Hell Target

Hell Target is a pretty interesting anime. I'm not quite sure why it has such a low score. I will say, there's nothing particularly creative about the plotline of Hell Target. Astronauts going out to space and finding a monster picking them off one by one. However, the thing that I felt made this unique and something we haven't quite seen in an story like this before was the use of the art style. The art style is very 1980s, but for the theme of this anime, it works incredibly well to make a dark atmosphere. At many points, you can't quite tell what's going ... on, and I think that makes the anime much better.

One complaint I do have is that the characters are not very well developed. Their deaths don't have a whole lot of meaning so the horror aspect to their deaths was lacking in that area. Without giving any spoilers, there was only one death that I really felt had any meaning.

Overall though, I thought this was a pretty good anime. Especially if you're just looking for a simple horror story set out in space.

Esta review también está en español.

Forgotten Horror, Chapter 1: Hell Target
Hell Target (HT) is a 50 minutes OVA that combines a few elements of the science fiction with the classic horror from the 80's, where we had lots of melted heads by the action of acid, deaths everywhere (in the more bizarre ways), and at least one scene of softcore sex.

The story of HT shows us the crew of a spaceship arriving to the planet Hell II, with the intention of finding the survivors of a previous mission, performed a couple of years ago. Once in the planet surface, they discover that the whole trip ... was a waste of time: they found the ship, but no survivors. To justify the cost of the fuel, our heroes decided to discover what the hell happened to the poor bastards. And they find something historical: it looks like the responsible of the deaths is a virus (Fun fact: the science fiction of 1987 considered that viruses are living things) capable of producing telepathic waves that can disturb their victims, and ultimately, kill them. What follows is not difficult to imagine: this virus (and the creepy being that originates it) will begin a slaughter, killing one by one almost everybody (or everybody... if you wanna know the truth, watch the movie!).

But hey, before everyone dies (or not), a small comment about our heroes, the brave astronauts. They are a group of nine people, coming from different places of the world. Of course, we have Japanese, Chinese, German and Soviet people (all of them speaking perfect Japanese, so the communication is not a problem). And as for the design, they are as stereotypical as possible: Braun (German) is blonde; the Russian dude is a large man with a manly mustache (closest to a pornstache than to a FreddieMercurystache); the American is a happy-go-lucky guy with an American flag stamped in his suit, and say things like "Yes Sir!" and "Hi-Yo Silver" (you know, your typical American); and the Japanese are pretty average. BTW, the protagonist of this film is Kitasato one of the two Japanese members.

I have to admit that, for a film so old, the animation is quite good. This is not Akira, but definitely is above average. The animation is pretty fluid, and the character design, though generic, is more than acceptable. The scenarios, on the other hand, are far from satisfactory: everything is very hazy and red. The technological aspect is also quite simple. Although from the outside the ship looks good, inside is grey everywhere, and you could only tell the difference between a cryogenic chamber and a wall thanks to a couple of cheap lights. And about the deaths (a vital point in this kind of movie), well... they are varied. Some are rare and obscure, and others are flashy, full of screams and bones. But, in all the cases, there aren't graphic dismemberment or an unrealistic amount of blood. Remember people, this is horror/science fiction, not a slasher film.

The sound is somewhat peculiar. On one hand, we have the voices. The intonation is good, but remember that most of this people is foreigner, and yet, no one have an accent. So, technically, they all sound good, yet the acting is bad (understood?). The sounds themselves are the typical ones in a sci-fi movie. That means, inside the ship, we hear biiiip-biiiiip and other computer sounds. Outside the ship, we hear screams. And finally to give the audio section a closure, I want to comment the ending. Quite unexpectedly is sung in Spanish! Saraba itoshiki hito yo ~ADIOS AMOR~ is performed by Rosa Bianca (person, band, or whatever), and it has an absurdly good pronunciation and coherent lyrics (two things people from Japan usually don't achieve when singing in other languages). Here's a (short) fragment:
Adiós amor
Los días que te amaba
Tu pelo negro brillaba
Yo te quiero...
It's a nice little ballad, and a good closure to a movie with tons of deaths (A billion thanks to Otrajenie, who found out who performed the song, a detail that eluded me for three damn years).

And now, the final lines. The verdict, if you like. Hell Target is not an outstanding movie nor technically or plotwise, that's for sure (although both comply). It's simply a horror movie (the science fiction elements are more for the atmosphere), a very typical one, with a predictable development and standard characters. But is watchable, moderately enjoyable and not boring (I know it's a little sad that "not boring" is the best thing I can say, but it's true). This is what I would call mediocre, however, in the noble horror genre, mediocre can be good. This is an excellent example of a film I would watch on TV a night if there's nothing on it, or if I catch it during zapping.
I recommend this to people who like classic animation (well, not so classic, it's only 24 years old... good god, I’m so old...) and nonsensical horror, product of that crazy decade known as the 80's.

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Terror olvidado, capitulo 1: Hell Target.
Hell Target (HT) es una OVA de 50 minutos que combina la ciencia ficción con el terror clásico de los años 80, en el que teníamos abundantes cabezas que se derretían por la acción del acido, muertes por todos lados, y al menos una escena de sexo softcore.

La historia de HT nos muestra a la tripulación de una nave espacial arribando al planeta Infierno II, con el objetivo de encontrar sobrevivientes de una misión anterior, realizada hace un par de años. Una vez en la superficie del planeta, descubren que el viaje fue una pérdida de tiempo: encuentran los restos de la nave, pero no queda nadie con vida. Para justificar el gasto de combustible, deciden, al menos, descubrir que fue lo que extermino a los pobres bastardos. Y su descubrimiento es histórico: parece ser que el responsable es un virus (como dato anecdótico, la ciencia ficción del 87 considera que los virus son seres vivos) capaz de producir ondas telepáticas capaces de turbar a sus víctimas, para finalmente llevarlas a la muerte. Lo que sigue no es difícil de imaginar: este virus (y el ser que lo origina) va a empezar a masacrar uno a uno a los recién llegados. Y como también podrán imaginar, dado que esto es una película de terror, lo hace con bastante éxito.

Pero bueno, antes de que estén casi todos muertos, un pequeño comentario acerca de nuestros protagonistas, los valientes astronautas. Son un grupo de nueve personas, de varios lugares del mundo, habiendo obviamente, japoneses, americanos, chinos, alemanes y soviéticos (por suerte, todos hablan perfecto japonés, por lo que el idioma no es un problema). Y en cuanto al diseño, todos son bastante estereotípicos: Braun (alemana) es rubia; el ruso es un hombre grande, con un bigote no gay; el americano tiene una bandera de Estados Unidos estampada en su traje, y tira frases como “Yes Sir!” y “Hi-Yo Silver!”; y los japoneses son normalitos. Ah, el protagonista de este film (o el más protagonista, al menos) es Kitasato, justamente uno de los miembros japoneses.

Tengo que admitir que para ser una película tan vieja, la animación es muy buena. No es Akira, pero decididamente cumple como OVA. La animación es muy fluida, y el diseño de personajes, aunque genérico, es más que correcto (a decir verdad, es más de lo que esperaba del proyecto). Lo que sí es cierto es que los escenarios dejan mucho que desear: todo muy nebuloso y rojo, sin mucha nitidez. El aspecto tecnológico también es bastante simple, aunque por fuera las naves se ven bien, por dentro son grises, y solo hay un par de lucecitas baratas para indicarnos la diferencia entre una cámara criogénica y una pared. Y en cuanto a cómo están dibujadas las muertes (aspecto vital en este tipo de películas)... bueno, hay de todo. Algunas son raras, oscuras e inentendibles, y otras son llamativas, llenas de gritos y huesos. Pero en ningún caso, desmembramiento y sangre en cantidades irreales. Recuerden, horror/ciencia ficción, no slasher film.

El sonido es un tanto peculiar. Por un lado, tenemos las voces. Todas las entonaciones son buenas, pero recordemos que se supone que esta gente es de varias partes del globo, y ninguno tiene si quiera un vestigio de acento. Así que, técnicamente, aunque todos suenan bien, la actuación no es buena (se entiende?). Los sonidos en si son los típicos de una película de ciencia ficción. O sea, dentro de la nave, escuchamos biiiip-biiip y otros sonidos computarizados. Fuera de la nave, escuchamos alaridos. Finalmente, para terminar con el audio, quería comentar el ending. De forma totalmente inesperada, está cantado en español! Saraba itoshiki hito yo ~ADIOS AMOR~ es interpretada por Rosa Bianca (que es una persona, banda, o algo intermedio), y tiene una increíblemente buena pronunciación, y letra coherente (dos cosas en las que los japoneses suelen fallar cuando cantan en otros idiomas). Acá les dejo un fragmento:
Adiós amor
Los días que te amaba
Tu pelo negro brillaba
Yo te quiero...
Una balada muy bonita, como para apaciguar lo que acabamos de ver (un millón de gracias a Otrajenie, que fue la que me paso la info sobre el ending, datos que me eludieron por unos tres años).

Y ahora, el momento de la reflexión final. Hell Target no es una película sobresaliente, ni argumental ni técnicamente, eso es seguro. Simplemente, es una película de terror (los elementos de ciencia ficción son casi decorativos, dado que no están presentes esas explicaciones eternas típicas del genero), una muy típica, con un desarrollo predecible y personajes estándar. Pero es mirable, dentro de todo amena, y para nada aburrida. Es lo que yo calificaría como mediocre, sin embargo, en el noble género del terror, a veces, mediocre puede ser bueno. Este es un excelente ejemplo de una película que me quedaría viendo una noche en la tele, si no hay nada mejor.
Recomiendo esto a las personas que le atraiga la animación clásica (bueno, no tan clásica, solo 24 años... por dios, que viejo estoy) y el horror sin mucho sentido producto de esa loca década de los 80.

Hell Target is a B-movie horror OVA that is an odd mixture of Alien, The Thing, and Solaris, with a bleak cosmic horror ending. There's often an eye-roll-inducing debate when it comes to horror, whether to show the monster or not. Well, it depends. Showing or not showing has a different impact and neither is necessarily better, but not showing tends to be better when you have limited resources because showing can look laughable, which is actually the case for a few parts in Hell Target. The dream sequence in the beginning is decently effective for its silhouette and composition-based abstraction. one of the first ... deaths comes from some kind of large canine or feline creature, and the scene looks cheesy, and we would have benefited from not showing at this point. Usually the first few deaths, it's better to maintain suspense as to what exactly we're dealing with. Of course, HT has the advantage over a lot of horror that its entity is effectively formless, much like Solaris and The Thing. The former constitutes a purely psychological, perhaps even spiritual, horror, drawing from the fears, dreams, and ambitions of the mind, though the entity or force in question is not strictly good, evil, or even hostile. The latter is more materialistic in the way it is conceived and how the monster will incorporate various creatures into its body for all kinds of strange, twisted special effects.

The translation is clearly poor at a few parts, with one part in particular not making sense; there are two different translations I've seen, but both are quite similar at this part, leading me to believe the problem might be in the original script, but who knows? Something about telepathy and "They use brainwaves to create a virtual image, to confuse and kill us." How do they know this to be true? There doesn't seem to be much info at all to work with. And if that's true, how do they see the "virtual image" on the camera? Shouldn't it be something only the person affected sees? The cameras aren't directly connected to their brains. I wouldn't say this is a spoiler, and it's probably best going into this title understanding the kind of horror it is; incidentally, the synopsis on here hilariously reveals that everyone dies except the (sort of) MC and that his mission is to kill the entity before a third ship arrives.

What this title actually is is a psychological horror, where the thoughts of the characters affect the form of whatever entity (or entities) is roaming around the planet. Perhaps it's not even so much an entity as something pertaining to the atmosphere and nature of the planet itself. There is one scene where the entity takes a form, seemingly without the input of any human, but even that might have been from the character patrolling the hallways at the time, but it's somewhat questionable as to whether every person would see something different pertaining to their psychology, so I think a better, more coherent choice would be to create a little bit more mystery, removing the first death from being recorded on the camera and not showing that scene I referenced above.

The atmosphere in HT is quite strong, and the animation is surprisingly decent, given that so many people will simply say it's dated and bad. Not much of it is exceptional, but I was surprised to find that the aesthetic mostly worked out, and there was more enjoyment to be had than one solid explosion scene from the great Toshiaki Hontani. The valkyrie scene and several others were also decently animated, and there was rarely anything so poorly done from an art and animation standpoint as to elicit laughter, other than the slideshow animation of the "bird deity." There's even some okay background animation and simulated camera movements here and there. True to it's B-horror form, there are lots of cool gorey death scenes, a fairly bare bones, no-nonsense script, but punctuated by out of place scenes, such as one guy saying, "I hope I'll get a chance to take a piss before I die," or a couple suddenly ending up in bed, having sex in a pastel soft-focus scene with shojo sparkles, and sweet talking each other, right in the middle of the crew being massacred and a bloodthirsty entity wandering around. Enhancing the grimy feel of the OVA is the horrendous quality, with the production both greatly needing a remaster and perhaps being better for the lack of it, with everything a bit fuzzy and grainy, adding to the disorientation of the often crimson-monochrome and Martain-like hell scape they inhabit, along with numerous shaky closeups when they are running from or firing at the entity, the occasional out of focus shot, characters swallowed by the outer darkness, scenes lit by only harsh flashlight beams, and many minimalist composition choices. It actually doesn't look bad, with the main detractor being fairly generic human character design and the various forms the entity takes maybe being too out there in some cases or not having a disturbing enough design.

What comes across as actually a fairly average film is most burdened by a painfully dull cast. Most of these characters don't even register as distinct archetypes, have few lines of dialogue, have no development, and hardly any characterization. The problem with this being a psychological horror is that you kind of need characters that resemble something above a husk for decent psychological elements. We have to known something about these characters and what makes them who they are. I don't remember any important information from the dialogue. We know a few people by their role, such as the captain and doctor. One guy is a flirt. One girl has a crush on a guy. The most Nordic-looking cast member sees the entity as a Valkyrie. Another character sees it as a "bird deity," probably in reference to Amerindian religion. Apparently, the MC is afraid of spiders. There's even a missed opportunity where one of the girls is being carried by the entity, and one might think the man who desires her might influence the entity in this respect, but he is not involved with the scene at all. The only effective toying with psychological states would be during the ending, when the MC sees something he shouldn't, and during a lengthy flashback scene for one of the characters. This flashback is intriguing but ultimately lacking enough context to be especially meaningful, serving to do nothing other than to confirm that the entity knows your every thought and can conform itself to match what will haunt you. Yet the scene is a fine example of what the film should strive to work with—memory and internal states—but seldom exploits it to any real depth. What made Alien thrive is that the characters were given more room to be distinguished, had firmer archetypes, better character writing, and the film was a decent length to explore characters and themes, running at 1 hour and 57 minutes, whereas we barely get even 50 minutes with our hollow cast in Hell Target.