If you read enough horror reviews or listen to enough horror podcasts, you’re bound to come across someone bemoaning the shoddy digital effects present in so many modern genre movies. As cranky as it sounds, it also makes sense—practicals are rare, violence is often digitized rather than staged, and CGI blood has unfortunately become the rule as opposed to the exception.
Luckily, every year brings us a handful of horror films that value (fake) flesh and blood over ping-pong balls and pixels. It happened in 2019 with Color Out of Space, it happened last year with Saw X, and it’s happening now with Bakemono. Written and directed by Doug Roos, this uncompromising creature feature follows several different guests at a Tokyo airbnb, all of whom must contend with the jaw-dropping monster of the title. Taking a note from Memento, the film is told out of order and explores the city’s dark underbelly and issues of gender inequality. Roos was even able to shoot it on location—another rarity in modern horror.
Despite its Japanese roots, the beast in Bakemono is more reminiscent of the antagonists in The Thing and The Fly (1986) than Godzilla—ever-changing and on a ruthless quest for assimilation (the title loosely translates to “changing creature” in English). Most impressive of all is that Roos’ effects (both the creature design and heaping piles of gore) are entirely practical, with nary a drop of digitized blood in sight. Reviewers have already begun to take note at festival screenings, with Voices From the Balcony describing it as “if Hellraiser had been directed by Lucio Fulci.” Anton Bitel of Projected Figures praised the “astonishing practical effects,” reporting the creature to be “all inverted skin, externalized bones, clawed fingers, shiny appendages, and eyes and teeth where they should not be.”
Bakemono premiered at the Another Hole In the Head Film Festival and was awarded Best Creature Feature. Now, Roos is hoping to get into high-profile festivals such as Fantastic Fest and South by Southwest, in hopes of securing distribution. But first, he’s looking to raise an additional $20,000 on Indiegogo to offset festival costs, increase the marketing around the film, and of course, shoot additional effects footage. It’s a move reminiscent of Jaws, when, after viewing an early cut of his future masterpiece, Steven Spielberg decided to up the scare factor by inserting a new scene of Ben Gardner’s waterlogged corpse.
It’s well known that many Indiegogo projects never come to fruition, even if they raise the funds. But Bakemono stands out for already being complete. This isn’t about funders trying to launch something from scratch; it’s about making an already unique and unnerving film even better, and helping more people see it in the process. By donating, they’ll also receive an exclusive cut of the movie that contains more gore, creature effects, and nudity.
Here at Bloody Disgusting, we believe that practical effects make the horror genre a much more interesting place, and films like Bakemono ensure a heightened sense of creativity and imagination. Roos hopes that, if the film is successful, he can make more practical creature features right in Japan.
Watch the teaser trailer below and click here to become a crowdfunder. The Indiegogo campaign also contains a ton of fascinating information about the cast, production process, and where Roos wants to go from here.
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