HIDESHI HINO THEATER: THE BOY FROM HELLDaio is a stupid little kid who gets his head knocked off cuz he has it sticking out the car window and an oncoming truck knocks his dome off (and somehow inexplicably his whole body as well-as we see him stumbling around outside the car without his head ?!?!). While visiting his grave-a haggy old woman gives mom a weird fang and says that if she cuts the throat of a boy that's the same age as her son and pours the blood on his grave-then Daio will come back to life. Luckily-moms is a doctor and has access to a boy who's terminal and is expected to die within ten days-so mom follows the old bat's instructions...and it works! Only problem is that Daio is now a mutated looking freak who does nothing but make weird noises and crave human flesh. A detective with a deformed nose shows up at the mom's house when the old bag winds up dead at her doorstep. Nothing is made of this development at first-until mutant-Daio gets loose and goes on a feeding-frenzy. Mom tries to rectify the situation by giving Daio a brain-transplant (?!?!) which returns him to looking normal again...for a little while...until he inexplicably turns back into his mutated form-and reserving herself to her fate-mom goes on the prowl for food for her little monster...This entry in the series is a good bit of splattery fun. Daio's make-up FX are somehow both ridiculous and sorta creepy looking at the same time-and it's obvious that mutant- Daio is being played by a midget who's quite a bit shorter than regular Daio. The storyline in this one is suitably twisted and there's all kinds of bizarre imagery that from the little bit of Hino's manga work that I've seen-is most representative of his stories as far as a film adaptation is concerned. I can't say that THE BOY FROM HELL is a 'good' film per se- but I enjoyed the hell out of it. If you dig campy, low-budget splat-stick style horror with a twisted edge-you'll wanna cop this one. 8.5/10And since there's no listing on IMDb for this next entry in the series-I'll add the review here:HIDESHI HINO THEATER: LIZARD BABYA screenwriter with a pregnant wife is commissioned to write  a script for a horror- film...problem is, horror just ain't our man's bag. After going with his wife to get a sonagram-the writer gets the awesome idea to write a story about a woman having a lizard-baby!  The film-makers love the concept and give the thumbs-up for him to write out a full script.  All is going great-until...well...you can probably guess what direction this is going in. And if you can't-the title should be spoiler enough...LIZARD BABY is another fun entry in the series that plays out like a sillier and campier version of IT'S ALIVE. This one isn't heavy on the gore-but the plot is fun enough and the lizard baby looks like some sort of mutated turtle. Pair this one up with THE BOY FROM HELL and you'll be in for a bit of cheezy J-horror mutationy weirdness. 7/10

"The Boy From Hell" is about a surgeon who brings her son named Daio back from the dead,only he's now a decomposing corpse boy with a taste for blood and human flesh.In 2004,Pony Canyon decided to adapt six different Hino manga stories,all of these shorts were made by different filmmakers using digital video.Mari Asato's "The Boy From Hell" is a grotesque and surprisingly gory horror flick.Daio looks truly creepy and actually resembles murderous babies from Larry Cohen's "It's Alive" series.The acting is fine,the cinematography is great and the use of colors is very Argentoesque.Overall,"The Boy From Hell" should satisfy fans of gruesome Japanese manga stories.It's not as sickeningly brutal and morbid as several "Guinea Pig" movies,but still packs a punch.8 out of 10.

THE BOY FROM HELL is the best cinematic representation of legendary Japanese manga artist Hideshi Hino's overall visual and storytelling style so far, even beating out 1988's MERMAID IN A MANHOLE, which was directed by Hino himself. While other entries into the HIDESHI HINO HORROR THEATER hexalogy of short films may be better films when viewed out of context, THE BOY FROM HELL stands as the single best adaptation in the series.A theme that is almost always present in Hino's manga work is the isolation and suffering of the outsider, the freak. There is a brilliant scene in THE BOY FROM HELL where the titular resurrected monster happens upon a group of children playing ball. When he approaches them, wanting to join in, the run away screaming. Despite the grisly murders Daio has committed up to this point, you still feel sorry for him in that scene.Another thing that director Mari Asato and screenwriter Seiji Tanigawa (working from Hino's eponymous manga) nailed perfectly is the mix of grotesque horror imagery and gore with pitch black comedy that permeates so many of Hino's comics. The most wonderful examples of this are the ridiculous fake nose they put on the detective and a birthday party for Daio, during which he is forced to wear a mask similar to that of Hannibal Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to keep from from devouring the other little kids. Of course that doesn't work so well in the end ...I hesitate to recommend THE BOY FROM HELL to the casual horror fan or even fans of Japanese horror. It is wildly different from the slow paced malevolent hair-ghost stories of recent years and hearkens closer to the ero-guro films of the 70ies, while also adding plenty of elements from campy fun splatter movies of the 1980ies. If you like those and/or are already familiar with Hino's manga publications (a fair number of which are available in English translations) then this is a movie you should seek out. Everyone else may come away confused and maybe disappointed.

This movie is the worst movie i have seen in my whole life.It have nothing to save, all is bad, the actors and the acting is comical, the make up sucks, the plot is totally predictable...nothing can be saved.At least, the suffering ends after only 45 minutes, and seems that the director and the rest of the crew don't take the movie seriously.I read somewhere that this movie is the first part of a hexalogy based in Hideshi Hino's tales...i hope the rest of the movies will be better...because if the are worst than this, this will be without a doubt the worst saga of horror films.