Zeiram (1991)

Directed by Keita Amemiya

Sometimes movies turn out to not be what we expect them to be. When some friends and I turned on Zeiram we expected to find a campy Power Rangers-esque martial arts movie that we could enjoy somewhat ironically. What we instead saw was something completely unexpected, a surprisingly well-made movie that fused together science fiction, martial arts, and body horror in a way that I had no idea I wanted so badly.

Zeiram begins following two doofy electricians, Kamiya and Teppei, who bumble their way into a fight between an intergalactic bounty hunter, Iria, and some kind of space monster called Zeiram. Trapped in a pocket dimension, the two electricians struggle to survive the battle between Iria’s technological and martial arts prowess and Zeiram’s mysterious otherworldy abilities. As the battle continues we see more and more of Zeiram’s strange abilities and transformations, and the film takes a surprising turn from fun martial arts action into fun body horror.

We knew somewhat going in that the monster Zeiram was going to be a more horror-themed take than the standard ‘big rubber-suited monster’ villain, but let me emphasize this: Zeiram’s design is nothing short of incredible. 

I cannot overstate how much I love Zeiram’s design. The fusion of classic kung fu movie villain design fused with 80s style body horror makes for a tremendously memorable and effective combination. I don’t want to give away too much about what Zeiram does or what new horrors happen but everything about this design is creepy, clever and perfectly plays with standard monster designs to make something unique and memorable. 

But I don’t want to gloss over the other things that Zeiram does right. In addition to having a cool as hell villain, there’s some really good atmosphere to be found in Zeiram. A good chunk of this film happens in a pocket dimension that Iria traps Zeiram, and also unintentionally traps the electric repairmen, and this pocket dimension is a pretty neat and atmospheric place. There’s an almost slasher-esque feel to when the two electricians are being stalked through the empty city by Zeiram, and it goes to show how flexible the film is when it can handle so many different types of scenes and still keep its tone intact.

I wouldn’t necessarily call anything here groundbreaking, the design of Zeiram gets very reminiscent of The Thing and the martial arts action stuff isn’t too new or different, but the way everything is brought together is what makes this such an interesting film. Genre blending, in general, has such potential to bring together styles of movies that you might not think would work but surprisingly come out even stronger when combined. 

Zeiram isn’t perfect, things tend to slow down a bit whenever Zeiram isn’t on screen, the electricians aren’t super interesting to be around, even if they do have a lot of fun reactions to all the crazy things that happen. A lot of the things that are not Iria v. Zeiram feel like filler, but that is difficult to avoid when the objectively coolest parts of the movie start off being completely separate from the Earthling plot which then gets fused into everything kinda clumsily. It wasn’t enough to seriously make the movie unenjoyable and I understand that we can’t just have an hour and a half of Iria fighting Zeiram…but that would have been cool too. 

I know it’s obscure, I know it’s hard to find, I know it’s very niche, but you should give Zeiram a chance if you can find it. I’m a little unsure if you can find it on streaming services, and I would never ever suggest you watch the dub of questionable legality uploaded to YouTube (HINT HINT) so however you can manage to track it down, give a watch, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Quick side note about the dub, it is shockingly competent for an early 90s dub of a random sci-fi horror action flick. Really impressive given the time.