The Friday Night Horror Movie: Noroi: The Curse (2005)

noroi the curse

For a very brief period in the early 2000s, Americans became obsessed with a certain type of Japanese horror (or J-Horror as it was known). We’d spent the 1980s watching slasher films, but by the 1990s those had grown stale. We didn’t seem to know what should take its place. So much so that in 1996 Wes Craven directed Scream which was essentially a self-aware slasher with hot TV stars.

Whereas American horror tended to be filled with horrendous violence and jump scares, Japanese horror at the time was more foreboding. The violence was toned down and in its place was psychological horror and a brooding atmosphere.

The Blair Witch Project introduced Americans to the found-footage genre in 1999. That movie, which is about some independent filmmakers making a documentary about a mythological witch that is supposed to haunt rural Maryland. They go missing and the film is supposedly made up of their leftover footage. It is a mix of their professionally made documentary footage and a lot of handheld camera work created by the actual actors living for a few weeks in the woods. It created a craze of found-footage horror.

Noroi: The Curse is a mixture of J-Horror and found footage films. It begins with a voiceover telling us about the life of Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki) who was a journalist investigating paranormal activity across Japan. Recently his house burned to the ground, killing his wife, but his body was not recovered and he is presumed missing.

He left behind a series of videotapes full of his research. The film presents those tapes along with a series of newsreels and television footage of various occult specials and the like. It all creates a sort of documentary approach to this fictional story.

At first, his investigative reports seem unrelated. There is a young girl with psychic abilities. An actress (Marika Matsumoto) sees something spooky in a graveyard and collapses. Another woman hears a baby crying next door, but the family’s children are all much older.

Slowly all of these various stories connect and point to a demon that was released from a village that is now buried under water after a dam was built. It seems to have possessed someone and is causing nearly everyone connected to the story to die under mysterious circumstances.

The violence is mostly off-screen and there is essentially zero gore. Tonally it is filled with an eeriness and the creepy soaks right through. I’m not a big fan of hand-held camerawork in movies as it tends to make me dizzy. There is some of that here, but mostly it’s used quite effectively. The camera is framed so that there are often strange little things in the background or on the edges of the screen. It makes you pay attention.

Like a lot of found footage films in which the characters seem to always be carrying a camera, there are times when I wanted to scream at them to put the camera down and run, or fight, or at least help that person getting pummelled by a demon. At least here our hero isn’t the one carrying the camera, he’s actually got a cameraman (working for his documentary) to do that for him.

The film uses the various footage in interesting ways. The way in which it moves between stuff shot by Kobayashi, and various television crews keeps the movie moving in a manner that other found footage films cannot keep up with.

I was a huge fan of J-horror during its initial craze, but I somehow missed this one. I’m glad I found it tonight as it is a good one.

Foreign Film February: Tampopo (1985)

tampopo poster

When I was a teenager, or maybe in college my brother asked me if I had seen Tampopo. I’d said I’d heard of it, probably seen it while flipping channels, but hadn’t watched it. He said it was really weird, but kind of awesome. He admitted that the plot – about a little restaurant that made noodles, something really foreign sounding to us Oklahoma boys – sounded goofy on paper, but that it was really funny and cool. I made a mental note to watch it and then never did. Until this last week.

It is funny how those things go. Why do I remember my brother telling me about a silly noodle movie from decades ago? Why does it seem like I’d told similar stories several times lately? I seem to be watching a lot of movies that made an impression on me as a teenager lately. Don’t ask me why.

Tampopo is really weird and absolutely delightful. The main story is about a couple of truck drivers who stop off at a run-down noodle shop owned by a pretty divorcee, with a young son. They decide to help the poor lady out and enlist some friends – a noodle connoisseur, an interior decorator, etc – to make her noodle shop the best dang noodle shop in Japan. This part of the film is very sweet and silly and wonderful. One of the drivers is sweet on the woman and they innocently flirt. The men spend much of their time trying to help her learn to cook the very best bath of noodles ever and that gets really fun.

Interspersed through all this is a series of vignettes about food and love often intersect. There is a husband who demands a woman rise from her deathbed to cook him one last meal, a lowly office worker who shows up his superiors with his vast knowledge of French cuisine, and an etiquette class that teaches its Japanese students how to properly eat spaghetti. The longest, strangest, and funniest is one involving a couple who use food in a variety of sexual ways. The vignettes are interesting and very silly, but I mostly enjoyed the film for its main story.

But the whole thing adds up to a big dish of delightful.

Foreign Film February: Scandal (1950)

scandal

Akira Kurosawa is one of my favorite film directors of all time. I’ve not seen all of his films, in fact, I’ve only seen about half of them (17 of 32 if you are counting) but out of all I’ve seen, there hasn’t been a bad one. All of them have been good, and many have been truly great. Scandal is my least favorite of the films that I’ve seen. It isn’t a bad film by any means, but when compared to his masterpieces it just doesn’t hold up.

Toshiro Mifune plays Ichirō Aoye an artist who, as the film begins is out in the countryside painting some mountains. A woman, Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamaguchi), comes walking up the path carrying her luggage. She says she missed her bus and is staying at a nearby hotel. Ichirō says he is staying at the same hotel and he’ll give her a lift. They climb on his motorcycle and zoom away. Later that day, after they have both showered, he visits her in her room. They are both wearing robes and they hang their towels over her balcony rail. They have a friendly chat and at one point she draws close to him as he points out a nice walking trail she might take. It is at that moment a tabloid newspaper photographer snatches a picture.

The photo is sold to a tabloid rag which puts the photo on the front page and insinuates a secret romance between the two characters. Miyako is a famous singer and the story becomes quite a scandal. While Ichirō and Miyako discuss what to do they meet Hiruta (Takashi Shimura) a shambling, down-on-his-luck lawyer who says he’d like to represent them in a lawsuit against the magazine. Miyako declines but Ichirō is taken in by the man’s earnestness. When he meets Hiruta’s daughter, who is bedridden with TB but retains a cheerful attitude, he agrees to let Hiruta represent him.

Hirutu is a good man, but drowning in debt and is unable to afford good care for his daughter. When a lawyer for the magazine offers him a bribe to throw the case, he reluctantly agrees. The story unfolds in a way that aligns pretty directly with Kurosawa’s usual gentle humanism.

It is a decent story and it is told well. But compared to Kurosawa’s other works it falls short. There is nothing particularly surprising or interesting about how it unfolds, and the direction, while adequate, isn’t particularly special. I kept thinking about High and Low, Kurosawa’s fantastic crime drama from 1963. Much of that story takes place inside the house of the main character. It centers on one room. Kurusawa’s placement of the camera in that film, and the way it moves make that room feel claustrophobic or expansive depending on the mood he’s trying to create. It is a masterclass in direction. I kept hoping for something similar in Scandal, especially in the courtroom scenes, but the setups are all basic. The sort of placement you’d find in any courtroom drama airing on broadcast television. Again, it isn’t bad, it just doesn’t feel like a Kurosawa film.

In the end, it is still worth watching, especially if you are a fan, but this is definitely a lesser Kurosawa.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Vampire Doll (1970)

the vampire doll

I’ve talked about how the Criterion Channel is one of my favorite streaming services. Mubi is fast becoming a contender in that category. Mubi actually works as a kind of sister channel to Criterion. Where Criterion focuses on the world’s greatest films and lots of classic Hollywood films (and lots of other more esoteric themes like Snow Westerns and 1970s sci-fi) Mubi’s focus is on more modern art-house fair. They show films that premiere at film festivals like Cannes and Sundance, but that doesn’t necessarily reach a wider audience.

They also have a lot of what you might call cult films – genre movies that have been all but forgotten except by a small group of fans. The Vampire Doll is a good example of what I’m talking about. This was the Japanese film company Toho’s attempt at cashing in on the horror craze that so popular at the time.

It looks and feels like a Hammer Horror film with its creaky old mansion as a setting and its moody supernatural storyline. A man who has been traveling abroad for the last few months returns home to Japan. He immediately rides out to the country to see his girlfriend Yuko (Yukiko Kobayashi). Upon arrival, he is told by her mother (Yôko Minakaze) that Yuko is dead. She died in an automobile accident a few weeks prior.

That evening he sees a woman that appears to be Yuko. Flash forward a few days and the man’s sister, Keiko (Kayo Matsuo) and her fiancee Hiroshi (Akira Nakao) visit the old mansion because they have not heard from her brother in a while and that is unusual. Keiko immediately senses something is wrong and decides to stick around and investigate.

With a 70-minute run time, the plot moves along pretty quickly. Honestly, storywise the film isn’t great. It doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before. But it works really well as a mood piece. The mansion is full of creepy shadows, and the music is particularly moody. I mentioned Hammer Horror earlier and that is fitting. If you’ve ever seen any of those old movies then you’ll know what I’m talking about. They have a particular look and feel to them that is perfect for this type of gothic horror.

And that’s why I love sites like Mubi. I’d never heard of this film before, but they spotlighted it and now I’ve seen it and I’m glad that I did.

31 Days of Horror: Perfect Blue (1997)

perfect blue

It feels like such a treat to get an animated horror film. I’m a relatively big fan of animation and I realize that there are a lot of animated films being made that are not what you would call family-friendly. GKids has been putting out a lot of great stuff that deals with very mature themes and are meant for mature adults. Yet, in the USA animation seems primarily aimed and children. Even the great films Pixar have been putting out, many of which do deal with things like sadness and death, keep everything cheerful enough for the kiddos to watch.

So I say again, it feels like such a treat to get an animated horror film, even if this one did come out in 1997.

Perfect Blue is about Mima (voiced by Junko Iwao) a pop singer who is putting down her microphone in order to become a serious actress. In order to make that transition, she has to do things like pose nude in a magazine and perform in a brutal rape scene. All of which puts a bit of a crack in her psyche.

It doesn’t help that some crazed fan is stalking her, pretending to be her in online chat rooms, and murdering the people in her life.

The film blends reality and fiction in really interesting ways. There are lots of scenes that appear to be real only then to pull the curtain and make us realize it is a scene the actress is performing in or just a dream. I’m still not sure exactly what happened in it. But I rather loved watching every bit of it.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

howls moving castle poster

Originally written on Mary 12, 2006

It seems Japan is the country of mention when it comes to film these days. Not only have they produced some of the best horror films of the last decade (see Ichi the Killer and Ringu) but they’ve made some incredibly imaginative animated films as well.

The most well-known animated director is a man named Hayao Miyazaki. A few of his films to make it over the pond are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and most recently Howl’s Moving Castle.

Most of his films live in a fantasy world where mysterious, enchanting creatures roam freely with humans in a land where time seems to have escaped. People use modern conveniences along with ancient methods of living. There is usually a small, weaker protagonist up against massive odds.

In Howl’s Moving Castle, a young, unconfident girl, named Sofi has a spell cast upon her by an evil witch causing her to appear as an old woman. As this woman, Sofi gains some confidence and takes off for the moving castle which wanders through the countryside.

In it, she meets up with a young boy, a demon living in the body of a constant fire, and Howl himself. Howl is a wizard, who has nearly slipped into oblivion over self-doubt. He does, however, slip out of his castle to help stop a war going on between his own country’s land and another.

It is a moving story of characters finding their own character and becoming strong humans. It is told in a creative, beautiful way and is truly a cartoon that means just as much to adults as children.

Miyazaki creates animated features that are fit for the whole family in a way that is entirely different than those films from American companies like Pixar. Films like Toy Story appeal to all ages in that they are hilarious to everybody. The jokes hit on kid levels and adult levels without ever becoming saccharine or too mature. I love Pixar films, but Miyazaki films are so incredibly different.

There is humor in his films, but it comes from a very human place. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the only really jokey character is the demon fire, and that mainly comes from the fact that Billy Crystal does the English voice for the character. Mostly, there aren’t a lot of jokes as much as humor that comes from the situations.

It is more of a fantasy than a comedy, with fantastic characters and mesmerizing animation. Fully and highly recommended for anyone.

The Eye (2002)

the eye movie poster

There is an old horror story about a normal law-abiding citizen getting a transplant from a psychopathic killer. The killer’s body part still has the memory of its former owner and wants to take up the killings again.

This premise has been aped in countless movies and TV shows, most notably in Body Parts starring Jeff Fahey and that Simpsons episode where Homer has Snakes hair transplanted to his bald head. It is a pretty tired premise; one that has been done so many times all the originality has been drained from it. I’m waiting for the day when Hollywood green lights a picture about a little girl who gets a toe transplant from Charles Manson.

Chinese directors, the Pang brothers try to breathe some life into the concept with their 2002 feature, The Eye. Unfortunately, it is the first of the so-called Asian Extreme pictures that I’ve seen that I’ve found to be rather lackluster.

It isn’t for a lack of trying. The Pang brothers bring an eye of originality to the premise and create an atmosphere that is quite creepy and interesting. At least in the first half.

In this case, the transplanted body parts are eyeballs. A young blind girl, Wong Kar Mun (Angelica Lee) receives an eye transplant and thusly begins seeing dead people, a la The Sixth Sense.

The Brothers Pang introduce this concept by having the dead show up in shadows. Visually the first half of the film is stunning. We see the world through Mun’s adjusting-to-sight eyes and there are creeping things lurking just about everywhere. In an impossible-to-explain, but absolutely must-see series of scenes Mun comes to understand that what she sees with her eyes is beyond the realm of the natural. As a viewer, I was knocked upside the head by the brilliant display of imagery

There is no “I see dead people” revelation here. The revelations come slowly, building tension along the way. Having no concept of vision, Mun has no understanding of what is real and what may be supernatural. By allowing the audience to understand quickly what Mun must slowly learn, the film is quite effective in creating a sense of horror.

The camera pans slowly around corners as the music builds anticipation to what could be hiding just out of sight. There are nice jolts of music as the camera reveals a new surprise. Here it seems the Pang brothers have taken a page out of the American scary movie pages instead of the Asian counterpart. Scare the people with jolts instead of developing actual creepy situations.

In the second half, the film begins to truly unravel. With only a few conversations, Mun manages to have her psychotherapist, fall in love with her and be willing to drop everything and travel to Thailand to investigate the donor of her dead-seeing eyes.

From horror, the movie now travels into a melodramatic mystery. The doctor and Mun find dark secrets in the story of the young lady who had Mun’s eyes first. Of course, they are forced into setting things right, and the movie pretty much falls apart. Oh, it’s nothing terrible or cringe-inducing, but it is formulaic and not nearly as interesting as the first two-thirds of the film.

I found The Eye in the foreign section of my local Blockbuster. It was well worth the five dollars I laid down for it, if just for the glorious visuals of the first half.

Suicide Club (2001)

suicide club poster

Fifty-four Japanese schoolgirls stand on a train platform, holding hands, singing, and laughing. As the train approaches they clasp their hands tighter, and in sing-song fashion start to count. As the train arrives, the counting stops, and all 54 of them jump in front of the train. Buckets of blood and guts spray the train, the passengers, and the people passing by.

Later, another group of teenagers sits on the roof of a school building during their lunch break. They are eating and laughing and looking like happy schoolchildren. Conversations turn to the 54 and how cool it would be to form their own suicide circle. Amongst much joking and a good time having, a crew decides to end their lives then and there. Standing on the edge of the rooftop they hold hands and plunge their way to the bottom. Buckets of blood and guts spray all over the school grounds, teachers and students.

Amongst the bloodletting are some scenes about a pop group whose Britney Spearesesque pop wailings are irresistible to every teen. Adults everywhere do their best to quash any talk about the deaths being a part of a suicide club movement. A theme develops about society’s herd mentality.

Call it Japanese horror with a message.

The cops have to rule all of these deaths as accidents for there seems to be no foul play involved. That is until a bag filled with little rectangles of skin sewn together shows up. Then the suicides become a matter of detective work.

The detectives begin getting calls from a cyber-savvy woman who seems to know more than she lets on, calling herself the Bat. She leads the detectives to an internet site keeping a count of the suicides before they actually happen. One of the detective’s kids finds another site with some peculiar type clues.

Call it a Japanese horror, detective thriller with a message.

Through all this shocking, blood-splattering suicidal carnage continues to occur.

The detectives find a suspect who acts like a cross between Ziggy Stardust and Graham Norton. He’s definitely a bad fellow, what with the squishing of animals, kidnapping, and the random sexing with girls wrapped in pillowcases lying in a bowling alley. But he may not be behind all the suicides.

Call it a Japanese horror, detective thriller by way of Asian MTV, with a message.

In the end, we’re left with nary an explanation of the suicides, but that’s not really the point anyway. There is lots of gory violence if you like that kind of thing. And let’s be honest if you are taking the time to search out a copy of a relatively obscure Japanese horror film called Suicide Club, you probably do. There are gobs of creepy, moody suspense, with some very dark humor thrown in. All mixed in with some pretty in-your-face, and spot-on social commentary.

What’s not to love?