Rinne (2006)

An actress is the target of weird supernatural happenings after getting the lead in a movie about a massacre that happened in a hotel 35 years ago. Meanwhile, a college student tries to figure out why she has reoccurring dreams and visions about the same hotel.

Shimizu tries to get out of the shadow of Ju-On with this picture. While the mainstream gets hooked on the “technocurse” stories, Shimizu uses his movie as somewhat as a shoutout to his inspirations and weaving it in an original story, making it his own. His signature location shots really bring this out. While it’s touted as a “horror movie”, this is more of a psycho-thriller as it slowly uncovers inch by inch of a mystery. It’s very well paced and works well with jump scares.

While I don’t have problems with the movie, many have been bored with the pacing as well as become confused with the understandable ending. Another thing that hurts the movie is that it was part of the 8 Films To Die For collection. A lot of the movies in the collection use a lot of gore and shock. To be hit with a slow rise horror like Rinne really hurts it.

The disc from Lionsgate includes a behind the scenes journal, an interview with Shimizu, deleted scenes which are just odds an ends and trailer park. The Audio and video were great as always.

3 stars.

Chakushin Ari (2003)

A viral curse goes through cell phones and sends “messages” to the owners giving them evidence of their deaths at a certain time in the future. It’s up to a woman and the brother of a former victim to figure out how this started or risk becoming their next victims.

This is Takeshi Miike’s jaunt in “mainstream” picture. His first time away from indy and V-cinema and his handling of “new wave” cinema. While I do want to say something good about the picture, this is a…standard effort from Miike. I think he took this job to see if he can work under set and dried rules instead of working with his own. All he put out was a standard. Sure, his cinematography and certain themes he works with is in there (dysfunction, The Outcast), if you put this side by side with other technocurse genre, you wouldn’t be able to pick out his. There is some great scare sequences and stuff that builds suspense though. I do like the idea that the curse transmits via cell phone. Over in Japan, The cell has got this omnipresent presence in culture. It’s a perfect subject to prey on.

I definitely find it funny that Hollywood, out of all the movie catalogue of Takashi Miike, choose this movie. The movie that has the least amount of Miike How retarded are they? “Let’s see. We can never win with Fudoh, Visitor Q, Dead or Alive or Happiness of the Katakuras. I can’t make fuck all of Audition and Ichi the Killer….*sigh*…wait. Long haired ghost girls? Cell phones? What Is this movie!?!” I will laugh my fucking ass off if they bring Miike in to direct an Erin Kreuger written sequel. It’s freaking silly.

Tokyo Shock has put out a two disc feature. First disc is the movie with English Subtitle and Dub. The second disc is interviews with the cast. Deleted scenes which are nothing to write home about, trailers and an interview with Miike himself.

I’d recommend it to Miike completest. Nothing more. General fans can rent it when they want to. Again, it’s not a bad movie, but if you seen one scary ghost girl movie, you saw them all.

three stars.

Coming Attractions…

Coming Attractions…

R-Point (2004)

Vietnam 1972. The Korean army is receiving SOS calls from one of their units…6 months after they had disappeared. A unit is formed and is sent to the last place where they were seen. An island of the coast known as R-Point.

Very good movie. Kept you on the edge all the time. Beautiful setting and production work really helped set the mood. I think using the Vietnam war really helped with the suspense. Pacing was also great. It’s slow/fast fast/slow pacing really disconcerts the viewer and hammers home the fact that there’s something wrong, I mean wrong with this island.

I think the only thing really wrong with it is that it sets up several sub stories…and does nothing with them. I mean they literally leave the stories hanging. They get them started, but then the bring the main story in and just leave the sub stories in the dust. I think if they were let to play out, it would have made the movie all the much better.

Any fan of War horrors need to pick this up. It would be great for your collection.

three and a half stars.