhelmed
because, "A,"

we don't deserve
all the affection we get,

and, "B," we don't have time
to acknowledge

all the heartfelt stories...
-Yeah.

-...that come our way.

So I'm letting Darcy
ignore my standard rule,

which is no mail
that will make me cry,

so that we can share
just a fraction of those stories

in the short time we have left.

So go ahead.
-You sure?

-Hit me.
-Are you sure?

Okay. This letter came in
from Luke Urban of L.A.

-Really?
-Yep.

Well, okay.

-You're not telling me--
You're not giving me any hints.

Alright.
-He's from L.A.

-"Dear Joe Bob...

thank you
for 'The Last Drive-In.'

My father died this week."

-Sorry. Sorry.

-You went straight
for the stomach punch.

-You told me I could.
Just read it. Just read it.

-"My father died this week.

He was a serious movie buff

and loved classic
pre-Code Hollywood films

like 'The Thin Man'
and 'Bulldog Drummond.'

Over the years,
whenever I'd see him,

dinner would invariably end
with us on the couch

watching whatever
came next on TCM.

That man could sit through
the driest 1930s melodrama,

happy as a clam, spouting
facts about all the actors."

I hope at least
a few of those nights

were spent with my friend
Robert Osborne,

the film historian and
journalist who worked at TCM

while I was at "MonsterVision."

We were colleagues at TNT
in the '90s.

Talk about a guy
who loved the 1930s.

"Over the last few weeks,

I spent many late nights
next to him,

watching movies
as he slept in a hospital bed.

After exhausting all
the Claudette Colbert

and Adolphe Menjou films
that I could stomach,

I decided to check in
on the new season

of 'The Last Drive-In.'"

Before I go on,
I should point out

Adolph Menjou starred
in the first movie ever shown

at a drive-in in 1932 movie.

Movie was "Wife Beware."

-Oh.

-"My father was not
a horror fan,

and much of 'The Last Drive-In'
would have been lost on him.

But to my surprise,
your first episode was

1925's 'Phantom of the Opera'
with Lon Chaney.

Now, I don't believe in kismet,

but that sure seemed
like kismet to me.

And so the night
before he passed,

I got to share that movie, your
program, and that time with him.

And it was in that moment..."

-I'm sorry.

They get me, too, man.
What do you want?

"It was in that moment...

...when I realized
why I love 'The Last Drive-In.'

It takes me back
to all those nights

sitting on the couch with Dad,
watching whatever comes next.

May the drive-in never die.

Your close personal friend,

Luke Urban,
Los Angeles, California."

And he's saying
close personal friend

because that's the
tongue-in-cheek slogan

that I sometimes use.

But, dang,
this is the second time

somebody has said

that their loved ones
spent their last night alive

watching "The Last Drive-In."

And we don't deserve that.
We really don't. Um...

-Don't think of it that way.

Think of it
as a big circle of love.

-What? Like...

-Luke, his father, you, me,

we're all experiencing the
same emotions at the same time.

And that's beautiful.

-I guess so.

Many of you who write into us
are writing on behalf

of two or more people,

meaning the people
you share movies with.

So, Luke, thank you for sharing
part of your life with us.

And thank you for just, um...

...understanding
what we try to do.

And now I gotta have
some Wild Turkey.

-Me too.

-That's it
for Transgressive Night

on "The Last Drive-In
Summertime Special."

I'm Joe Bob Briggs, speaking for
myself and Darcy the Mail Girl,

when I say that--

-We'll do a happy one next time.

-I don't have
a good slogan for--

Alright. I'll do this one.

There's always at least one shop
at the airport selling luggage,

which means there are
millions of Americans

going on vacation
carrying armfuls of clothes

and saying, "Well, we'll
just pack on the plane," right?

-I've thought that, honestly.

-And the drive-in
will never die.

Sorry.

-Why did the ghost flunk out
his astronaut training?

He was too obsessed
with the boo-ster rocket.

-Hmm.
-Hmm.

-Who's the greatest Middle
Eastern lawman turned actor?

Omar Sheriff.

Yes, yes! Fuck, yes.

I'm taking that one.

-Why are Chinese hens the most
dangerous birds in the world?

Because they learn
egg fu young.

-Hey, I think we got it!

-Hey! Okay! I actually--

-You sold it at the end.

-I actually
didn't steal that one.

-You made that one up?!

-I actually wrote a joke
because--

-Wow!
-They learn egg fu young.

-Oh, my God! Best joke ever!

So good. So good.
Whoever wrote it...

-Alright, alright, alright.
Real joke. Real joke.

-That was good, though.
-Police officer...

Police officer pulls over
a car for speeding,

and he approaches
the driver's side window.

And the officer says, "Sir, may
I see your driver's license?"

And the driver says,
"I don't have one.

Got suspended
after my fifth DUI."

And the officer
kind of narrows his eyes.

"Not good." He says, "Alright.

Can I see the registration
for this vehicle?"

And the driver says,
"It's not my car. I stole it."

And the officer is shocked
and he says,

"Are you telling me
this car is stolen?"

And the driver says, "Yep,
but now that you mention it,

I think I saw the owner's
registration in the glove box

right next to my gun."

And the officer goes, "There's
a gun in the glove box?!"

And the driver says, "Yes, sir.

That's where I put it
after I shot the woman

who owns this car
and stuffed her in the trunk."

And so the officer
backs away from the car

and immediately
calls for backup.

And within minutes,
multiple squad cars arrive,

lights flashing.

The captain himself steps out.

He's approaching cautiously.

And the captain says,
"Sir, may I see your license?"

And the driver shrugs,
and he hands it over.

Valid license.

And the captain says,
"And this car.

Who does it belong to?"

Driver says, "Me, of course.
Here's the registration."

The captain examines the papers.
Everything checks out.

The captain says, "Would
you mind opening the glove box?

We were told
there's a gun in there."

Driver said,
"Sure, but there's no gun."

Officer opens the glove box.
Empty.

Captain goes, "Alright.
Now can you pop the trunk?"

And the driver complies,
and the trunk swings open.

It's completely empty.
No sign of a body.

So the captain
turns to his officer.

His arms are crossed.
And he says, "I don't get it.

This officer said you told him
that you didn't have a license,

that you stole the car,
that you had a gun

in the glove box, and you had
a body in the trunk."

The driver shakes his head
and says, "Yeah,

and I bet the liar told you
I was speeding, too."

-Do you think
I could follow that?

Come on, now.

Egg fu young.

-♪ We are Drive-In Mutants
-♪ We are Drive-In Mutants ♪

-♪ We are not like
other people ♪

♪ We are sick
-♪ Sick ♪

-♪ We are disgusting
-♪ Disgusting ♪

-♪ We believe in,
we believe in ♪

♪ Blood and breasts and beasts ♪

♪ Yeah, we believe in ♪

♪ Blood and breasts and beasts ♪

♪ If life had a vomit meter ♪

♪ We'd be off the scale ♪

-♪ Off the scale ♪

-♪ As long as one
Drive-In remains ♪

♪ On the planet Earth ♪

♪ We will party
like jungle animals ♪

♪ We will boogie 'til we puke ♪

-♪ Boogie 'til we puke ♪

-♪ The Drive-In will never die ♪

♪ We will boogie 'til we puke ♪

-♪ Boogie 'til we puke ♪

-♪ The Drive-In will never die ♪

♪ We believe in ♪

♪ Blood and breasts and beasts ♪

♪ We believe in ♪

♪ Blood and breasts and beasts ♪

♪ Yeah, we believe in ♪

-Made in Georgia.