Review: Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness

Shimako Sato’s Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness is a live-action adaptation of a popular manga originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Champion from 1974 to 1979. The story revolves around a powerful witch/schoolgirl named Misa Kuroi, played in the film by teen model Kimiko Yoshino in her first acting role. Sato’s version strays from the original manga a bit in tone—the original Misa was far darker and less apt to fall in love with classmates—but the basic plot and black magic elements hold true to the source material. Although the film was fairly low budget and, at times, a bit on the cheesy side, it’s still a pretty solid J-horror flick with enough arterial spray to keep horror fans happy.

The film begins as a fifth violent death occurs in the general vicinity of a high school, all of which were the result of ritual hexes initiated by a mysterious satanic cult. A student of the school named Mizuno (Naozumi Takahashi) figures out that the five points of death can be connected to draw a pentagram in blood around their school—an invocation meant to summon Lucifer himself to the center point. Of course, being the overly-dramatic goth kid and wannabe magic-dabbler, his observation is met with more than a little skepticism and scorn. Unfortunately for all of them, however, he was completely right—and a beautiful new transfer student, Misa Kuroi, intends to investigate.

Misa has a hard time tracking down the mastermind of the dark ritual though, as it seems putting black magic hexes on people is the new fad within the school—even for people that don’t really know how to do it. She even offers her services to one group, helping them put a real curse on a particularly perverted teacher that has a habit of feeling girls up every morning. She’s careful not to do too much harm though, limiting his particular curse to a rather unfortunate digestive issue. However, the next day the class is informed that he was killed in a car accident. Of course most of the class immediately becomes fearful of Misa. The only ones left on her side are her new friend Mizuki (Miho Kanno) and a boy that has a crush on her named Shindo (Shuma).

Later that day, 13 students—including Misa—are chosen to stay after school for a makeup exam. When the exam is over, a few of the students try to leave, only to discover they’re stuck inside the building. As an unseen force starts to brutally murder them one by one, Mizuno accuses Misa of being the one behind it. Now, normally a powerful wizard like her would be able to counteract any barrier spell or hex being put on her friends, but for some mysterious reason she seems to be completely powerless against the magic being used against them. So with the other students growing more fearful of her by the minute, she must find a way to stop the ritual killings before Lucifer is successfully summoned to Earth with their blood.

Sure, it’s a pretty basic plot: high school students brutally murdered one-by-one in an enclosed setting, but if you’re just in the mood for a simple J-horror movie you could do a lot worse than this one. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its obnoxious moments. Frankly, I could have done without the teacher/student lesbian affair wedged in strictly for titillation or some silly, over-the-top acting that straddles the line between camp and comedy—but the plusses outweigh those minuses in what is ultimately a better-than-average popcorn horror flick.

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