Had the day off due to being in quite a bit of pain with my left heel, so I had time!
A trio of Asian horror films, part one!
Where does the documentary end and the found footage begin? Kōji Shiraishi's film provides a fitfully disorienting answer to that question, as the documentary that his main character Kobayashi begins to trawl through archives to piece together his latest dive into the world of the supernatural in Japan. At least, that was the plan, as the film opens with a grave introduction warning the viewer that what we're about to see contains all of the events that led up to Kobayashi's mysterious disappearance after completing his latest documentary, which itself adds to the disorientation as answers seem to be buried deeper and deeper into the narrative going on around him and his cameraman as their initial investigation into a strange neighbor of a correspondent soon turns mysterious and fatal. To say that what ensues as far as the narrative becoming labyrinthine is putting it mildly, as tangents into the world of variety shows soon reveal a darker and more far-reaching plot that is unfolding, all seemingly surrounding a very rude woman who never seems eager to let anyone into her home, even as she's constantly moving around, along with her quiet child that looks on as if he's desperately looking to be anywhere else. Though some elements do feel inevitable when the plot finally turns for them, how they get there is anything but predictable.
Shiraishi seems to understand that his approach here is very much a double edged sword in terms telling its story, as while the pursuit of truth and, of course, unimaginable horrors takes on a very large scope as the documentary covers about two years, it does also run the risk of being a little too engorged on the details. Seemingly minor characters do wind up playing a role in the spread of the horror, though their single scene appearances before their exits tends to feel a little too superfluous in the long run when the film does get around to remembering them for their eventual exit. Yet I can't deny that it does all add up to an appreciable level of doom that enshrouds the entire story, as each gruesome tidbit surrounding the curse of the Kagutaba serves shows just how truly vile and evil its influence will be if left unchecked, even as the batting average for the heroes in J-horror films successfully reversing curses of this nature tends to be on the low side. It does mean that the film can be a bit on the uneven side as some bits work better than others (I'm still not sure what to make of the aluminum-coated antics of the psychic, which does come off as a bit more wacky than necessary), but the hit ratio remains relatively high throughout, making for some damn good scares and atmosphere as the grainy video quality does much for adding to the sense of creeping dread long before we get an idea of what we're looking at.
As a film that plays around with what the threat looks like at all, it adds a lot to the suspense that pays off when our heroes head to the former site of the shrine where it all began, which turns into a two-camera excursion into genuine nightmare as each camera follows a different vantage point of the action that cuts back and forth when you least want it to in either case, maximizing the terror for a superb sequence that certainly is strong enough to secure this film's reputation as it is. Shiraishi does well in justifying the lengthier approach with the way the film continues on from there with its set of false climaxes that wind up adding more and more to the scope of the curse itself, leaving just one last video tape to be uncovered to offer us the closest thing we're going to get in story like this to filling in the final blanks while also making the viewer deeply regretful about inquiring about it in the first place with its barrage of horror. While there's very little on-screen violence as it is, the use of the grainy imagery and the splitting audio design makes everything a little too real for comfort, even when the supernatural overwhelms the film in its final moments and looks like the genuine article. Even a fake kind of truth needs to feel like it could happen right before your very eyes to pull off its effect, as this film does too good a job for comfort in that regard.
A trio of Asian horror films, part two!
Another film that's been long considered for past marathons and I never could quite fit it in anywhere! And it's a good thing, too, as Park Chan-wook's spin on vampires is nothing if not singular in its visual storytelling and in its premise, making for a film that's far more funny and entertaining than you could have ever imagined. Though Park is hardly a stone-faced artiste to begin with, one can really see just how much fun he decided to have with this as he brings vampires to modern day Korea for a mix of sex, bloodshed, Catholic guilt, flute performances, aerial feats, waterlogged ghosts, and maybe just a little romance along the way. It's a film with a lot going on at any given moment, but Park has rarely ever not risen to the occasion of being able to juggle as many flaming chainsaws as possible and make it look all so easy, and even learned how to hide the nicks that such a project would incur along the way.
At the center of the film is, of course, a crisis of faith, as poor Sang-hyun finds that his devotion to God and all His works just doesn't feel like it's enough for the good work he does for a local hospital, putting him on a collision course with destiny as he volunteers for an experimental vaccine research program to rid the world of a deadly new virus and be able to reach out to more people to help them in their time of need. Things don't go so well, of course, but his miraculous recovery manages to make him something of a walking saint among the flock, even as he starts to realize that the vaccine has an unexpected side effect of flaring up again if he doesn't get the proper nutrition. And of course, it's not something that a tall cup of OJ can fix, as his dawning realization that being a man of the cloth has something of a conflict of interest with his newfound vampirism. There's little doubt that only Song Kang-ho could have played a role like this, taking his every-man charisma and giving Sang-hyun a real sense of pathos that's tinged by real comedic chops as the deadpan humor suits his sensibilities so well. There are suicide attempts played for laughs, and then there are
suicide attempts played for laughs as he capably illustrates here, among many other showcase moments for him to catch you off guard with how well he's able to play it straight even in the most absurd circumstances.
As we are in Park's very unique world, this must mean that by default that Sang-hyun is practically a saint, as the family he befriended as a child are a real collective piece of work, and it's not long before Tae-ju, one-time adopted daughter and now forcibly devoted wife to the sickly son of the clan, finds herself anxious to trade up for something a little more sinful by anyone's standards. Make no mistake: this is one horny film, with the sex scenes between Sang-hyun and Tae-ju having a real erotic energy to them that manages to get tempered by the machinations of the story to keep them from being too haughty, though that might be up for debate for how much sucking and licking that doesn't involve blood that goes on between the two. Of course, she has to find out because they always do, and when you're starting to get real tired of the life you had, that's when you start thinking about a more complete change of scenery. For her part, Kim Ok-vin makes for a rascally minx of a female lead, complicated but always so vivacious that even her most diabolical scheming is tempered by the fact that she's just too darn likable to stay mad at her surrogate murder plots. The rest of the cast are great fun as well, with especially high marks going to Kim Hae-sook as the matriarch whose deteriorating condition lends itself to some wonderful physical humor in the back half of the film, but it's hard not to see this as being a particularly special showcase for both Song and Kim as their feverish boinking gives way to a most enjoyable back-and-forth once the sex isn't enough, the secrets come to the surface, and they both get what they want with all the downsides to go along with it.
Though a horror film doesn't initially seem like the kind of opportunity for Park to flex as a director like we saw with the Vengeance Trilogy or, god willing,
The Handmaiden, he surprises again here with his trademark eye for perfectly out-of-time production design making for sumptuous settings amidst all the blood and some truly remarkable camerawork that makes good use of both VFX and frankly genius framing to bring to life the kind of acrobatic glee one might have if they had the ability to be as light as a feather when dashing through the night. It's such a delight to look at that you almost forget how good he is as telling a story with the imagery alone, letting exposition flow through them with a remarkable grace and wit that makes you wonder how in the hell he's able to create such technically demanding scenes and make it look so easy in the process. It's definitely a clever film from a writing standpoint as well, letting him and longtime co-screenwriter Seo-kyeong Jeong find the least conventional choices on how to depict the central relationship, and while it's not a tremendously deep film in terms of its themes, it's smart about having enough meat on its bones that the aesthetic bliss of the film doesn't have to cake over too much to give it more heft.
One might be down the film for not being as much of a game changer as Park's most famous works, and while there's a certain truth to that, this isn't the time to look such a fine gift horse in the mouth when it is such a splendid beast regardless. One might also be disappointed that it doesn't really try to be particularly that scary at any point, but when the film is such a gas to watch unfold as the ups and downs between Sang-hyun and Tae-ju mirror their rooftop routines to deviously entertaining ends. With superb filmmaking talent at his side, Park delivers one of the most enjoyable vampire films I've seen in a very long time, and his leads prove to be one of the most charming duos that make their love-hate relationship work even in the film's most overtly bombastic moments for a terrific feature. I don't doubt that Park thought about taking his segment from
Three... Extremes and expanding the delightful introduction to far grander depth, as this film clearly evokes the same kind of baroque styling, and I've fewer doubts that he was surprised by how well he was able to pull it off. A genuine delight from start to finish!
A trio of Asian horror films, part three!
As someone that's been a fan of the Indonesian horror film scene over the past decade, this film offered up a nice surprise in the sense that it pared back a lot of the explicit violence that they've had a reputation. Not that this doesn't have its own scene of shocking brutality in it, or that it's necessarily a bad thing that their brand of genre filmmaking tends to veer in that direction (far from it, really), but with this being primarily about a tight-knit family of children, ages 6-22, it was refreshing to get this film to focus more on their growing terror at what's happening to them in the house they thought was home, putting the atmosphere and clever scares at a premium to go with their believable bonds. That perhaps is the most surprising thing about this as it is, by and large, a vintage haunted house film that knows what works about them and makes sure that everything is up to a high standard.
Writer/director Joko Anwar goes for a surprisingly reserved approach overall, putting an emphasis on long takes and some impressive tracking shots to establish the mood that he's going for, and manages to get all the mileage he can out of the house that most of the film takes place in as its geography becomes very familiar to the viewer and soon has them checking absolutely every corner when something doesn't feel right about this particular trip down the hallway or the inside of a room. Those that are more familiar with the likes of, say, the films that comprise
The Conjuring series might be taken aback by the lack of outright showmanship here in terms of its camerawork and more aggressive scare tactics, but that winds up being the reason why the scares are so effective as Anwar realizes it really doesn't actually take that much to pull them off and maximizes their potential just about every time. And as mentioned earlier, he does it without skimping on the family ties themselves, as the Suwono clan are established as a close unit united by their love for each other as they have precious little else, with tragedy seemingly unending as the older adults start to pass in rapid frequency. Solid acting from the kids themselves shows how serious Anwar is about making this work properly, but I can't imagine anyone not walking away from this wanting more of his lead Tara Basro as the eldest and only adult child of the clan, who exudes a lot of maturity as she tries to keep everyone together as her initial skepticism gives way to horrified acceptance that what they're dealing with is not just their grief-stricken imaginations running wild.
There's also a very compelling element to the film in that the story makes an interesting play early on to have a battle of ideology establish itself at a funeral that reveals the Suwono clan as being decidedly non-religious in a famously Muslim-heavy nation, a fact that their concerned neighbors try to reconcile as things get more and more explicitly supernatural for them. Never preachy, the back and forth between a devout neighbor and the kids makes for some good tension as we find out more about how they got into their current predicament to add a religious battle element as the forces of Hell become all too real. It's very nice that this wasn't just mere window dressing and even makes you wish that there was more of it in lieu of the larger machinations of the plot that reveal themselves as a far reaching conspiracy that was pitched even before a single child was born. Not that the ideas behind them are bad, really, but it does make for a lot of exposition as a result of all that needs to be said about them that can drag the film down to feel slower than its deliberate pacing ever could and doesn't feel clean enough to make me think that they couldn't have afforded a couple of additional passes to get them boiled down to their essence a little more efficiently. And, perhaps, that time could have been spent on cleaning up the confusing finale, as too much happens in too short a time to be able to grasp anything other than the action itself, as the heat turns up considerably but loses a lot of clarity in the process before it all wraps up, making it fizzle a fair bit when it moves away from the intimacy that preceded it.
Up until then, though, it's hard not to recommend this as a very fine haunted house film that realizes that one doesn't need to hit 100mph at the first available opportunity when driving the speed limit can often be much more effective. With its strong cast of characters and genuinely creepy atmosphere, Anwar makes a great case for being a talent to watch for horror in general, as he's got a lot of terrific fundamentals at work here that can branch off elsewhere, as I've no doubt looked at his credits since this film to see that being the case. Nowhere nearly as salacious as the title sounds, the low-key nature of much of the film is a rather nice palate cleanser from the more elaborately staged films I had watched today and made for a very fitting and very good conclusion to the day's festivities. Sometimes, all you need is a sheet in the right place at the wrong time to get something you won't soon forget.
