Movie Appraisal: Kakashi (案山子) (Scarecrow) (2001)

 "We co-exist with death here."

Despite the overlong introduction this movie delivers in its atmosphere. Kakashi is both moody and well directed by Norio Tsuruta, even if the story and characters are rather flat. I had a good time watching most of this movie, but I did find it, as I've found many of these movies over the last few months, predictable and without any real horror, even boring at times if I may be so bold. The terror, the horror, the fear... they kind of didn't exist in this movie. I found any kind of scariness literally lacking here, which was a disappointment on the interesting premise of this film. Again, most of these movies have great ideas, but they are simply executed poorly. Kakashi is better than most, but it still has the exact same flaws even if they aren't quite as apparent. One of the biggest flaws is that this manga story "Kakashi" or "Scarecrow" is a much better story than this film version to the point where I don't see why that unsettling idea was scrapped in favor of this story.

Kakashi is based off of Junji Ito's manga short story named the same as mentioned above. Ito also helped to write the screenplay of the film. The manga is quite a bit different, with the scarecrows being kind of an accidental thing after one is placed in a graveyard by a father to try and scare away a young man who was in love with his daughter who died. In the manga their sentience is also questionable at best and it is left open to the reader to decide whether they were "alive" at all or just projections put on to the scarecrows by the people who lost their loved ones. Overall the manga is a much better and more effective story, but is quite a bit shorter and with even flatter characters overall. Boy, oh boy... what I wouldn't give for a strongly characterized horror movie. It's bad when all of these movies have such archetypal and flat characters. I can't stand it. I can basically just predict what's going to happen and what characters are going to do. It's actually kind of boring. Horror movies should not be boring. That's really bad.

Anyway, the movie starts off with a girl, Kaoru, looking for her missing brother, Tsuyoshi. Kaoru is your standard quiet Japanese girl. She is quiet. I mean, REALLY QUIET. Almost unsettling so. She asks some questions and does eventually get a little pissed off, but is mostly ineffective and just too quiet throughout the film. I never could identify with her as a main character, never could say, "OH BOY, I LOVE SCENES WITH KAORU!" She was simply boring. Boring. Boring. And a little uninteresting to boot.

Anyway, it seems that another girl named Izumi has sent a letter to Tsuyoshi, telling him to come to her town to meet her. Okay, interesting premise, I guess. Tsuyoshi goes missing and Kaoru feels the need to look for her brother, which makes sense. The beginning of the film is actually effective. It has very little dialogue and relies on the atmosphere to tell the story. Kaoru goes through a tunnel to the out of the way town and her car breaks down, eventually leading her to the creepily quiet village and some strange people who all are carrying around scarecrows. She also sees a young woman who was thought to be missing named Sally, but the woman disappears before she gets a chance to talk with her.

Eventually Kaoru ends up talking to Izumi's parents, learning that there is something wrong with her. Izumi is an old classmate of Kaoru who seems to have had some sort of relationship or feelings for Tsuyoshi. The stilted dialogue between every character works at making the movie feel unsettling, but also works against this moving at slowing the pace down quite a bit. There is never really any intensity to the dialogue, and I honestly found myself nodding off a few times during the movie, which is never a good sign.

The way that Izumi's mother seems to detest Kaoru and Izumi's father seems sympathetic if a little gruff does work well, even if it seems like another standard trope. Izumi's father (played by Kenzô Kawarasaki), who seems to run the clinic, is easily the most sympathetic character in the movie and he is also quite probably the best actor here. Kaoru ends up staying a few night at Izumi's parents' house and has some pretty intense nights, either because of some pretty odd dreams or because her brother and Izumi are doing some pretty strange things at night. It's hard to tell what's fact and what's fantasy at this point in the film. A quotation that happens fairly often in the film is "Is this a dream? Or a fantasy?" and it really does pick up on the idea that the film and the town itself seem to take place somewhere outside of any reality. It's a pretty neat idea, but it's execution is a bit spotty.

Anyway, eventually we get into the meat and potatoes of the movie: the zombie scarecrows. Yeah, it's kind of silly, but also strangely effective in a boring and kind of average type of way. I'm reminded of other towns that are made up of weird people like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and "Children of the Corn." It's a worse story than either of those, but the sentiment is still there, which I appreciate. So, these zombie scarecrows try to stop Kaoru from leaving the town, but they're scarecrows. I mean, seriously? Nobody's thinking what I'm thinking? Scarecrows are not strong; they're made of straw and clothes. It's not like they have muscle or whatever. If you have a match, you are going to win. Hell, if you have a hand you'll win. It's a scarecrow. Made of straw. I'm pretty sure you can fight it off, Kaoru. But no, Kaoru is an idiot and seems to have trouble fighting off men made of straw. Sigh.

Then Kaoru finds herself in her car, trying to start it up to leave the zombie scarecrows forever, but... seriously... one of the zombie scarecrow evil townspeople things is the mechanic who worked on your car, Kaoru. Stop trying to start it up and run. The evil mechanic didn't fix your car. They all lied to you. He specifically lied to you. The policeman lied to you. Stop trying to start it and... finally you run. Jeez. It took you long enough, you crazy broad. So, then Sally becomes one of the main characters, and Kaoru seems to feel the need to save her as well. All right, all right. I get it. It's cool.

What isn't cool is reading someone's private diary. That's not cool at all, Kaoru. You have committed the grave sin of invading somebody else's privacy, and that's terrible. Anyway, I'm going to stop being silly. Kaoru finds and reads Izumi's diary and learns that Izumi had a HUGE thing for her brother, Tsuyoshi, but Kaoru already knew that and... well, she kept t from her brother, actively trying to shut down any romance before it could get started. That's not very nice Kaoru. That's really not cool at all. It seems that Kaoru wasn't a very good friend. Not helping Izumi... no, actively making sure that Izumi had no chance with her brother... eventually causes Izumi to go a little crazy, cursing Kaoru and in the end killing herself. Izumi pulls a perfect "all work and no play make jack a dull boy" type of thing in her diary with the repetition of Kaoru's name over and over again before you kills herself though. That's pretty cool, almost unsettling. That's one reference to a better horror film. Then there's another reference as Izumi speaks of the jealousy that Kaoru has for her relationship with Tsuyoshi. Izumi pulls the reference from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) when Izumi opens her mouth and screams at Kaoru, exactly like what Donald Sutherland does in that movie. I rolled my eyes and was flabbergasted. It was a pretty blatant reference... both kind of were. And the rule of thumb is that you never reference a better movie in your film. Kakashi referenced at least two better movies.

So, the movie is moving along. The townspeople are reviving dead relatives through scarecrows. Izumi's restless spirit who is seeking revenge on Kaoru is kind of messing up the entire town though, causing a kind of dark energy to spread across it even into the zombie scarecrows. I like the idea of this, but it never really comes out after it's mentioned. I mean, yes, both of Izumi's parents are killed, but it's never really tense. It never feels as dark as it should. I think I might feel intimidated by some creepy zombie scarecrows, but it mostly feels kind of boring. They shamble a bit and there kind of is a chase... kind of... but really they're wasted... really, really wasted.

I will admit though that the best part of the movie is the ending. It gets kind of a little creepy maybe and stuff actually happens finally, which are always pluses in a horror movie. I like the way the scarecrow policeman gets up. That was pretty creepy, kind of unsettling to see a person move so unnaturally. Then... OH NO DIRT.... um, don't know where that came from... Oh boy, is this movie almost over? I kind of want it to be over... Again, the ending is good, but the movie is so slow and dull that I just want it to end already.

Eventually Kaoru finds her brother and grabs Sally. They all go off to leave the town but get sidetracked somehow to where the scarecrows are set to come back to life... conveniently. Izumi comes back to life and calls Tsuyoshi to her who uses a flare to burn them both up while they embrace. The burning effect is not well done, but sentiment was beautiful. I really liked it and thought it was pretty effective.

Eventually Sally and Kaoru run through the tunnel from the beginning of the movie, but Kaoru hears her brother calling her and decides to go back to the town as Sally escapes. It's a standard ending and kind of works, but I have questions and thoughts about this movie. And I shall list them.

1. What is Kaoru's relationship with her brother? It seems more than sisterly. Maybe it's just a Japanese thing, but seriously Kaoru seems either extra clinging or it seems like she may have an incestuous relationship, or at least incestuous feelings, for her brother. Maybe I'm wrong or reading too strongly into it, but it seems pretty apparent to me. It changes the dynamics of both characters if this were true, showing Tsuyoshi's coming to the town to be a way to get away from a sinful relationship with his sister, and Kaoru's pursuit of him to be basically showing that she is indeed the villain in this movie, not Izumi, who seems to be the biggest victim of all, a victim of Kaoru and her clingy ridiculous behavior. Now, even if there is nothing sexual or incestuously wrong with Kaoru's relationship with her brother, she's still wrong and terrible, basically refusing to live out her own life, giving it up rather easily just because her brother is that important to her. It's rather offensive to the senses.

2. I  like the living scarecrows, the shells that take in the dead souls. I think the original manga is much better put together, with the scarecrows accidentally taking on the faces of the dead and the souls never really coming back to life. It seems creepier that way, certainly more unsettling, and less explainable. I don't like the town with a dark secret type of thing, certainly not if it's supernatural like this movie was. The original manga just had more mystery and a better feeling to it. This film seemed really boring despite its short length. It just didn't have the power to be scary or effective or even really well done. It was an intensely mediocre film, one that I couldn't recommend to be watched even if it isn't necessarily an offensive or terrible film.

3. The tunnel seems to show a transition between life and death. I liked this idea quite a bit, but have seen it in other movies, most memorably in Spirited Away, where it was done SO much better. The transition between the living world and the world of the dead is a meaningful one and one that Kaoru just can't accept in the end, which I think is absolutely interesting, but really it's too little, too late for this film.. All of those people in the village cannot accept death and so live side-by-side with death, but once you leave the village, you leave death behind you as well. You move on, finding life instead of basking in death. It's what makes Sally's decision to leave such an important and strong-headed decision whereas Kaoru's decision to stay in the village is instead a weakness on her part. She's essentially a very needy, very weak character who has no choice but to look back when her brother calls, who has no choice to leave the land of the living because she doesn't have the strength to go on alone. You don't look back to death once you leave it behind you. You never look back. Orpheus taught us as much. Sodom and Gomorrah taught us as much. Salt, anyone? But Kaoru did look back, and of course it damned her. The ending might be the creepiest part, and the most thought-provoking as well. It certainly was a reference to those works and I thought it was very effective, even if it kind of destroyed Kaoru as the heroine and as a strong character... but she was never really strong, was she?

Kakashi is not a great movie. It has some moodiness to it and its atmosphere is well done for the most part, but it ultimately fails as a horror movie because it's never really scary. And it fails as a normal movie because it's never really all that interesting. It could have been a good zombie film, but it lacked the zombie bits. It could have been a good ghost revenge film, but the revenge really never comes. Kaoru both "wins" and "loses," but Izumi seems to basically cease to exist, thus never finding happiness with the, I assume, reborn Tsuyoshi, and never finding happiness in finding revenge against the girl she hated so much. It's a wishy-washy film, one that never really seems to do anything at all, and it ultimately fails because it could have been so much better if it had tried to be something definable, something scary or interesting. Instead it never really is anything at all.

Movie Appraisal: The Curse (Noroi) (ノロイ) (2005)

Now, here's a movie that I can't really accurately describe. Noroi is a strange Japanese found-footage film brought to us from director Kôji Shiraishi dealing with psychics, supernatural phenomena, and a paranormal expert investigating different strange occurrences that all deal with a demon by the name of Kagutaba. It's all over the place at times, moving from one scene to another with lightning fast speed, never really focusing on any of the smaller characters within the film, and setting the story up without much fanfare. In some ways the movie is very stylistic. I can imagine many people falling to one side or the other about the quality of this film, especially its quality as a horror film. It has some strange decisions in its plot and characters that are almost mystifying. And yet it does a good job all around at being a found-footage film and bringing about its story, however strange, by any means necessary.

The film is found-footage as I mentioned previously, with the paranormal investigator Kobayashi and his cameraman doing most of the filming of the strange incidents. But every once in a while a Japanese television show, either an interview show, game show, or reality show seems to come on top of the footage to show some background about characters and their situations. The pacing is all over the place through this though. It never really sets itself at a comfortable pace nor does it ever reach a high echelon of storytelling. That all being said, the story is well done and interesting. The characters are very believable. The acting is mostly very good. In general it is a good movie, maybe even a good horror movie, but I found some things to gripe about anyway.

The movie never really became a scary experience for me. There were plenty of good moments. Hell, there were some moments that felt right out of The Blair Witch Project to me, and I actually found those quite effective in general. Stuff moving inexplicably, the woods and the shrine at night, hell even some of the added in or CGI figures worked pretty well, maybe even because they looked so out of place. The boy in the film, Junko Ishii's son, is possibly the creepiest character in the film. In the beginning of the movie, as he looked through the curtain, I definitely felt a shiver creep up my spine. That face actually was kind of creepy. Sorry to say that about your face, kid, but it was a little creepy.

The movie is fairly predictable though, but even so many plot points come out of nowhere with little plot-wise reason for those things to happen. Characters die for seemingly no reason with their deaths plastered in words on the screen telling us of their deaths rather than showing or telling or anything else. It was an odd way to go about killing off characters in a horror movie, and it fell rather flat for me. I actually rolled my eyes the first time it happened because I had said, "And that was the last time I ever saw them. They died a day later." And the freaking subtitles said almost the exact same thing a moment later. It was a little ridiculous.

The main characters did a good job throughout though. They were consistent and all acted beyond my expectations. There were moments of silliness and overacting, but they were often realistic and all-in-all really well done. The shrine scenes are probably the best and most hectic in the entire film. Certainly creepy. The faces and some of the things seen in those scenes were absolutely awesome and horrific, and now all I want to do is go to a Japanese shrine. I thought that the possession scenes were particularly good too as well as the psycho... I mean, psychic... Hori, who has to be the absolute best actor in the film. I mean seriously, the guy went over and above in the insane department and it really worked. I've seen and known a good amount of homeless men who were a little off and he fits the bill perfectly. I would have taken him for a guy who was a bit off any day of the week.

I also liked the subplot for the town that was put underwater for a dam. Something about that is fascinating, although maybe that because I don't live very far away from a dam that was put over a bunch of towns and villages and the like. I've always found the lost town aesthetic interesting and cool, and the whole plot of it in this movie certainly worked really well for me.

Yes, this movie has a lot of missteps, and yes, it is overly long at times. Boy is it ever. This movie could have been thirty minutes shorter and I don't think it would have been a bad thing. It really stumbled in place with its slow pace. The faster paced scenes or the setups to some of he weirder scenes worked much better than the slower scenes where nothing much happened. But that's the nature of film, and I liked the movie well enough that even the boring and slow bits weren't all that bad. Anyway, I did like the movie, finding it as a decent fond-footage film in general with a few decent scares packed in. It's intelligent as well, but is very Japanese at points, so much so that as an American I had trouble recognizing what I was looking at. I think I also lost a lot not being able to read Japanese because of all the writing on screen at different times.

Anyway, I recommend the movie. It's good, straightforward, and shocking at times albeit tamely shocking. (I'm making myself an OXYMORON today.) I think most people will find this movie effective and well done. I wasn't ever freaked out or scared by it, but I almost never am at this point. It does have predictable elements and is very slow-paced, but I think the movie is definitely worth watching once, especially if you like odd Japanese horror with a strange and supernatural edge.

Kagutaba. Ka...gu...ta...ba...

Ka...
.....gu...
.........ta...
.............ba...

KAGUTABA LIVES

Movie Appraisal: Uzumaki (うずまき) (Spiral) (2000)

Well, here's an oddity of a film, one that is much more bizarre than terrifying, and much more mystifying than interesting. It's like a Tim Burton nightmare world, full of spirals and darkness, but with a lot more blood and guts as well. It's a fairly silly film altogether although it does have some wonderfully macabre ideas. I enjoyed portions of the film, but the whole thing left me wondering if there could have been a better execution... but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's start with...

PART 1: THE MANGA
So, I know this is based off of a manga called Uzumaki. I've read portions of it, but would rather not spoil the later bits. So, I'll only talk about the portions that are relevant to the discussion of the movie. This film is a really good adaptation of the manga. It has scenes basically taken word-for-word, shot-for-shot, from the manga. That's certainly not a bad thing. The manga certainly has its moments, but...

Let me tell you something. I know just about nothing about manga. This is the absolute very first manga-thing I've ever even read. My girlfriend coaxed me into reading it, knowing that I'm incredibly fond of body horror. And yes, there is body horror and it made me happy, but reviewing a manga or even 100% understanding it was something I wasn't even certain I could do. I mean, I sometimes feel as if I have something viscerally against the very idea of manga. So, this was different and even somewhat difficult for me o be okay with, but I did it. I read it, and I watched the movie. I have to say that it is a very good adaptation, probably even better paced than the manga itself.

That being said, in a weird way some parts of the manga seem better, whereas at other times parts of the film are better. I personally prefer the main character, Kirie, from the manga. I found her movie counterpart to be a much sillier, much more ridiculous character. She's hard to take seriously, and her actress seems to be a little over the top. Okay, really over the top at times. That being said I preferred her boyfriend, Shuichi, from the movie, finding his manga counterpart moody and annoying.  I mean, seriously, the dude says the exact same lines in most panels he's in, and he acts almost the exact same, which is like a psychotic person. In the movie he's much mellower, calmer, and genuine. I really liked his character in the film until the very end... but I'll get there. Oh boy will I get there.

As for other items between the manga and the film, I found most of the adapted portions to be pretty decent if a bit predictable. I actually wish more had been taken from the manga because the plot might have been a tad more coherent at times... although even the manga has the problem of a pretty incomprehensible plot at times. I, again, prefer the pacing of the film, seeing it as being less episodic and meshing together a great deal better, but I actually prefer the storytelling of the manga, seeing it almost like a scary tales for kids type of story.

PART 2: HORROR
So, I'm going to point this out right now: this movie is not scary. It is not horrific. It is not terrifying. It does not make me jitter and shake. It does not make me want to scream or run. Honestly, I found myself laughing fairly often, usually mocking the ridiculous direction and the very often strange characters. If there's anything I can compare the movie to it would be Twin Peaks. The same sort of humor as well as odd-ball characters  are present in both. I certainly don't mind that. I mean, I love the hell out of Twin Peaks, so seeing a movie with a similar feel had me kind of falling for it a bit.

The big problem is that the acting and the direction are not very good, and while Twin Peaks has at least a few fairly disturbing scenes and elements to it, Uzumaki is mostly pretty ridiculous. I can name all of one creepy scene in the entire movie, and that's more because of the thought of the thing and the gore than because of the film being effective at creeping me out. It was the scene where Shuichi's mother tears off her own fingerprints. Yeah, that was pretty crazy and disturbing, but when I saw Shuichi's father kill himself in a washing machine... well, I found myself laughing hysterically at the thought. I mean, I couldn't stop laughing at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation.

Overall for a horror movie, it isn't scary. That does not make a great horror movie. The film is interesting and sort of a fun watch, but is so damn ridiculous at times that it's easier to make fun of than be scared of.

PART 3: THE SPIRAL

The imagery of the movie is all about the spiral. All you see is spirals everywhere, spirals in hair, in the air, in food, in objects, on people, in smoke, in water... I can just keep on going. Would you like me to keep stating the objects that have spirals? Because I will. So many beautiful spirals everywhere.

Oh, I kind of like looking at them. They're really fascinating, aren't they? I could... well, I could just look at them all day long, staring at them, wanting them everywhere around me. I can... I can almost hear them speaking to me, telling me the secrets I've always wished to know. These secrets spirals, the brilliant vortex of both life and death, mocking me as it leans and moves, vibrating in my very mind, calling to me as I... as I...

PART 4: TRANSMIGRATION
I think I'm at peace now, with the spirals multiplying on my very being. I'm at peace that my cochlea is spiraled. I'm so happy that my fingers have spirals upon them. I am gladdened in my own very red heart that my hair curls enough to be a spiral itself.

The ending to the movie is absolutely awful. It ends both abruptly and without any fanfare. I think the rest of the movie is probably worth watching, but the ending is so cliched, abrupt, and disappointing, although the very last image of the film is absolutely breathtaking. I guess the good has to come with the bad. I wish the movie would have been better in general. If it had been I could have seen myself absolutely loving it if it had been a stronger movie, but as it stands it's pretty mediocre overall. It has some fantastic ideas, mostly coming from the manga and the imagery within it, but in general just doesn't work all that well with its odd direction style, its rough actors, and its sometimes comic dialogue. It also has some pretty bad CGI at times, but to me that isn't even surprising.

I think the movie certainly had potential, but failed ultimately as what it was trying to do. I wish it could have been creepy or scary or a horror movie, but instead it comes off as a pretty rough and well-paced adaptation of a pretty mediocre  and terribly-paced manga.