A group of friends takes a camping trip together to enjoy the outdoors. The air is clean, the lake is clear, and the area is full of mountains and trails through the woods. While exploring the forest during the day a rainstorm rolls in and forces the kids to take refuge in an old mansion in the middle of the woods. Any fan of 80’s American slasher films knows where this tale is already going. Based on the PC hentai game Kurohime from SPD and animated by Discovery comes the nightmare vacation Black Widow from Anime 18.Â
Stats
DVD: Black Widow
Release Date: 12/7/2004
Release Studio: Central Park Media / Anime 18
ADR Production: unknown
MSRP: $29.99
Audio:Â English 2.0Â DD, Japanese 2.0 DD
Subtitles: English, Signs-Only
Episodes: 2
Runtime: 60mins
Extras: Art Gallery, Black Widow Trailer, Anime Artform, Anime 18 Trailers
Notes: Review is based on a Screener copy of the final product.
Following an old railway line and then the river, the kids spend a good part of the day climbing up a mountain to find the spring that supplies the stream’s water source. They decide to return tomorrow to bottle some of the water when a storm quickly descends upon the area. Running through the rain, the kids get lost trying to find their way back to camp. However, there just happens to be a large mansion nearby where they might be able to ask for directions. They knock on the door, but no one answers. Since the door is unlocked, they decide to go in for some shelter from the storm and ask the owner for directions. With no one answering their calls, the group splits up to see if the home even has an owner they can speak with.
Two of the guys, Naoya and Jun, start with the kitchen. The stove is on, so obviously someone is home. Jun begins to panic, but the arrogant Naoya knocks him down and tells him to shut up. Meanwhile, Akira discovers a living room in which ashtray holds a still-smoldering cigarette. As Akira walks back into the main area where the guys left the girls, he notices that Sayaka and Seiya are missing. Saki and Yukari explain that the other two had gone upstairs to explore the second floor for the owner. Grumpy, Akira heads up the stairs to find the now-missing girls. As he walks down the hallway, Seiya comes running out of a room screaming. Akira comforts her for a moment and asks what’s going on. It seems that when Seiya and Sayaka got up stairs, the lights went out. Sayaka was missing when Seiya woke up in her room… or at least an exact duplicate of her room to the smallest details. They hear a woman’s voice struggling down the hallway and rush to save Sayaka.
Sayaka is tied up in another room with her skirt and panties taken off. Slowly trying to enter her pussy is a large larva-type insect. Akira pulls out the thick creepy-crawler and tosses it aside. Sayaka can only explain that a mysterious woman tied her up. The other two girls run upstairs with even worse news for Akira: the doors and widows have bars over them, leaving the group of kids locked inside the house. Akira goes back down to try to force the bars blocking the entrance back open, but it’s no use.
Meanwhile, Naoya and Jun aren’t doing much better. The mysterious brunette of the house has captured the two guys, stripped them nude, and chained them to the walls of a completely white room. Naoya tries to flirt with the woman as she slices open her shirt and slips off her jeans to tease the guys. In one swift move she has Naoya hard and in her mouth to get him to talk. Naoya keeps trying to convince the woman to get rid of Jun and the cuffs so that he can please her properly, but the woman isn’t responding. Just as Naoya is getting close to cumming, the woman steps back. Naoya begs for her to finish him off, but she explains that he can have his way with the other girls that came in his group. At the sound of this Naoya begins to get really cocky as he brags about how much he wants to put Seiya in her place by ravaging her body. The woman listens for a few moments before getting angry at his boasting and plunges the knife deep into his heart. Jun stares in horror at what the woman has done. As she leaves the room, she tells Jun that she’ll let him have a good time with the girls instead.
Akira continues to search the first floor for an exit when he notices Saki and Yukari missing. A scream from upstairs leads Akira to find the two girls clutching each other. The dead body of Naoya has been left slumped against a wall in an empty room. Each one of them is going to die if they don’t find a way out or a way to defeat the mysterious woman torturing all of them.
Black Widow is an great slasher/thriller title with the viewer trying to figure the true identity of the mysterious woman just like the poor kids trapped in the mansion. The ending will probably surprise some, but it would make a good twist-ending for a modern American slasher/horror film. Character designs and animation are top-notch throughout the series and the music seems to set the mood well for each scene. The Japanese cast fits very well with the title as each individual character is a stereotypical high school personality (jock, shy person, leader, goody-goody, etc.) The English production’s studio is unlisted and, given the quality of work here, that’s probably not a bad idea. The script, direction, and acting never rise above so-so at even its best moment.
Black Widow takes the slasher/thriller genre and adds a healthy dose of BDSM to the storyline to make for an interesting, if not twisted, two-episode series. The clean video and two error-free subtitle tracks are fairly standard with all of Anime 18’s newer hentai titles. The DVD extras available are a slideshow art gallery (some artwork, but mostly screencaps) and the US trailer for the series. Black Widow is a great addition to any hentai fan’s collection and a good reason why not to trust a large mansion in the middle of a forest with no owner around during a rainstorm. Not that anyone in the real world would be dumb enough to go inside…