‘Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell’: Japan’s 1960s alien vampire horror
In the world of horror cinema, few countries have given as many significant contributions to the genre as Japan. From the stunning cinematography of Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba and Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan to the late 1990s/early 2000s masterworks of J-horror, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, Takeshi Miike’s Audition and Hideo Nakata’s Ring, Japanese horror has also seemingly been ahead of the game.
Amongst the very best horror works from Japan, there are also a handful of truly bonkers movies like Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Hausu. For those interested in this stranger and occasionally comical side of Japanese horror, Hajime Sato’s 1969 science fiction movie Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell should also certainly be added to the list.
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is something of a B-movie at its core, but it possesses an ability to eternally scratch its name into the minds of its audience. Sato delivers a spine-tingling viewing experience that takes place on an aircraft doomed to crash and its horrific aftermath, beginning with co-pilot Sugisaka being informed of a bomb threat via radio message and his clearing all the passengers’ baggage, bar one man who strangely has no bag.
Though there’s something sinister about this man, the narrative creates suspicions around many of its diverse cast of characters, and it becomes clear that evil lurks amongst them all. Inevitably, the plane crashes onto an uncharted desert island – never a good sign in a horror film – and only a handful of people survive, leading to a claustrophobic and paranoid battle to survive.
This survival is against the film’s titular creature, Goke, a vampiric alien entity that feeds on the blood and fear of its victims. Under the guise of a red mist, Goke invades Earth and unleashes an unrelenting and chaotic madness upon the survivors of the plane crash. This evil presence ramps up the tension of the film to a near-breaking point.
At this point, Sato begins to explore the more psychological aspects of the horror genre, diving unflinchingly into the nature of greed and the inherently selfish desire to live at the cost of others. As Goke kills its victims slowly and torturously, the allegiances between the film’s characters shift and show the kind of inner turmoil that lies within each of them.
It’s often in moments like this in horror movies that characters can evaluate their lives, and as the survivors of the plane crash face up to the inevitable terror of the vampiric alien before them, they begin to wonder about their personal identities and values within a world consisting of evil.
In that light, perhaps Goke itself is representative of all evil in the world and highlights how its mere presence can urge us to live in malicious, malevolent and selfish ways. Beyond thematics, Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is an atmospheric romp with an eerie score that rings in the ears for days to come and nightmarish visuals that burn into the retina despite an admittedly low-budget feel.
Still, that kind of visual limitation only serves to create a strange atmosphere in Sato’s film, and it serves as one of the progenitors in the many excellent Japanese and science fiction horror movies that came in the following years and decades. It’s well worth a watch, even with a wry smile.
Check out Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell below
