There are bad horror movies, and then there are horror movies that make you wonder if someone spiked your popcorn with bug spray. Hiruko the Goblin belongs firmly in the second camp. Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto—yes, the same lunatic visionary who gave us the nightmarish body-horror masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man—this one plays less like art-house metal fever dream and more like Scooby-Doo on acid.
It’s got yokai. It’s got disembodied heads with bad singing careers. It’s got spider-legged schoolgirls and bug spray as a legitimate weapon against evil. What it doesn’t have is coherence, pacing, or anything resembling actual fear.
The Plot (Such As It Is)
We open with an archaeologist, Reijiro Hieda (Kenji Sawada), who has been laughed out of his profession for insisting yokai exist. He’s basically Mulder with worse hair. He gets a letter from his brother-in-law, a schoolteacher, who claims to have found an ancient tomb that seals away a demon. Because nothing bad has ever come from opening tombs in horror films, they naturally go poking around.
The brother-in-law vanishes, his student Reiko disappears too, and soon Hieda teams up with his nephew Masao—a kid cursed with a special effect that looks like a budget version of The Thing sprouting faces on his back. Together, they spend 90 minutes running around a schoolhouse while things with spider legs, bat wings, and bad prosthetics try to eat them.
There’s also a janitor who knows more than he’s letting on, a family curse, and an ancient crown that looks like something left over from a high school production of Macbeth. By the time the movie gets to its climax—with chants from the Kojiki, memories of dead wives, and the world’s least convincing bug demon—you’ll wish Hiruko had taken you first.
The Horror That Wasn’t
On paper, Hiruko the Goblin sounds like a goldmine: yokai mythology, Japanese horror traditions, and Tsukamoto’s reputation for disturbing visuals. In practice, it’s like watching a Looney Tunes short directed by someone who read The Kojiki in a blackout.
The goblin itself is a letdown. Hiruko is supposed to be an ancient evil yokai, sealed away by ancestors who knew what they were doing. Instead, it looks like a reject puppet from Fraggle Rock. Legs sprout where they shouldn’t, heads get attached to things, and somewhere in there we’re supposed to feel fear. Instead, you laugh. Not the good “camp classic” laugh, but the “did they really think this was scary?” laugh.
The body horror—faces sprouting from Masao’s back, heads latching onto necks—isn’t terrifying so much as it is weirdly goofy. It’s as if Tsukamoto forgot he wasn’t directing Evil Dead 2 but decided to try anyway.
Characters: Idiots in Search of a Plot
Reijiro Hieda is our supposed hero, but he spends most of the movie either chanting, fumbling with spells, or being possessed by a spider-legged cheerleader. He’s less Indiana Jones and more “weird uncle at Thanksgiving who won’t shut up about ancient aliens.”
Masao, the nephew, mostly exists to scream, sprout painful back acne from hell, and occasionally shout his father’s name like a bad anime dub. By the end, he’s the one who figures out how to seal Hiruko, which just proves nepotism works, even in supernatural crises.
Then there’s poor Watanabe, the janitor, who has been babysitting this cursed tomb for sixty years only to end up possessed and shooting himself. He’s basically the film’s MVP—he cuts the power, knows the lore, and is the only one with sense enough to try stopping this nonsense. Naturally, the movie kills him off because competence doesn’t fly in horror.
Reiko, meanwhile, transforms from normal schoolgirl to spider-legged, winged goblin bride faster than you can say bad prosthetics. By the time she’s buzzing around the schoolhouse, she looks less like a creature of ancient evil and more like cosplay gone terribly wrong.
Effects: Bargain-Bin Nightmare Fuel
It’s 1991, and it shows. The effects range from “okay for the budget” to “did my VHS player break?” Heads fly around the set, spider legs poke out of blouses, and at one point Reiko sprouts wings that look stapled on from a Halloween clearance sale.
The faces sprouting out of Masao’s back are the real highlight—equal parts hilarious and disturbing. They grimace, scream, and look like Play-Doh sculptures someone left in the sun too long. Imagine acne that whispers your name in the middle of the night. Terrifying? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely.
Bug spray makes a cameo as a legitimate anti-demon weapon, which is either genius satire or proof the script was written in a panic the night before shooting. Either way, it’s hard to take your ancient yokai horror seriously when Raid is part of the arsenal.
Pacing: The Real Curse
At 90 minutes, Hiruko the Goblin should fly by. Instead, it crawls. The schoolhouse sequences drag on forever, as if the characters and the director were both lost in the halls. You’ll get fifteen minutes of people running, a monster popping out of nowhere, and then another long exposition dump about ancient family curses. By the halfway mark, you’ll be rooting for Hiruko just to speed things up.
Dark Humor Takeaways
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Ancient Mayan tombs are bad. Japanese tombs? Equally bad. Stop opening tombs.
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If your back sprouts faces, see a dermatologist, not an ex-archaeologist.
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Bug spray: kills ants, wasps, and apparently spider-legged demon brides.
The Ending: Helmets, Spells, and Shrugs
The finale has everything: magical helmets, chants from Japanese mythology, and a fake-out where Hieda is nearly tricked into unleashing Hiruko again by the memory of his dead wife. Masao steps up, uses the helmet, recites the spell, and seals the monster. The end.
Well, almost—the film throws in a last-minute “Reiko-on-your-back” jump scare just to remind you that subtlety isn’t part of the deal. By the time the tomb closes for good, the audience is ready to do the same with their VHS player.
Final Verdict
Hiruko the Goblin is what happens when a talented director slums it with a bad script. Shinya Tsukamoto brings flashes of style—unnerving close-ups, creepy sound design—but it’s wasted on a story that feels like a middle-schooler’s horror doodles come to life. The yokai lore could have been chilling. The body horror could have been shocking. Instead, it’s a clumsy mix of Goosebumps and Evil Dead 2, with less charm than either.
It’s not scary. It’s barely coherent. But if you’ve got friends, beer, and a taste for “so bad it’s funny” horror, Hiruko the Goblin might be worth a spin—if only to laugh at spider-girl Reiko buzzing around like a moth who missed her cue.
