Fans of the manga/anime/feature film series Death Note are going to be looking closely at their screens today. The first trailer for the American adaptation, directed by Adam Wingard (You’re Next), premiered this morning, and it’s a total tease.
Death Note began as a manga series in 2003, and tells the story of Light Yagami, a teenager who discovers a notebook that has to power to kill anybody whose name is written inside of it. Light Yagami decides to use this “Death Note” for his own, morally questionable purposes, as the world responds to an unthinkable new threat and a mysterious private detective named “L” sets about uncovering this all-powerful new murderer. Meanwhile, the original owner of the Death Note – a demon named Ryuk – is lounging about in Light’s bedroom, making himself an infernal nuisance.
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This new Death Note adaptation is the latest in a not-very-long line of American live-action anime remakes, which include big screen disappointments like Dragonball: Evolution and Astroboy as well as two low-budget films based on The Guyver. But if next week’s Ghost in the Shell adaptation takes off, and if Death Note succeeds on Netflix, it’s possible that we might be seeing the birth of a new Hollywood trend, and that long-gestating adaptations of Akira, Bleach and many other manga/anime properties will see the light of day.
But that all depends on Ghost in the Shell and, more to the point, Death Note. The new trailer for the film, which debuts on Netflix in August 25, is available below, and only hints at the imaginative craziness (and the obsessive-compulsive fixation on fine print) that will hopefully make the transition to the American version.
We Dare You To Watch These Ten Extreme Movies:
Top Photo: Netflix
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
10 Extreme Films
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Audition
Takashi Miike's 1999 horror classic remain perhaps one of his most notorious. The horror is all the more shocking because nothing weird happens in Audition until about halfway through. That finale, though, will leave you wincing.
Image: Lionsgate
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The Burning Moon
A distribution company named Intervision dug up Olaf Ittenbach's 1992 German oddity a few years ago, and it instantly made its way into the cult rotation. It's a set of stories told by a mentally ill German kid, involving some pretty extreme damn gore.
Image: IMAS Filmproduktion
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Cannibal Holocaust
Perhaps the granddaddy of all extreme cinema, Roggero Deodato's 1980 cheapie is just as shocking as you've heard, complete with actual animal death on camera, and gore so gritty and realistic, the filmmakers were arrested. They had to produce actors in court to prove they hadn't made a snuff film.
Image: United Artists Europa
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The Guinea Pig Series
There have been six Guinea Pig films, each one as notorious as the last. The premise of the series is essentially an extended medical experiment to see how much pain the human body can tolerate. The films are also an experiment to see how much terror an audience can tolerate.
Image: Unearthed Films
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The Human Centipede Series
Filmmaker Tom Six had a weird idea for a horror movie: Is it medically possible to surgically connect two people mouth-to-anus? This idea was explored in a trio of films, each more disgusting than the last.
Image: IFC Midnight
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Nekromantik
Extreme films are usually more troubling if the filmmaking itself is cheap. That's certainly the case with Jörg Buttgereit's 1987 necrophilia flick, one of the most notorious cult movies of the 1980s.
Image: Leisure Time Features
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Pink Flamingos
John Waters' 1972 cult giant has been widely seen by now, but many still don't have the stomach to tuck into the NC-17-rated vomitorium. Divine stars as a woman competing to claim the title of Filthiest Person Alive. Filth ensues.
Image: New Line Cinema
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Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1976 update of a tale by The Marquis de Sade is every bit as sick as the source material. It;s about a group of post-war adults who sexually enslave a group of teen orphans and... do things to them. It's ostensibly a criticism of fascism, but it's also difficult to swallow.
Image: United Artists
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A Serbian Film
This 2010 shocker involves the life of an aging porn superstar and his inability to make ends meet in post-Milošević Serbia. He ends up agreeing (and not agreeing) to do some awful, awful things. It's an economic statement, but more than anything, it's a really, really rough ride.
Image: Jinga Films
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The Wizard of Gore
And what list of extreme films would be complete without the inclusion of a film by the Godfather of Gore himself Herschell Gordon Lewis? His sickest is probably 1970's The Wizard of Gore, about a stage magician that mutilates - and restores - young women on stage.
Image: Mayflower Pictures
