Kairo (2001)

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

When there's no more room for ghosts in the next world, the living will start commiting suicides and turning into black spots on walls, at least that's what Kiyoshi Kurosawa tells us in this slow, atmospheric and frustratingly complicated film. The main problem with this movie is that it doesn't go for the cheap jump scares and shameless exploitation of long-haired ghosts (though it does have some of that), but instead tries to make a clever statement about human loneliness and how modern technology is separating us and crap like that. It also has some features of an arthouse film, like when you have absolutely no idea what the hell is happening and why is everyone doing whatever the hell they're doing.

 

The story begins with a suicide of some guy. But, not only did he kill himself, he also turned into a black spot on the wall. At the same time, some other guy stumbles upon a scary website that promises their visitors interaction with the dead (!). At the same time, there's a scary mysterious room that harbours a horrifying secret. Some friends try to investigate what's going on, but they can do little to prevent the bizarre series of suicides that threatens to make the entire world (or at least Japan) look like Pripyat, Ukraine.

 

I found this movie incredibly difficult to follow. I don't know whether the problem was with the subtitles, or the director in most scenes didn't try too hard to establish the location, or I'm just stupid - anyway, I had mostly no idea who these people were and where did this all take place. And it's all so sloooooooooooooow and sloooooooooooooow and it's bearable for the first half an hour because there's an occasional scare here and there (like the first visit to the Forbidden Room, that one was spine-chilling) and you still have hope that things will actually resolve or something. However, from there on, it just seemed to me that Kurosawa was making some kind of style exercise, for himself rather than for the audience and I almost completely lost interest.

The last part of the movie has some nice apocalyptic images and this is the first movie I've seen that combines a J-horror with an actual apocalypse in such a direct way. It's a great idea, but I would've preferred it to be realized in a more conventional story. I'm not saying this movie was bad, of course. It was just a bit too hermetic for my taste, but if you like the films of, say, David Lynch, by all means I recommend you give it a try.

V/H/S 2 (2013)

Directed by: See below

Writers:  See below

 

The first V/H/S movie was pretty much a disappointment, at least given the names of some of the people involved. However, due to its anthological nature, it never got really boring, so I can't say watching it was a waste of time. Something similar goes for the sequel, but the quality of the stories varies much more here. Since there are only four stories (compared to 26 in The ABCs of Death), we'll look into each one of them briefly:

TAPE 49
(Written and directed by Simon Barrett)

The one that connects them all. Some people get into some house (which might or might not be the one from the first V/H/S, I don't remember), find some tapes and watch them. At the same time, we are made aware that something sinister is happening in the house, leading to a "shocking" twist at the end. Boring.

PHASE I CLINICAL TRIALS
(Directed by Adam Wingard, written by Simon Barrett)

A filthy rich guy (played by Adam Wingard himself) gets a supercool fancy eye-camera implant, which unfortunately makes him see dead people (Haley Joel Osment, eat your heart out). He spends most of the time running around completely terrified after a huge number of jump scares, which creates some pretty funny moments. Then he's visited by a girl who hears dead people. And then bad stuff happens. This one is told completely in the first person POV, has some nice humor in it, so I guess I'd call it not bad.

A RIDE IN THE PARK
(Directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale, written by Jamie Nash)

A guy goes for a nice bike ride in the park, only to fall victim to some zombies. He then wakes up as a zombie, forms a zombie party with some other guys and together they crash some child's birthday party. This one is also rather funny at times and it's interesting to see the events from a perspective of a zombie (the lead character has a camera on his helmet), however it drags in places and the birthday party chaos is not nearly as effective as it could have been.

SAFE HAVEN
(Written and directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans, story by Timo Tjahjanto)

By far the best story in the movie is also one of the most insane things I've seen in a long time. A film crew somewhere in Indonesia is making a documentary about a mysterious end-of-the-world sect, led by some obviously insane bastard. First they interview that insane bastard in a café or something, where he gives them a piece of his philosophy and then they persuade him to let them visit the place where his followers abide. Big mistake! After a somewhat slow intro, this quickly turns into a bloodbath of epic proportions, where randomly crazy stuff happens every few seconds. None of it makes much sense, but I guess the directors weren't exactly concerned about that - they wanted to give us a hilarious thrill ride, and boy did they succeed! This story was co-directed by Gareth Huw Evans, the director of the mightily successful Raid, and I'm so glad he gave a shot at directing a horror. Let's hope he does a full feature one after Raid 2.

SLUMBER PARTY ALIEN ABDUCTION
(Directed by Jason Eisener, written by Jason Eisener and John Davies)

Some kids are playing pranks on each other and then they are attacked by aliens and everything goes to Hell. The stupidest and most boring story of them all, it consists solely of irritating kids screaming "Oh my God, did you see that, what is that, we're gonna die, woe are us!!!!!" and pointlessly running around trying to escape some equally boring aliens. I don't know why in the heck did they put this one at the end, to ruin the entire impression. Jason Eisener had previously made a great little short called Treevenge, which had a terrific idea and execution, which makes the complete lack of imagination in this one even more surprising. 

Infected (2013)

Directed by: Glenn Ciano

Writers: Glenn Ciano, Robert Rotondo, Jr.

Obviously, with a title such as this one, there can be little doubt about what's going to be "happening" in the movie - i.e. yet another story about zombies that aren't actually zombies, because they're not dead, they're just... infected (insert some scary music). But does that make them any less dangerous? Hell, no! In fact, thanks to not being zombies, they can move fast, and they can also talk a bit, providing them with an occasional opportunity to fool someone and eat them.

 

Glenn Ciano (the guy who directed Incubus with Robert Englund, which I haven't seen, and after seeing this one I'll be sure to keep not seeing it for as long as possible) came up with a story about... hold on a second, did I say story? I apologize, there's none here. Just some people being killed and then the movie ends. But what serves as a great testimony to Glenn Ciano's writing and directing skills is the fact that the movie, despite being virtually plotless, manages to be more confusing than Primer and Southland Tales combined. There are some people there. Who are they? We have absolutely no idea. What do they do? Some of them seem to know each other. What is their relation? What are those other people? How do they know the main characters? Why did they come there? No clue. Where the hell is that place anyway? Sorry, no answer.

 

The ever decreasing collection of "normal" people is led by Michael Madsen and William Forsythe. I had absolutely no idea their careers have sunk so low. I could have perhaps expected Lance Henriksen, but those two? Hardly. Anyway, Madsen's voice over opens the movie by solemnly declaring that "the world has changed", to which I thought "Bitch, please, if you now tell me that you can feel it in the water, I'm gonna track you down and kill you!". Then they show us some cabin in the woods where Madsen and some other people are horribly upset about some creatures trying to break in and eat them. We then go back twelve months to find out what had happened earlier and discover that nothing actually happened.

 

Another hilarious feature here is the passage of time - everything seems to take place in a very short time span, like two or three days. But then you suddenly find yourself watching that scene from the very beginning and realize that actually a whole year has passed (and I'm not even sure Michael Madsen ever changed his shirt during that time). Time flies when you're having fun, right?

 

Is there a saving grace here, perhaps? Probably no. There's no nudity by any of the major female characters, some of the killings are watchable I guess, but that's hardly a consolation when absolutely nothing works in the movie. There's just one absolutely hilarious scene - Michael Madsen's pregnant wife locates a little girl whose father is turning into one of those things. She takes her away to protect her, but the father wants her back and starts a really tear jerking monologue of the "I am perfectly OK, please bring me back my daughter!" sort. The catch is - every once in a while he stops, looks to the side and lets out such a hideous monstrous growl that has to be heard to be believed. And after that, he continues with his talk pretending that nothing happened. The (probably unintentional) hilarity of this scene is far beyond the rest of the movie.