[Our thanks to Taymans Damien for catching up with Horny House Of Horror writer-director Jun Tsugita at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and passing the results on to us.]
Do you like sex? Do you like blood explosions? If so you should love Horny House of Horror, the first horror movie of Jun Tsugita. Selected at the 29th Brussels international fantastic film festival, Horny House of Horror (aka Fashion Hell) is the new child of the J-sploitation with many gore scenes, beautiful and sexy girls and base-ballers who want to have fun in a particular whorehouse...
Before Horny House of Horror, you worked on Mutant Girls Squad. How did you come to this project?
I've known the director of Mutants Girls Squad, Noboru Iguchi, for a very long time ago and we used to making together small independent films. And I wrote a number of scripts for his movies, it's why I've got involved with that project.
How was the idea of Horny House of Horror born?
The film in Japanese is called "Fashion Hell" with an extra "S" ("Fasshon heru"). And when you transcript it in the Japanese phonetic system, you obtain by adding the extra "S" at the end of the word, the expression "fashion health". And fashion health is the Japanese name for that kind of whorehouses. So the first idea came to this word game with health/hell. And I always wanted to make a parody of the American movie Motel Hell.
Injuries become, in Horny House of Horror, huge explosions of blood. Is this a sign of Japanese exploitation?
Of course, you know, people of my generation, when we were kids, there was a big boom of splatter movies and we were very much influenced by that. If you talk about Japanese exploitation movies these days, you talk about Nishimura, who is a legend in the middle of special effects with his blood fountains. All of Nishimura's films contain blood explosions but the way the blood comes out and what kind of blood comes out differs depending on the project of the movie.
Between two bloody scenes, how long does it take to clean the set?
We try to build up the shooting schedule with a chronological logic to start with clean set which becomes dirtier and dirtier as we shoot to finally end in bloodbath. We waste a lot of energy between shooting scenes covering the cameras with plastic. Compare to other films, we lose a lot of time like that between scenes. We try to save time by using tarpaulins and materials that are easy to clean fast.
How did you collaborate with Nishimura for the special effects?
He's very carefully to what the director wants. So he tries to adjust himself to what the director wants to do and offers all his talent to the film. He is very stoic and cooperative.
Why did you choose the beautiful Saori Hara for this film?
She's is actually famous for XXX, porn hardcore movies in Japan. But she's starting doing more classic films so she becomes popular recently. And because of that sexy mood was perfect for this movie, I decided to cast her.
Horny House of Horror mixes Japanese traditions and Western references. Did you think of the international exploitation?
Yes of course, I was very conscious of the audience outside of Japan. I watched on DVD or video a lot of western exploitation films and I was always envious of the way they make these films and enjoy making of watching it. In Japan you don't have this kind of filmmaking. So I wanted to make a film that anyone would enjoy watching.
How was Horny received in Japan?
In Japan, this type of film is only shown on big screens once, twice or three times for special events. So he has a very limited audience: it's only the real fans of that "kind films" who come to see it. Most people see these films in rental DVD. I don't have like direct audience response but I look on the internet the discussions about my film and the reactions of the fans. So I'm very happy to present Horny house of horror at the Brussels festival with this wonderful audience.
By Taymans Damien