An iconic Japanese cult film, made before that designation officially existed, DIVA IN THE NETHERWORLD (Utahime makai o yuku; 1980) offered up an enormously self-aware, quasi-comedic low budget swirl of monsters and mayhem. It was, in short, a major precursor to the work of J-cult legends like Shinya Tsukamoto and Takashi Miike.
DIVA IN THE NETHERWORLD (Utahime makai o yuku; 1980) Trailer
Two young women, Mickey (Yoko Kurita) and the retired wrestler Donald (Kiyose Fujiwara), decide to form a singing duo called the Bloodys. The action starts with the gals being shuttled to the site of a far-flung concert, entailing a drive through what looks like the jungles of Africa, but the brakes short out, causing the car to skid off a cliff and literally soar through the air. Mickey, Donald and their nerdy manager (Katsura Utahachi) are deposited on a mountain road, where they’re approached by a strange man (Kou Oizumi) who takes them to a mansion for which he’s the butler.
In this place doors open onto otherworldly realms where dangerous stop-motion critters lurk, and the hefty Madam (Tomoka Kamebuchi) serves up a dinner consisting of an enormous fried egg. All this occurs during a full moon, which turns the manager into a werewolf (a condition the ladies mistake for an allergy); he’s promptly dismembered by Madam, which fails to end his life. It’s not until the manager’s severed head is placed in a freezer that his consciousness finally ceases.
On the following morning the ladies are taken for a picnic by Madam, which is interrupted by the latter’s “pet,” a large pterodactyl-like critter named Hanako. The ladies decide to stay an extra night at the mansion, during which Mickey becomes a vampire and drinks Donald’s blood. She then falls from an upper floor of the mansion and gets swallowed by Hanako, while Donald feasts, unknowingly, on her manager’s corpse. Later that night Donald is decapitated by Madam, but, as with the dismembered manager, her head lives on, and reconnects with its body. In this form Donald transforms into a costumed superhero bent on destroying the evil Madam…and so on.
If this sounds exciting or upsetting, be advised that the campy postmodern tone, bolstered by the ludicrously up-tempo pop tunes that pack the soundtrack, turns the whole thing into an extended joke. The goofiness is enhanced by the cheeky use of patently fake model work and outrageously primitive stop motion effects, whose tackiness director Takafumi Nagamine gleefully leans into.
I can’t help but wonder if this film’s exalted status in its homeland is due primarily to the fact that it was one of the first examples of overt camp in Japanese cinema. Innovative it may have been in its day, but it never attains the warped brilliance of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s HOUSE (Hausu), which preceded DIVA IN THE NETHERWORLD by three years, and which in my view represents the true nadir of Japanese cult cinema.
Vital Statistics
DIVA IN THE NETHERWORLD (Utahime makai o yuku)
Panorama Film
Director: Takafumi Nagamine
Producers: Norihisa Usami, Takafumi Nagamine
Screenplay: Takafumi Nagamine
Cinematography: Yoichi Shiga
Editing: Chido Sudo
Cast: Yoko Kurita, Kiyose Fujiwara, Tomoka Kamebuchi, Kou Oizumi, Katsura Utahachi