Helldriver is a 2010 Japanese splatter film directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl; Tokyo Gore Police; Zombie TV). The movie stars Yumiko Hara and Eihi Shiina and was written by Nishimura and Daichi Nagisa.
Director Yoshihiro Nishimura took influence from George A. Romero’s film Night of the Living Dead which dealt with current events. Nishimura stated that there was “quite a lot of satire and social criticism in this film…I describe what ensues after the nation splits in two, with humans controlling one half and zombies the other, and the kind of discrimination that would occur within Japan were something severe like this to happen.”
Plot:
A meteorite crashes into Japan, releasing toxic ash that turns the northern half of the country into bloodthirsty zombies. Sometime later, with the north now walled off from the rest of Japan, a young woman (Hara) is charged with leading a group of ragtag soldiers into the infected region to kill the “zombie queen” (Shiina) – who also happens to be her homicidal mother…
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Reviews:
“It’s almost all filler, and when it’s not, it’s a parade of scenes of grotesqueness that we’ve seen before from the director and his effects crew. It looks like scraps cut out from the other films and shoved together just like the body parts that make up his monsters.” Film School Rejects
“As good as the action is, it is sometimes let down by some dodgy CGI. Sometimes it works, such as with the cowboy’s explosive shots, but other times, such as when CGI mixes with practical effects, it just looks shoddy. I don’t want to be the guy who harps on about practical effects, but Nishimura just needs to look at his earlier films to see what works better.” Mondo Exploito
YouTube reviews:
