My friend let me borrow this. With my friend being a major film buff and having a refined taste in films, I was expecting something really good here. And me being a graduate from film school (still making short films and Japanese horror films no less) I've come to realize that the Japanese horror genre is something truly gritty, dark and frightening. Films like Ring, Ju-on and Audition are completely terrifying pieces of horror. This film however is not a part of that category.
While billed as a horror film, it really doesn't feel like horror. There really is no tension built up because the pacing is very dream like. Also in all horror films there is a clear "evil" plaguing the main characters. But throughout this movie I was left wondering "what the ?#($ is going on? Are these ghosts? Whats the motivation?" Even after the "explanation." In this movie, the explanation is trying to be logical, but if you think about it, the logic of it is completely ludicrous. And more importantly it doesn't explain anything. It doesn't give connections to why this is happening with the computers and why these "red tape" rooms are being created. Now I don't know if this lack of coherency is a result of a bad translation of the subtitles (but I can speak Japanese and could understand some of the original as well). It feels like certain things were "left out." For example, in the tag-line used for the movie on this site, it talks about a web-cam that is used. There is never once a mention of a web-cam in the movie, nor did I see one.
And that is the second problem. This film is so gritty and so dark that its really difficult to see things properly. (that's my one complaint about Japanese films, they are all so poorly lit) I grew more frustrated than intrigued because things were not clear enough the make out.
And lastly the characters and situations are not really plausible. The world this story takes place is overly contrived. Everyone is lonely and has no friends. I mean, not one friend. That's not normal, even for someone who is lonely. The way everyone reacts also isn't very believable. It feels like the film maker had something to say, but in doing so created a place and characters which aren't totally believable.
I have to say that this movie was completely baffling to me. But there was a very creepy and gritty atmosphere built up. But for this viewer, it is not enough. A movie is supposed to be everything coming together to tell a visual story. Here the story is lost somewhere in the murk of the atmosphere.
While billed as a horror film, it really doesn't feel like horror. There really is no tension built up because the pacing is very dream like. Also in all horror films there is a clear "evil" plaguing the main characters. But throughout this movie I was left wondering "what the ?#($ is going on? Are these ghosts? Whats the motivation?" Even after the "explanation." In this movie, the explanation is trying to be logical, but if you think about it, the logic of it is completely ludicrous. And more importantly it doesn't explain anything. It doesn't give connections to why this is happening with the computers and why these "red tape" rooms are being created. Now I don't know if this lack of coherency is a result of a bad translation of the subtitles (but I can speak Japanese and could understand some of the original as well). It feels like certain things were "left out." For example, in the tag-line used for the movie on this site, it talks about a web-cam that is used. There is never once a mention of a web-cam in the movie, nor did I see one.
And that is the second problem. This film is so gritty and so dark that its really difficult to see things properly. (that's my one complaint about Japanese films, they are all so poorly lit) I grew more frustrated than intrigued because things were not clear enough the make out.
And lastly the characters and situations are not really plausible. The world this story takes place is overly contrived. Everyone is lonely and has no friends. I mean, not one friend. That's not normal, even for someone who is lonely. The way everyone reacts also isn't very believable. It feels like the film maker had something to say, but in doing so created a place and characters which aren't totally believable.
I have to say that this movie was completely baffling to me. But there was a very creepy and gritty atmosphere built up. But for this viewer, it is not enough. A movie is supposed to be everything coming together to tell a visual story. Here the story is lost somewhere in the murk of the atmosphere.