Clay Grant - The Demon Samurai

[dem bones]

Clay Grant - The Demon Samurai (Belmont, 1978)

Blurb:

"I WILL DESTROY YOU! BUT NOT AS YOU THINK, DEVIL...
NOT AS YOU THINK!"

Mike Kirk was shooting a monster movie in modern Tokyo-land of Godzilla and other horrors. He had three ex-wives and a psychiatrist who wondered if Mike wasn't a monster himself-or maybe a devil. Only Mari, the beautiful Oriental girl he spurned, believed he could love.

Then out of ancient Japan's mysterious past came a horror so real, it threatened to destroy him — to damn him to his grave — and beyond...

Meet Michael Kirk — thrice-divorced horror film producer (The Vampire's Curse, The Green Slimy Man, etc.), serial sex pest & co. — as he arrives in Tokyo to begin work on a new monster picture. Kirk was driven to the airport direct from a session with his psychiatrist Dr. Bender, who fearing the patient is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, has booked him an emergency appointment with a gifted Japanese counterpart.

Prior to Kirk's arrival, his production assistant, Mari Yanagawa, has been scouting the city's antique shops for suitable props. Mari is particularly interested in a wooden figurine of a snarling Samurai, but the proprietor insists it must never leave the premises. The idol depicts a warrior who killed himself out of shame for raping the woman he had long lusted after. The way the old man talks, it is as though he believes the suicide's soul is imprisoned in the carving!

Inexplicably, Mari, to whom we've taken an immediate liking, is sweet on Kirk, believing that somewhere deep within him is a wonderful guy struggling to get free. Makes you wonder if Dr. Bender has taken the right patient.

Anyway, we just had the first inkling that when Mari left the shop, she did not leave alone ....

TBC

[helrunar]

That sounds potentially excellent--great set-up.

Film crews in peril!

cheers, Hel.

[dem bones]

Kirk's first session with Dr. Takamori, a no-nonsense master of the human mind who despairs at the lives lost to decade-spanning, pointless therapy. His preferred method — utilising hypnotism and psychotomimetic drugs — guarantees speedy results. A pinprick from the hypodermic, and Kirk is transported to a psychedelic Orient where awaits a fearsome seven footer in Samurai armour, "... his eyes bulged like glowing red bubbles from their sockets. His skin was bright luminescent green. Instead of ordinary teeth, he had hideous tusks that looked like they could rip the guts out of a rhinoceros. ...."

The warrior warns that the hour of vengeance will soon be upon him.

Dr. Takamori, impressed by the outcome of this initial session, assures the patient that, were this any other age, he'd have been pronounced demonically possessed and slowly tortured to death.

Kirk is determined that Monster Valley will significantly improve on previous creature features. "We'll get properly ferocious monsters for this picture even if I have to put on scales, fangs, and claws and play them myself." To prevent such drastic measures, Mari takes him to the house of Hideyoshi, Japan's premier model-making genius, who agrees to work on the project provided he has a sound stage to himself and that a 24-hour guard be posted outside his workshop for the duration.

Mission accomplished. In all the excitement, it slips Kirk's mind that a raven has taken to stalking him wherever he goes ....

p.66 of 158

[dem bones]

"Stepping out of the shambles that had been the building, the creature threw back its ugly head and roared! It brushed off the plaster, dust and debris that clung to its body. About fifteen feet in height, it was roughly humanoid in shape — like a huge, ancient statue of a samurai. But it was scaly, hairy, wrinkled and terribly ugly — which made it look part-prehistoric monster. It was reptilian, with a darting. deadly-looking serpentine tongue."

On the eve of his next session with the psychiatrist, Kirk glances in the mirror to find the hideous, tusked samurai leering back at him. Dr. Takamori, delighted at the patient's progress, tries him on a dose of his own specially modified LSD. Kirk dreams of driving a cart pulled by three nude American women, whipping them with a lash of banknotes to speed their pursuit of the fleeing Mari. Just as he is ready to sweep her up in a butterfly net, the samurai intervenes, slicing him straight down the middle with a slash of his word. Arising from the sundered corpse, a cloud of black smoke takes the form of a hideous film producer-Godzilla hybrid ....

Even as the patient dreams, the creature of his hallucination takes on physical form, twisting a fire engine in a knot and trampling hapless employees underfoot as it tears down Yokoya Studios.

"..... Sound Stage Two, adjacent to the now-ruined editorial building, was shut off from the outside world. Inside the confines of its spacious, soundproof interior, a musical production number was in the process of being filmed. The set consisted of a lavish swimming pool around which a group of pretty teen-age girls in skimpy bikinis were dancing frantically to the accompaniment of five rock musicians, costumed and coiffed to resemble a Japanese version of The Beatles crossed with The Ultimate Spinach....."

And there was me fearing The Demon Samurai would never get going. Shades of The Slime Beast as the studio execs request assistance from a platoon of heavily armed US Marines paying a courtesy visit to Tokyo Harbour. But even as the soldiers take up position, It makes off with Mari Yanagawa!

p. 114

[helrunar]

What a wild ride! Great fun.

cheers, Hel.

[dem bones]

Finished it now.

As the acid spawned, rapid grow man-lizard runs riot through Tokyo, the spirit of the Samurai takes demonic possession of Hideyoshi the model maker, compelling him to work black magic via his figurines. Consequently, a second fire-breathing colossus is unleashed on the city. A special live broadcast from Shiba Park for the clash of fire-breathing, tree swinging Titans!

Events covered in previous post were as good/ "good" as The Demon Samurai got. I liked it well enough until the author, in true Kaiju tradition, committed to the happy ending, bad monster vanquished, anti-hero redeemed, wedding bells, etc. Also a Film-crew-in-peril bereft of gratuitous BAD SEX interludes just seems wrong.

[helrunar]

Unfortunate. A curate's egg spawned by a ravening but finally rather cutesy-poo pair of lizards.

cheers, Hel.