Supernatural forces are at work in a Japanese high school. New girl, Misa Kuroi (achingly lovely Kimika Yoshino) is secretly a good witch with awesome magical powers and has a premonition something horrible is going to happen. Of her fellow students, perky Mizuki (Miho Kanno) tries to make Misa feel welcome, handsome Shudo (Shu-Ma) tries to score a date, magic obsessed Mizuno (Naozumi Takahashi) grows suspicious, while Kazumi (Ryoka Yuzuki) is secretly having a torrid lesbian affair with schoolteacher Miss Shirai (Mio Takaki). After sunset, the school is deserted and the students find themselves trapped inside. All hell breaks loose as, one by one, the thirteen students are slaughtered in horrifically gory ways. Misa tries to keep everyone safe, but the kids turn against her. It turns out a satanic cult are plotting to summon the dark lord Lucifer himself...
This writer harbours nostalgic feelings towards Eko Eko Azarak, since catching it when I first went to the London Film Festival back in 1995. The film was well received but has never had a British theatrical or DVD release. Strange really, because its blend of sexy schoolgirls, trendy witchcraft and super-stylized horror would surely have beguiled a generation hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Indeed, Misa Kuroi became a kind of Japanese Buffy, going on to appear in four sequels and a popular television series. Things get off to a lively start: a quote from a Milton's Paradise Lost, a black mass, a terrified woman splattered by a falling girder; yet the first third proves somewhat of a grind, enlivened by Kimika Yoshino's compelling heroine and some gratuitous girl on girl action.
Misa Kuroi debuted in a manga created by Shinichi Koda. In Japan the largest consumers of horror manga are teenage girls and Shimako Sato cleverly tailors Eko Eko Azarak (named after Misa's magical incantation) to their concerns, imbuing secret crushes, friendships and petty high school grievances with apocalyptic dread. The British schooled director, whose first film was the little seen Brit horror Tale of A Vampire (1992), also taps those trendy flirtations with the occult some teenagers go through. Once the killings start, Sato borrows from Sam Raimi and Dario Argento, with swooping cameras, fast cutting and eerie lighting. Bodies splatter against the walls while decapitation, demonic possession and death by overflowing toilet are among the novelty murders. Unlike the sequels, this keeps Misa powerless for most of her screen time, which heightens the tension, but leaves us sharing her frustration.
The mood darkens impressively once the kids start turning on each other, as in the later Battle Royale (2000), and Yoshina sells us on the heartbreak of losing friends wherever she goes. Just when the villain seems fairly obvious, Sato throws in several compelling twists and races towards the showdown. Imaginative, eye-catching visual effects figure in the melancholy, metaphysical ending that is unfortunately a little too vague and confusing to completely satisfy. Sato and Yoshino returned with a superior sequel: Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth of the Wizard (1996).
