· Death Kappa · by Tomoo Haraguchi ☼ online event
Details
We close the doors on Dr. Oddball’s Chamber of Horrors with a feature from Japan that’s as weird and wacky as any horror fan could want. A kappa is a Japanese goblin, as a professor explains at the beginning of the film. After his lecture, the scene changes to a teenage girl returning from Tokyo to her home town by train. She’s dejected because her singing/songwriting talent wasn’t appreciated in the big city, but her disappointment is assuaged a bit by the prospect of seeing her beloved grandmother again – and there’s a friendly little kappa in the garden! Events conspire against her happiness, however, and chaos ensues. Her songs are memorable, albeit irrational: the lyrics are translated into English in the subtitles, and viewers who pay attention may exclaim, “she’s singing WHAT?”
Although she’s nominally the main character, the girl disappears from the story for a long period as the army musters an amazingly inept defense against a kaiju that appears for no apparent reason. Did the editor accidentally insert a reel of film from another movie? Eventually all the characters – including the professor from the introduction – gather together to watch the kaiju battle a huge kappa. Come for the dancing kappa, stay for the cucumbers, mad-scientist lab, mutant fishmen, samurai swords, very bad acting, and ridiculously cheap special effects.
With the conclusion of tonight’s feature we close the creaky iron doors of Dr. Oddball’s Chamber of Horrors. Any ghouls, shadows, or terrors that seem to be surrounding you now are simply memories. Feel free to let them linger until next October, when Dr. Oddball will release all new ones!
■ Title — Death Kappa
■ A.K.A. — デスカッパ
■ Director — Tomoo Haraguchi
■ Cast — Daniel Aguilar, Matt Alt, Hideaki Anno
■ Unrated
■ ©2010 | 1h 19m | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
■ Japanese and English soundtracks are available, with songs only in Japanese with English subtitles
■ Watch it free with ads on Fandango:
https://athome.fandango.com/content/browse/details/Death-Kappa/229106
■ Watch it free with ads on Tubi:
https://tubitv.com/movies/610028/death-kappa
■ As with most of our online features, you can watch this one whenever you like. Members who watch at the scheduled time may enjoy exchanging comments with other members on this page. If you post a comment before the show, please avoid spoilers. Comments posted after the show may contain any content, but Oddball Cinema encourages members to always avoid spoilers unless there’s some particularly important details you need to mention.
■ Many of the movies on our online events from as far back as March 2020 are still available for viewing. However, titles sometimes move from one streaming service to another. If you find that the links on an old event no longer work, you can search for the current providers of any title here: https://justwatch.com