DAY 28, or J-horror, wave one
Uzumaki: Though released during the J-horror boom, one would be somewhat hard-pressed to consider this among its contemporaries, those being concerned with slow-mounting dread for largely unseen entities and being largely non-violent. This one plays things a lot more loosely, to the point where the first 20 minutes or so may lead you to believe that you're in for something with a more comedic bent with the zany elements that crop up, though it becomes clear soon that the film has already caught you in its trap, as the willingness to show you such strange sights extends to the horrors that await. The off-putting tone is a key asset, helping you dive into a world that eludes even its occupants as they struggle, succumb and accept the presence of the strange patterns cropping up all of the town, and perhaps further still. What is behind all of the madness? The story offers up some potential explanations, but this isn't the kind of tale that's particularly interested in the why, instead focusing on what it's doing to the characters, giving it a palpable sense of doom. The zaniness remains present throughout the film, but the air of apocalypse sours the comedic value for quite the effect, leading to some genuinely creepy sequences that are bound to catch anyone off guard. The danger also feels credible to the film being willing to be a lot more violent than its brethren, and though it's mainly concerned with the messy aftermath more than the acts themselves, it's hard not to be sufficiently grossed out by the kind of imagery the film trades in when they do occur, especially one sequence that will trigger those with a fear of millipedes. The leads not being particularly good actors do make it difficult to have an emotional investment in their well-being beyond the charming dorkiness of their lifelong love, but who needs love when you hope against hope that they don't turn into human snails or worse? Of the J-horror I programmed for this year, this was the one I was the most iffy on going into it, but I'm quite pleased with how much I dug it for its idiosyncrasies being put to good use in creating a genuine creepy crawler of a film.
Catharsis: So THAT'S where that scene from The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears came from! Married duo Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani made their debut here, already affirming their lifelong devotion to the giallo aesthetic here. Granted, we're not even in full-motion film yet, with this opting to use jerky stills, but as rough and unpolished it is compared to their other works, it was a treat to see this recurring nightmare already showing the two as having great potential for taking their avowed love of a particular genre and doing their own thing with it.
Pulse: After getting familiar with Kiyoshi Kurosawa last year twice over, it was inevitable that I'd make some time for his spin on the J-horror boom. Not that he really needed to prove himself after the brilliant Cure, but it came as little surprise here that his confident hand in teasing out a mystery on two fronts and a surplus of quiet jolts would prove just as effective once again. There are some stylistic similarities here, but the story being told here goes into quite a larger scale than we saw on Cure. The same strong emphasis on the intimacy of the main characters long before they meet up, having a slow-boil of escalation pays off big time when we see just how they cope with their respective situations, until their problems become everyone's problems. Kurosawa's knack for instilling fear in the partial understanding of a common concept is a huge component once more, as the still-budding internet age figures prominently into the story, eliciting some uneasy moments that are triggered by something as simple as a monitor turning on or the grating noise of a modem dialing for service. This is definitely not content with being just a creepy piece of tech movie, as the scope widens sooner rather than latter to something far more sinister and apocalyptic, and soon we see Kurosawa having to pull off impressive feats of staging on a somewhat limited budget to pull them off, all to great success. Even something as simple as paying attention to the background players in a scene of dialogue is enough to praise the film's attention to detail in telling its story in a non-invasive way, creating a tangible atmosphere without having to resort to the usual tricks. This is somehow even more bleak than Cure, which is both praiseworthy and deserving of a warning to folks expecting the normal "pale-faced girl with long black hair" kind of experience, but this is another impeccably made film that takes you on a journey into the unknown and leaves you frayed at the edges by the end of it. This is superb filmmaking from beginning to end, and another affirmation of Kurosawa as a true master of the genre.
Chambre jaune: This one is definitely very, very evocative of the climax to Amer, so we get another swell genesis in this short. We have full-motion footage this time around, which helps immensely in creating the right mood, though the budget wasn't quite there to pull it off for the entirety of the film. Those killer close-ups of the blade tracing the body of the woman are just as evocative and tense as they were later on, and the somewhat consensual charge this one carries does give it an intriguing texture to it that you normally don't find in scenes like this. This would be improved upon, but yet again, I'm impressed with how much the duo had already figured out.
Dark Water: It's hard to avoid the direct comparisons this film has to Hideo Nakata's other J-horror icon, given that it's also about a single mother struggling to raise her kid as she has to contend with supernatural forces, but what surprised me about this film was that for a good chunk of its runtime, it shares a lot in common with the kind of psychological terror one would find in the celebrated "apartment trilogy" from Roman Polanski. Indeed, Yoshimi's plight splits time between her tragic past, her stressful present and uncertain future, juggling responsibilities and obligations in a situation where there seems to be no way for her to win cleanly. That's a winning tactic to take, adding a lot of real tension to the film and offering up a degree of reasonable doubt as to whether or not the haunting is entirely real. Nakata has a firm grasp on those aspects, getting a damn good performance from Hitomi Kuroki as Yoshimi and bringing his credentials with more straightforward horror elements to make the psychological tension work. Honestly, a lot of the film could pass for more of a very tense family drama more than a horror film, and I almost wonder what the film would have been like if it had kept to that track. It is eventually a "proper" J-horror film, complete with the requisite pale-faced girl with long black hair (in galoshes this time, though!) and plenty of creepy moments to go around, but I did find myself a little surprised at how rote they felt to me. Apart from the pleasant surprise of the how and why for her vengeance, the scary stuff felt like a bit of a step back from Ring in terms of staging, though perhaps unavoidable due to the intentionally smaller scale. It does lead to a surprising climax and an epilogue that ends the film on a strangely satisfying note (emphasis on the "strangely" bit) that does give the film a nice emotional ring to it that works, thanks in small part to the work the film puts in for its first two acts to make the relationship between Yoshimi and Ikuko work as well as it does. The result is a damn fine movie that I almost wouldn't have minded not being an outright horror film.
21 films remain, as we finally cross the 100 film mark!
