¡QUÉ HORROR! 2011
Candidate # 16

CHATROOM
(May 2010)


Being a Hideo Nakata fan, having missed Kaidan and having been rather disappointed by Death Note: L Change the World, I waited for Chatroom with relish, and I’m glad it turned out to be a disturbing picture of how today’s technology, ostensibly bringing all of us together in one global digital village, can still be the avenue by which manipulation and deception can harm the unwary.
Written by Enda Walsh (based on his play of the same name), Chatroom follows five youths trying to make meaningful emotional connections in their own ways and how that simple urge to be a part of something bigger than one’s self can potentially be a dangerous, and possibly fatal thing.
Chatroom’s got some fine performances from Kick-Ass himself, Aaron Johnson (also impressive as a young, pre-Beatles John Lennon in Nowhere Boy), and 28 Weeks Later’s Imogen Poots. Matthew Beard (Chatroom is my first exposure to his work) also proves to be a promising name to keep tabs on in the future.

Chatroom doesn’t give any easy answers to the only-too-real possibilities it raises. The truth is, the young, the angry, and the misunderstood have always sought comfort from each other, closing their ranks to adults, shutting themselves off from the world they’re meant to be a part of. And lies and manipulation happen everyday in the real world. The ‘net simply makes things easier for the unscrupulous, because of that filter afforded by physical distance, by the interaction through keystrokes. It’s so much easier to escape the consequences of our actions, of an unthinkingly dropped word here, a callous comment there.
This is the everyday horror of the Internet Age. The interesting thing about Chatroom though, is, it’s not so much about the dangers of the Internet, but about the dangers of parents’ inability to effectively communicate with their children; it’s about the dangers of children acting out in ways their parents are ignorant and oblivious to.
At the very least, Chatroom is a film that should open up discussion, not just between peers, but more importantly, between parents and children. Perhaps, it’s not really cyberspace that needs to be watched over, but our own personal circles of friends and family.

(Chatroom OS courtesy of digitalspy.co.uk.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (75)
FANTASIA 2008

Canadian genre fans have the distinct pleasure of going whole hog from July 3-21 as this year’s FanTasia Film Festival (“North America’s Premier Genre Film Festival”) gets underway, with a lotta titles to go rabid for.

Among them: Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s [REC]; Tomas Alfredson‘s Tribeca champ, Lat den ratte komma in (Let The Right One In); Ryuhei Kitamura’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train; Trygve Allister Diesen and Lucky McKee‘s adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s Red; Dario Argento’s La Terza Madre (Mother of Tears); Jonathan Levine‘s All The Boys Love Mandy Lane; Daniel Myrick’s The Objective; Nacho Vigalondo‘s Los Cronocrimenes (Timecrimes), Jim Isaac’s Pig Hunt; Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom‘s Faet (Alone); Hideo Nakata’s Death Note spin-off, L: Change The World; Phedon Papamichael’s From Within; Ole Bornedal’s Vikaren (The Substitute); and Yam Laranas’ English-language remake of his own Sigaw, The Echo.
Both The Midnight Meat Train and The Echo are getting their world premieres at FanTasia 2008.

And, to the delight of Balaguero fans (like myself), FanTasia will also be screening his entry from the Spanish TV production, Películas para no dormir (Films To Keep You Awake), Para entrar a vivir (To Let). Another Pelicula para no dormir getting the big screen treatment at the festival is Alex de la Iglesia’s La habitación del niño (The Baby’s Room).
Sadly though, I can’t do the bilocation thing, so I’ll miss all the fun (Balaguero or otherwise)…
Sigh.
But for all you Canadian horrorheads, have a blast!

Parting shot: Reviews of Balaguero’s Los sin nombre (The Nameless), Darkness, and Fragiles (Fragile); Nakata’s Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) and The Ring Two; Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno; Isaac’s Skinwalkers; Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom‘s Shutter; and Shusuke Kaneko’s Desu noto (Death Note), can be found in the Archive.

(OS’s courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com [[REC] and Let The Right One In], twitchfilm.net [The Midnight Meat Train], bloody-disgusting.com [The Objective], and impawards.com [Timecrimes].)

THE EYE
(Review)

First, a few words regarding my thoughts on the Pang Brothers’ original Khon Hen Phi.
Though it did have its moments, I have two main problems with it.
One: there were several stretches of the film where the tension was not quite at a level that could sustain the narrative and maintain my interest in the on-screen proceedings.
Two: that climax seemed rather jarring given all the largely low-key bits that had come before it. I always considered that sequence a little too Hollywood a capper for this otherwise very Asian horror film.
So it seemed rather appropriate that an English-language remake would spring into being. And though I was looking forward to it when Hideo Nakata’s name was floating around the property, it eventually fell into the laps of French directing duo, David Moreau and Xavier Palud. Now, their Ils (Them) grabbed enough of my attention to at the very least warrant my interest in their redux, so it was with, what I termed in my Ils review (located in the Archive), “a healthy sense of anticipation,” that I approached The Eye.
What I got was a mixed bag: though The Eye has, like its predecessor, some moments, and that Hollywood climax seems slightly more at home here, the problem of the narrative sustaining its own tension is, sadly, still evident.

Now, as I’d expected, both Alessandro Nivola (as Patrick Faulkner) and Parker Posey (as Helen Wells) carry their own weight here, though Posey flies in and out of the narrative pretty quickly. (Appropriately enough, she’s a stewardess.)
What came as a surprise is that Jessica Alba (as blind violinist Sydney Wells, whose cornea transplant suddenly gives her both normal, and second, sight) actually delivers a passably effective performance, probably the best I’ve seen from her.
Though she does miss a beat here and there, it’s still commendable that she’s clearly stretching here. So long as she steers clear of any future Fantastic Four malarkey, there could still be some hope for her.

It was, however, disappointing that Moreau and Palud couldn’t capture that same sense of tension they nailed in Ils.
I actually had the same reaction to Alexandre Aja’s follow-up to Haute Tension, his remake of The Hills Have Eyes, that it wasn’t as taut as his previous film. Of course, in both cases, the set-up for Ils and Haute Tension is such that the majority of the on-screen action—of the stalk and slay variety—occurs in a rather short amount of time.
Now, while in The Hills Have Eyes, the tension seemed to dissipate since it became spread out over a number of different characters, in The Eye, it ended up defused by the nature of the narrative itself.
There just doesn’t seem to be an adequate amount of atmosphere and suspense to tide the audience over and keep them on the edge, even during the slow bits.
I do however, give props to Patrick Lussier, whose editing, though not exactly brilliant, is quite effective in a number of spots.
Though having mentioned Lussier, I do have to mention something else.

There was talk that floated last year about re-shoots for The Eye that did not involve Moreau or Palud, and that in fact, Lussier was the man who came in to handle them.
It’s a distinct pain that this is becoming a frequent practice, particularly when the film is the first Hollywood project for a foreign director (it’s reportedly happened to the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers, Oliver Hirschbeigel’s The Invasion, and Xavier Gens’ Hitman, to name a few).
To be fair though, The Eye is certainly better than either The Messengers or Hitman. It’s also not as severely compromised as The Invasion. In point of fact, if the Frenchmen were indeed not involved with those re-shoots, then it isn’t plainly evident where those new bits are in the overall picture.
As far as the film’s stand-out moments go though, they don’t quite measure up to the original’s.

If it’s two things I took away from Khon Hen Phi, it was the long-tongued ghost licking obscenely at some meat (sadly gone in this version) and the floating elevator dude (present here, though I do recall finding the original’s take far creepier).
And though I did say the climax felt a little more at home here, this version of the sequence also went whole Hollywood hog with the idea, complete with incidental car chase. Also, as I recall, in Khon Hen Phi, there were some casualties. (Weren’t there? It has been awhile since I’ve seen it…)
Here, Sydney apparently gets everyone out alive.
Sure, this is post-9/11 America, but I suspect it’s really because of one thing: this is Hollywood, people, so the victories have to be grander, don’t they, the triumphs more complete and all-encompassing.
As it is, we’re lucky they still kept the “blessing in disguise” outcome, so the climactic victory still came at an apparent cost.

Ultimately, The Eye is an acceptable English-language remake, and though I can’t really say it’s significantly better than the original, neither is it particularly worse. All in all, a passable way to while away some time. On the heels of what Moreau and Palud achieved with Ils though, this is, admittedly, a bit of a let-down.

Parting shot: Reviews of Ils, both Fantastic Four installments, The Messengers, Hitman, and The Invasion can be found in the Archive.

(The Eye OS, banner, and image courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (59)

59.1 CRUISING TRIBECA 2008 (2)
The line-ups for the Discovery and Midnight sections of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival have been announced, and the films that have piqued my interest are:

Discovery
La Habitación de Fermat (Fermat's Room), directed and written by: Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña. (Spain)
The walls are closing in—literally—on four brainiac mathematicians with shadowy pasts in this muchotense debut. A sexy virtuoso, a hardheaded hottie, a doleful drunk, and a middle-aged merrymaker have all been brought together by the mysterious Fermat to solve their most profound equation yet: Why is someone trying to kill them?

Sita Sings the Blues, directed and written by Nina Paley. (USA)
Using a variety of colorful animation techniques, writer-director Nina Paley wittily interweaves the story of Sita, the leading lady of the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana, with the story of a modern American woman struggling to keep her marriage afloat.

The Wild Man of the Navidad, directed and written by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks. (USA)
Based on real-life journals, this intelligent retelling of an old urban legend, shot in a ’70s-style B movie aesthetic, focuses on a Texas community terrified by a mysterious creature inhabiting the nearby woods.

Midnight
The Cottage, directed and written by Paul Andrew Williams. (UK)
A kidnapping plot goes horribly awry when two brothers and their potty-mouthed hostage stumble into the wrong farmhouse in this gory horror-comedy.

Dying Breed, directed by Jody Dwyer, written by Michael Boughen, Rod Morris, and Dwyer. (Australia)
Inspired by the legends of a 19th-century cannibal and an extinct tiger, this brutal horror-thriller centers on four friends who find out that something—or someone—murderous lurks in the rain-slogged Australian bush.

From Within, directed by Phedon Papamichael, written by Brad Keene. (USA)
Evil comes from within in this smart, supernatural thriller, set in a small extremist evangelical town that is mysteriously afflicted with serial suicides.
Up-and-coming cast includes Elizabeth Rice, Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Laura Allen (Dirt), and Rumer Willis.

Killer Movie, directed and written by Jeff Fisher. (USA)
A reality TV director copes with a spoiled celebutante and a show gone haywire when a masked killer starts bumping off the crew in this slasher-movie satire from a director who did time working on The Simple Life.

You can find the complete lists of the Discovery and Midnight sections of the 2008 TFF here.

59.2 REMAKE REMIX RECYCLE (1)
Those of you who frequent the Iguana probably know that I love me my Hideo Nakata. One of his films that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see though, is Joyû-rei (Don’t Look Up; a.k.a. Ghost Actress).
Apparently, though Nakata was approached to helm an English-language remake of Joyû-rei, the man now taking the director’s chair is Fruit Chan. I guess things didn’t work out with Nakata, which is, on the one hand, sad.
On the other hand though, I love me my Fruit Chan too, so I’m looking forward to this one; Chan directed my favourite segment of Saam gaang yi (Three… Extremes), “Dumplings,” an extended cut of which was also released as the feature film, Gaau ji. (Try and catch both, if you’re able.)
In the English-language Don’t Look Up cast, one Henry Thomas, who once upon a time, bicycled across the face of the moon with E.T.
Shooting begins April 14 in Los Angeles.

(The Cottage UK quad courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; The Cottage image courtesy of telegraph.co.uk; Joyû-rei OS courtesy of lapuertaoscura.com; Three… Extremes OS courtesy of impawards.com; Dumplings DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)

IN THE INTERESTS OF ALL THINGS RECYCLABLE (4)
CHAKUSHIN ARI
(ONE MISSED CALL)

With Hollywood’s take on Chakushin Ari having gotten its US release on January 4, I decided to resurrect this one for the World Wide Web. Enjoy.

Looking back…

Chakushin Ari (One Missed Call) is one of the latest films from the insanely prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike, and is the first of his films I’ve seen that is set squarely in the Asian supernatural horror genre.
The film revolves around Yumi Nakamura (Kou Shibasaki, from Norio Tsuruta’s Kakashi and Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale), whose friend Yoko, dies after receiving a call on her cell phone, a call that was apparently made from the very same phone: what sounds like Yoko’s own voice, speaking a few innocent words, then screaming. The call is dated two days in the future. Two days after receiving the call, Yoko dies, after uttering the same words on the mysterious call.
In the vein of films like Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Takashi Shimizu‘s Ju-on, a sinister chain of deaths begins, all presaged by the receiving of a phone call, as the future victim speaks his or her last words, the impending date of death conveniently displayed on the cell.

Exploring the theme of the co-opting of modern technology by ancient, supernatural forces for their own malevolent ends (as was done in Ringu/The Ring, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo, and of course, its English-language remake, Jim Sonzero‘s Pulse), Chakushin Ari also delves into the idea of abuse as a cycle—a chain that must be broken, lest it revolve endlessly, its touch reaching out to others far removed from the initial victim, connected only through chance and circumstance.
And unlike Ringu, where the breaking of the chain was required simply because it would save a character’s life, in Chakushin Ari, not only would that prevent someone’s death, but there is also a broader context for which the breaking of the cycle is necessary. In that respect, there is a thematic cohesiveness in Chakushin Ari that is absent in Ringu.

As far as the mechanics of the “curse” goes, whereas in Ringu, anyone who happened to watch Sadako’s videotape would fall prey to her rage, in Chakushin Ari, anyone who is part of the cellular network is a potential victim, and these days, that’s practically everybody.
And shutting off your phone, disconnecting yourself from the network, canceling your cellular subscription, destroying and throwing your phone away, isn’t enough. Your phone will turn itself on, your SIM will reactivate, your phone will find its way back to you, intact and operational, and you’ll still wind up very dead.
Which is, on the one hand, proof of the power that supernatural force has, but on the other hand, is kind of a cheat.
And speaking of cheats, there’s one big fat one towards the film’s end that stretches the envelope of the audience’s suspension of disbelief to near-breaking point. It’s one of a couple of unfortunate lapses in what could potentially have been a much more substantial film than Ringu, given what Miike was apparently aiming for.

Another flaw is a subplot concerning a television show that manages to broadcast to viewers across Japan, a pivotal set piece in the film’s supernatural goings-on. Given all the build-up towards that particular sequence, as well as the bravura execution of it by Miike, with nice editing touches and masterful pacing, one would think this would lead someplace.
Instead, as soon as the sequence is over, the TV show subplot suddenly ends, truncated, as if in one of Miike’s more ultraviolent moments. We don’t see how this event, broadcast live, affects the general public. No reactions at all to indicate the impact this has on the citizenry.
If we had, I think it would have reinforced the notion of how an evil can permeate society with its malignant influence, a notion already inherent in the idea of a curse being passed on through the cellular network. Sadly, we don’t see that; following that sequence, we immediately return to the very personal tale of Yumi and her struggle with the evil that is calling out through her cell phone.

And, having mentioned Miike’s penchant for ultraviolence, it can be said that Chakushin Ari comes nowhere near the gore and splatter quotient of Koroshiya Ichi (Ichi the Killer). Nor is it as bizarre as Bizita Q (Visitor Q). Nor as disturbing as Odishon (Audition).
It is, in fact, one of the most accessible and mainstream films I’ve seen from Miike, alongside his moving adaptation of Shugoro Yamamoto’s Sabu.
Which is not to say it’s completely “safe.” Chakushin Ari has its fair share of creepy moments, and, despite its occasional lapses, is an effective work that can enter the annals of the on-going renaissance in Japanese horror (sparked by the global success of Nakata’s Ringu) with devilish ease. It’s certainly a far more effective chiller than Masato Harada’s Inugami, or Tsuruta’s Kakashi.

And, as with Nakata’s Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara (Dark Water), Chakushin Ari also attempts to be something more than just another horror movie. Though where Nakata succeeds, Miike falls just a little bit short.
Chakushin Ari shares another thing with Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara: the study of the mother-daughter dynamic, though the one displayed in Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara is decidedly healthier and far more positive than those depicted in Chakushin Ari.
Of course, if oeuvres are anything to go by, Miike’s worldview is significantly more warped than Nakata’s, so this really isn’t a surprise.

Another possible weak spot in Chakushin Ari is its curiously ambiguous ending, which is open to interpretation and debate.
Even the plot twist towards the film’s end—taking a page from Dario Argento’s Sotto Gli Occhi Dell’assassino (Tenebrae), tweaking it, and giving it a supernatural spin—may not be such a twist, as you may see it coming, or at the very least, consider it as a possibility before the big reveal.

Ultimately, Chakushin Ari is a film to watch, if you’re into the Asian horror film scene, or just want a good scare.
Though as far as J-Horror goes, as much as Miike makes a good impression, Nakata’s still got the spectral crown firmly on his head.

Since then…

Miike has gone on to direct a gazillion more films since Chakushin Ari, some (like Zebraman and Yokai Daisenso—The Great Yokai War) more mainstream than others (his rambling, metaphysical samurai movie, Izo).
He also contributed “Box” to pan-Asian horror anthology Saam Gaang Yi (Three… Extremes) and the too-disturbing-for-American-cable “Imprint” to Masters of Horror’s first season. And then there was some good old fashioned Ultraman Max thrown in for good measure, as well as that great cameo in Eli Roth’s Hostel.
Notable in his 2007 output are Kurozu Zero (Crows: Episode Zero) and Sukiyaki Western Django.

Chakushin Ari was also followed up by two sequels, Chakushin Ari 2 and Chakushin Ari Final, neither of which had Miike in the director’s chair; 2 was directed by Renpei Tsukamoto, while Final was helmed by Manabu Asou.
Neither sequel was quite as good as Chakushin Ari.
Also, in 2005, the same year Chakushin Ari 2 hit theatres, a television series of Chakushin Ari invaded Japanese homes, all 10 episodes of which are available on DVD. Haven’t seen those though, so I honestly don’t know if the show was any good.

Looking forward…

Armed with that freaky-a$$ one-sheet, One Missed Call is helmed by French director Eric Valette, and stars Ed Burns, Shannyn Sossamon (last seen in Catacombs, review in Archive), and genre fixture Ray Wise.
I hope they retain that truly disturbing ring tone from the original…

(Chakushin Ari DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com [Double Disc Edition] and amazon.co.uk [2007 UK edition].)

(The “Looking back…” section above is a slightly altered version of a previously published review entitled “Missed Opportunity.”)

reVIEW (4)
DARK WATER
[2 of 2]

Walter Salles' English-language remake of Hideo Nakata's Honogurai mizu no soko kara, Dark Water, is finally upon us, and it turns out to be the most subtle horror film made since Fruit Chan's Dumplings.

From a script by Rafael Yglesias (based on the Nakata/Takashige Ichise script, which was, in turn, based on the Koji Suzuki short story, “Floating Water”), Dark Water is the tale of Dahlia Williams (Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly), a woman in the middle of a messy custody battle with her husband Kyle (Dougray Scott of Ever After and Mission: Impossible II) over their six-year-old, Cecilia (Ariel Gade).
Forced by economics to move into a rundown apartment block in Roosevelt Island just outside of New York City, Dahlia's life quickly becomes harried and strained as the weight from her troubled childhood collides with the unsettling events that begin to take place in her new home.
Connelly (who is amazing here, just as she was in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream) submits an astoundingly naturalistic performance, and is merely the tip of an intimidating and effective thespic iceberg, which includes John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, Pete Postlethwaite, and The Practice's Camryn Manheim. Even young Gade as Ceci is impressive.
And the kudos aren't just for the performers. There is the man behind the camera who must be commended as well.

What Salles has managed to do here is take his talent for presenting the audience with real, textured, and nuanced characters—as those in his Oscar-recognized Central do Brasil (Central Station)—and apply that strength to the ghost story template, producing a masterful work with potent emotional impact.
Taking the themes of Nakata's original—love and abandonment, and how both are not necessarily mutually exclusive—Salles gives us a horror film that manages to transcend the idea of horror as genre/marketing category, and enter the realm of horror as emotion. Salles' Dark Water isn't about the long-haired ghost and the sudden cheap scare to get the audience to jump in their seats. It's about the slow realization that horror (or at least the seed of it, its potential) is, in a sense, all around us, and that horror can wrench the soul just as much as grief can. Salles isn't interested in goose bumps and the shrill shriek followed by nervous laughter; he explores dread and anxiety, the fears we all face on any given day: will there always be someone who will love us, or will we be ultimately left, alone and alienated?

Now, if you're beginning to think this may not be your idea of a horror film, maybe you should listen to your instincts.
Since my exposure to horror at an early age (one of the pivotal moments, watching Richard Donner's The Omen in the long-gone and sorely missed Rizal Theater at age 8), I have had the distinct privilege of exploring its breadth and depth, in both film and literature, appreciating the shock metal grue of splatterpunk and the delicate atmospherics of quiet horror, and everything else in between; all the ghosts and psychopaths, werewolves and vampires, zombies and cannibals, and other assorted things that go bump in the night, which caper and twitter and twirl madly in the vast spectrum of the realm of horror.
Karen Berger, editor-in-chief and mother of DC's Vertigo line of comic books once said, "Horror is a great backdrop or platform to explore a lot of relevant modern-day issues. Neil [Gaiman] and a lot of the Vertigo writers used horror as a genre device to explore deeper things." She also went on to talk about using horror as a backdrop "... to explore the world in which we live, and the real disturbing aspects about society and humanity, and everyday life."
Horror is meant to be unsettling; it is there to jolt and jostle us out of our complacency, to counter-act the anaesthesized delusion of the Hollywood feel-good movie, where everything is solved by a song-and-dance routine to some golden oldie, and everyone is smiling and happy before the end credits roll. Horror opens our eyes. It imparts truths to us, however harsh or bitter those truths may be, in the hopes that we may have epiphanies, so we may better our selves and our lives.

Hideo Nakata, one of the premier talespinners of horror today, clearly understands this. Apparently, Walter Salles does too.
So, if you've an open mind as to what the word "horror" could mean to you, then get out there and take Dark Water in.
And if not, well, there's always the next horror film, complete perhaps, with long-haired ghost, ready to glide into the multiplex sooner than you think.

(The above review began life under the title “Seepage (Taking in Dark Water).”)

(Dark Water OS courtesy of impawards.com; Dark Water DVD cover art courtesy of trailerdownload.net.)

reVIEW (3)
HONOGURAI MIZU NO SOKO KARA (DARK WATER)
[1 of 2]

Hideo Nakata's Ringu opens with an image of the sea, waves moving in its ceaseless, eternal rhythm. His Hitchcockian psychosexual thriller Kaosu (Chaos) has its title card set against a shot of rain. Even his first Hollywood film, The Ring Two, opens with images of water. If opening images are anything to go by, Nakata seems to have a yen for water.
If there is any credence to this notion, then actually having the word in a film's title, and having it as a central image, might just have been inevitable.
Once again adapting material by Koji Suzuki, as he did with Ringu—this time out, the short story “Floating Water”—Nakata opens Honogurai mizu no soko kara with a credit sequence whose backdrop is filthy water, immediately submerging the audience in the medium used by the tale's supernatural menace to spread its sinister influence.

Appropriating as its English-language title the name of the Suzuki collection where “Floating Water” is contained, Dark Water revolves around Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki), a separated single parent raising a child on her own (as was the scenario in Ringu). This time around, the child is a little girl, Ikuko (Rio Kanno), who finds herself in the middle of a custody battle. And while this domestic crisis is on-going, mother and daughter move into a new apartment, where strange incidents immediately begin to occur, as a ghostly force seems to have found a target in little Ikuko.
What follows is a film with more ambitious aims than Ringu, and one of its triumphs is that Nakata succeeds in hitting the bull's eye dead-on.

Though Yoshimi is just as harried a single mother as Reiko Asakawa was in Ringu, Yoshimi has abandonment issues from her childhood, that she is anxious she not repeat in Ikuko's case. Ultimately, this is a bitter irony, given what Yoshimi is forced to do to resolve the central dilemma of Dark Water. Also, Ikuko is a far more normal child than Ringu's Yoichi, who emanated an unsettling, other-worldly maturity in his demeanor.
With these telling differences, it is clear that Nakata strives to people the story with individuals, to steep the tale in as much reality as possible, before the supernatural slowly seeps into its fabric.
Structure-wise, he even does away with the gambit of the creepy opening set piece, as seen in Ringu. In fact, Dark Water could have been played with the tantalizing possibility that all the strangeness was taking place in Yoshimi's head, a ploy perhaps of her scheming husband to gain custody of Ikuko. This isn't Nakata's tack, however. But given that the story could have been told from this angle, pitting the tension of a natural, rational explanation against a supernatural, irrational one, becomes a testament to the authenticity of the scenario; of its reality.

While in Ringu there was already a strong feminine presence, with Reiko and Sadako (and, to a limited extent, Yamamura), in Dark Water, the masculine presence is nearly non-existent, with only Yoshimi's ex-husband, a helpful lawyer, and a couple of other males playing very minimal roles. As far as Dark Water goes, the feminine is near-ubiquitous, which seems only natural, considering the film's central image of water.
In the Chinese belief system, yin ("shaded") energies are feminine, as opposed to the masculine yang ("sunlit"). Yin is also water and darkness, while yang is fire and light. Thus, yin is the negative part of the equation, while yang is the positive, sadly reinforcing the sexist belief of women being the weaker gender. A proper balance between these two forces is believed to be a prerequisite for the perfect life.
So perhaps it is this imbalance in Yoshimi's life that brings down the misfortune in the first place, but what Nakata ultimately does in Dark Water, consciously or otherwise, is to short-circuit the whole yin/yang balance, proving that a problem can be faced and addressed without the need of a male presence. Yoshimi is able to protect her child, her maternal love giving her the strength to pay the hefty price for Ikuko's safety.

Nakata is also able to present us with one of the hoariest scenarios in horror, the haunted house, and still make the goosebumps rise. And he doesn't even need to rely on outlandish production design, as in Jan De Bont's terrible misfire, The Haunting, to make the setting a character in its own right. All we have here is an apartment building, run-down and gloomy. A cramped, creaky elevator here, a water stain on the ceiling there, a grotty water tank on the rooftop, and presto, instant creepy haunted house.

Another nice touch in Dark Water is that, ultimately, the ghostly presence isn't truly a malignant one: it is only because of its loneliness that it reaches out to the living, unknowing (or perhaps, unmindful) of the harm it is causing in its wake. This isn't some raging spirit who sets off a spiteful curse that claims lives indiscriminately, by pure chance. This is a wraith with very specific needs and desires, paradoxically making it that much more malevolent, even if its motives aren't.
In the process of telling his story, Nakata is able to raise the issue of just how damaging to a child's psyche abandonment can be. Again, ironic given the story's resolution; as in Ringu, the mother is forced to do all she can to protect her child, though safety in Dark Water comes at a far greater cost. Here is an ending that could quite possibly be a far more cruel thorn than Ringu's cold-blooded climax, due to the element of self-sacrifice involved.

It is evident that Nakata intended Dark Water to be a horror movie with substance, and that it is, an urban ghost story whose ultimate influence is far more subtle than the obvious effects of the Ringu Cycle, though no less potent and crucial to the evolution of modern horror cinema.

(The above review began life under the title “... And Not A Drop To Drink (Diving Back into Dark Water).”)

(Honogurai mizu no soko kara DVD cover art courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; Dark Water collection cover art courtesy of clouded-moon.blogspot.com.)

reVIEW (2)
THE RING TWO

The Ring Two, the English-language debut of noted Japanese director Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Kaosu), is, just to establish the verdict up front, an excellent horror movie. It isn’t perfect (there is a contrivance here, a convenience there), nor is it Nakata’s best—that honor still belongs to Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water). Nevertheless, it’s a well-crafted, atmospheric piece that serves to validate and fortify some of the lamer aspects of Gore Verbinski’s unimpressive remake of Ringu, The Ring.
And, lest you may worry that The Ring Two is merely Nakata revisiting his own Ringu 2, rest assured he doesn’t do that here; though the climactic set piece is ostensibly similar to that of Ringu 2, the films’ stories aren’t the same. (Actually, if there’s a film Nakata revisits in The Ring Two, it’s quite possibly Dark Water; but more on that later.)
Returning from The Ring are mother and son protagonists, Rachel (Naomi Watts) and Aidan Keller (David Dorfman), and evil video ghost-child Samara, who’s now interested in more than just scaring young, photogenic, pimple-free American adolescents to death. She’s more ambitious this time around, our Samara.

What Nakata achieves in The Ring Two is a creepy and effective follow-through on Verbinski’s slick though terribly flawed The Ring. This is to be expected though, given that Nakata originated the entire filmic Ringu cycle, and his presence on this production not only assures masterful horror film artistry and craftsmanship, but also apparently supplies Ehren Kruger with enough inspiration (or perhaps input) to deliver a script that is far better and more substantial than the one he slapped together for The Ring.
Here, not only is the theme of maternal love and responsibility—how far would you be willing to go for love of your child?—explored more deeply than the surface-scratching lip service we witnessed in The Ring, but the ideas of the original are studied in much closer detail, allowing the audience an increased level of scrutiny, as well as a clearer understanding of why Anna Morgan (Shannon Cochran) murdered Samara in the first place (a reason more complex than the “we-must-kill-the-bad-seed” motivation provided in The Ring). Issues of abuse, neglect, and abandonment within a mother-child relationship are also considered here.
Additionally, the larger Hollywood budget allows Nakata to push the visual elements of the tale, gracing the screen with some of the most eerie and impressive paranormal effects scenes in a movie of domestic horror since Poltergeist, incidentally, also one of the earlier proponents of the television-as-an-appliance-of-doom idea.

Naturally, Nakata’s leitmotif of water, found throughout his body of work, continues here, where we are made privy to what water means to Samara, again forming mental connections to some of the elements in The Ring, almost as if part of Nakata’s agenda was to make Verbinski’s film make more sense in retrospect.
There’s also a scene here, recalling a similar sequence in Richard Donner’s The Omen, which serves to bolster the entire equine epidemic subplot in The Ring, which, in the sole context of Verbinski’s film, was digressive and rather pointless.
If anything, The Ring Two ends up making The Ring look like an interesting prelude to the real, substantial story, as if all this time, Verbinski’s effort had actually been a prologue disguised as a feature-length film.
The Ring Two can also be seen on a certain level, to be a further explication and elaboration of some of the themes and ideas found in Nakata’s Dark Water. Which is not to say that this is a rehash; The Ring Two is still very much its own animal, a slick horror film with atmosphere and depth, a rare breed in Hollywood.

So, while we await Nakata’s next English-language project, we have the director’s successful first dip into the raging waters of American moviemaking. Here’s hoping Nakata’s Inhuman (apparently his next Hollywood project; see The Director’s Chair (1): Archive June 2007) will be another specimen of that rare breed of Hollywood horror film The Ring Two belongs to.

(The Ring Two review began life under the title “Round and Round We Go Again.”)

(The Ring Two OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR (1)

HIDEO NAKATA in
“CATCHING GHOSTS
(Hideo Nakata and the Hollywood Game)”

A good movie from Hollywood is like a ghost: you hear about them, but you hardly (if ever) actually see them.
Hideo Nakata… now he’s a man who knows his ghosts.
I’m sure you know the story.

The cursed videotape. Sadako of the long black hair, whose unquiet spirit lives in a well, who emerges from television sets to literally scare her victims to death.
I’m talking, of course, about Ringu, Hideo Nakata’s chilling adaptation of a Koji Suzuki novel, a movie which single-handedly ignited the Asian horror film scene, paving the way for film-makers from Korea (Kim Ji-woon, Park Ki-hyung), Hong Kong (Kuo-fu Chen, Pou-Soi Cheang), Thailand (the Pang brothers), and Nakata’s homeland, Japan (Norio Tsuruta, Takashi Shimizu), to strut their spectral stuff on the silver screen.
The boom was so resounding, it was heard all the way in Hollywood, which has gone on a feeding frenzy, purchasing English-language remake rights to even the most lame and tepid of the recent entries.
Thus far, there’ve been two Rings (the second brilliant, the first not)*, two Grudges (both ultimately disappointing), a Dark Water (brilliant), and a Pulse (again, brilliant), with more still ‘round the corner: The Eye, One Missed Call, Mirrors (from Korea’s Into The Mirror), and the long-in-development redux of Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters).**
Even Sigaw is being remade as The Echo, with Jesse Bradford (of Bring It On and Swimf@n) in the lead role.

This entire redux frenzy can largely be traced back to Nakata’s door.
With low budgets and simple stories, Nakata is able to infuse the screen with atmosphere and character, two things Hollywood has difficulty grasping. He expertly crafts confidently-paced tales, exploring themes of abandonment and betrayal and love, of the elusive power and nature of the feminine. All this, and he scares the hell out of us too. What more could you ask for?
Directors of the caliber and talent of Walter Salles (who directed the Dark Water remake) and Jonathan Glazer (see below) interested in revisiting his work: surely this must be a strong testament to the integrity and craftsmanship of the originals. Sadly, it’s these same characteristics that evaporate into the rarefied, climate-controlled air of the multiplex when the remake is particularly clumsy and inept.

There is also the inherent problem of the test screening.
The release date for Salles’ Dark Water was bounced around a lot due to the issues raised by unsatisfactory test screenings, which forcibly reshape a film, sometimes even changing its ending to better suit the audience’s tastes. (Famously, films like Fatal Attraction and Pretty In Pink had their endings revised due to this process.)
More and more, a Hollywood film is Art by Committee, if you can still even call it “art” when the final fate of a film is left in the hands of test audiences across America.
Subjected to this process, a film becomes a cold, calculated thing, designed to cater to the least common denominator, engineered to take the particular form of its essential self that would probably rake in the greatest amount of cash. It’s sickening. I’m sure Hideo Nakata didn’t approach Ringu like that.
But such is the beast called Hollywood.

Other Asian directors have tried: Peter Ho-Sun Chan directed The Love Letter (with Kate Capshaw), before returning to Hong Kong and establishing a production company instrumental in the making of Gin Gwai (The Eye), and pan-Asian horror anthology, San geng (Three, where his elegiac “Going Home” is contained), as well as its sequel, Three… Extremes.
Whatever his reasons, Chan walked away from Hollywood.
We can only hope that Nakata, fascinated as he is by water (a recurring image in his films), can expertly navigate Hollywood’s turbulent seas; for his English-language films to ultimately have the same distinctive stamp of his earlier works (and The Ring Two was a fine start).
Perhaps then, on the inside, he can help subvert the establishment, and show Hollywood just how to catch those ghosts.

Parting shot: Since The Ring Two, Nakata’s name was floated in connection to the remakes of The Eye (ultimately landing in the directorial hands of David Moreau and Xavier Palud) and The Entity (the based-on-a-true story film of a woman who is repeatedly raped by an invisible presence), as well as an adaptation of Japanese suspense novel Out.
While things went back and forth on those projects, Nakata directed Kaidan back in Japan, and is currently at work on the Death Note prequel, L (much to my consternation; see Afterthoughts (5): Archive April 2007).
Recently, he’s been reported to have reunited with Ringu producer—as well as his co-writer on the script for Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water)—Taka Ichise, to tackle Inhuman, a horror movie pitch made by Eric Heisserer, loosely based on a Japanese murder case.

* Nakata brought to the Dreamworks sequel the slow, measured tread and creep so blatantly absent from Gore Verbinski’s slick The Ring, which was crippled even further by an unnecessarily busy script by Ehren Krueger.

** And though not a horror movie the way the others are, Nakata’s Kaosu (Chaos), a film with Hitchcock’s shadow long and dark over it, with its twists and turns and reversals, was once also being considered for the remake treatment by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth).

(The above article is a revised version of a piece previously published under the same title.)

(Image courtesy of revistafantastique.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (5)

5.1 So my daemon’s name happens to be “Onthia.” Say “Hello” to her whenever you drop by; she’ll be keeping my iguana company. They’ve got a lot to chat about. Girl talk, I expect.
If you have no idea what I’m blathering on about, go on down to the website for The Golden Compass (due out this December), or better yet, read Philip Pullman’s so-dark-are-you-sure-these-are-young-adult-novels His Dark Materials trilogy, then go to the website.
You too can find out about your own daemon!

5.2 If you’ve read my review of Shusuke Kaneko’s Death Note (Archive: March 2007), you’ll know that I was horrified by Kenichi Matsuyama’s performance as “L.” Well, it turns out that there’s a spin-off in the works, a prequel to Death Note, focusing on “L,” and Hideo Nakata’s come on-board to direct.
I’m truly horrified at the prospect, as I’m a big Nakata fan, and now, I’ve suddenly done a 180 from not caring a whit about the spin-off and not even planning to give it a go, to getting anxious about it and wondering what Nakata saw in Matsuyama’s performance that he actually wants to work with him.
But then again, who knows? Maybe Nakata can pull off a coup and elicit a decent performance from Matsuyama.
Here’s hoping.

5.3 It turns out that Sebastian Cordero’s Cronicas won one Ariel out of the six nominations it garnered this year. The win was for Best Actor (Damian Alcazar).
Still, co-producer Guillermo Del Toro isn’t too sad, I suppose, given his wins for El Laberinto Del Fauno; see Afterthoughts (2) (Archive: March 2007.)

(The Golden Compass image-- Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter-- courtesy of aintitcool.com.)