Best of the Bad … ‘Zeram’

First and foremost, I want to state that Zeram, or Zeiram, or … Zeiramu … which ever of the various titles it has been released under, is actually not a “bad movie” in the most traditional sense. Yes, this movie has many, many scenes and elements that are laughable, but they are also really cool, too. The biggest factor involved qualifying this movie for Best of the Bad status is that it suffers from obvious budget constraints.

The story and concept in and of itself is so cool, that if given a Hollywood-sized budget, it would have absolutely knocked our socks off. Especially if it were made in today’s age of movie technology. Hey, to you Hollywood big shots … if you wanna produce a “cool” remake, snatch up the rights to this gem. As I always say, remakes should be confined to the realm of movies that have room for improvement. I fully support a remake of this, so long as you don’t screw it up. [In other words, Brett Ratner need not apply…]

I mentioned this movie had many title variations, but I’m going to use Zeram, the version I originally saw the movie released under. Zeram (1991) was directed by Keita Amemiya, who was partially inspired by The Terminator, which he watched as a child. He wanted to create a story of his own about an artificial unstoppable force of destruction. In short, this has been one of my favorite films for years in the Asian sub-genre of psyched out sci-fi action movies. It spawned both a sequel and an animated series.

Zeram is about a bounty hunter named Iria, and her AI partner Bob, who travel to Earth to capture Zeram, an escaped forbidden biological weapon. The pair of bounty hunters beat Zeram to Earth and set an elaborate hi-tech trap to catch Zeram, but ultimately underestimate its power. Zeram is essentially an eight foot tall bio-mechanical creature with a torso that vaguely resembles the underside of a caterpillar and a head like a flying saucer. Zeram’s most “interesting” feature is the long protruding extremity that hides within its head and has a small Geisha-like face on the end … that is an evil razor-toothed Geisha with red eyes, of course.

Iria’s plan goes something like this: She sets up a “zone” within an alternate dimension of Earth that is identical to our Earth, but without any form of life. She will confine Zeram within the “zone” on this alternate Earth and engage battle there, as to avoid any collateral human carnage. Upon defeat, she will encapsulate Zeram in a hardened rubber, prism-like encasement for transport off of Earth. Despite all of Iria’s cool weapons and gadgets, Zeram proves stronger and more cunning that she had predicted.

Things get even more complicated when two unsuspecting electric company workers stumble into Iria’s HQ on Earth, where they find themselves accidentally transported into the alternate Earth dimension. Iria must now fight Zeram and protect the two humans to avoid being stripped of her bounty hunting licence. The two humans basically are there for comic relief, but the movie has plenty of laughs on its own. [Remember, cool laughs!] Many of the fight scenes are like watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but much enjoyable. In fact, MMPR began around 1993 so I’m sure this movie had to be a major influence. You’ll see what I mean once you’ve seen Zeram for yourself.