Zeus

Goke, Bodysnatcher From Hell (1968)

• Director
  • Hajime Satô
• Writers
  • Kyûzô Kobayashi
  • Susumu Takaku
• Stars
  • Teruo Yoshida
  • Tomomi Satô
  • Eizô Kitamura

  This freaky Japanese spin on Invasion of the Body Snatchers stars Teru Yoshida as an airline pilot who loses control of his plane after it passes through a strange, ethereal cloud, forcing him to make an emergency desert landing. Though the passengers seem to have emerged unscathed, one of them (Hideo Ko) is revealed as a carrier for a gelatinous alien being -- a kind of energy vampire which enters its host through a grotesque cleft in the forehead -- and begins preying on the life-force of the other travelers. Before long, a vampire plague has spread throughout the craft, with only Yoshida and flight attendant Tomomi Sato escaping the carnage to return to civilization... only to find that the plague has spread throughout the world, thanks to cloud-borne alien spores. This frantic, surreal outing plays much like the earlier Japanese SF/horror film Attack of the Mushroom People, but with a somewhat darker, more apocalyptic edge. Originally titled Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell.