Wrapping up Halloween by playing WayForward’s new port of Clock Tower. I’ve been wanting to try this game for a very long time—so I think that more than justifies the $20 price tag.

Junji Ito and the Horror of Compulsion

[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

At first glance, the premise of Junji Ito’s “Smashed” is almost comically absurd. The plot revolves around a group of youths that become hooked on a sweet, syrupy substance that an acquaintance smuggled back to Japan following a recent excursion to the jungles of South America. Unfortunately, every time they partake of the nectar, they risk a brutal demise: abruptly crushed flat by some invisible telekinetic force, reduced to grotesque pancakes of blood, hair, bones, teeth, and leathery flesh. Escaping this grim (and darkly humorous) fate should be a simple enough matter—just quit eating the darn stuff! Alas, any other food or liquid that they attempt to ingest is utterly revolting (or so they insist), tasting of ash and dirt. Thus, they continue to greedily, gluttonously consume their newfound ambrosia, repeatedly gambling on immediate short-term gratification—a sucker bet that inevitably leads to disaster. Not even the more sympathetic characters are immune to karmic retribution (indeed, the most amoral among them survives the longest); all succumb to their base urges—and pay dearly for their transgressions.

Ultimately, it’s a rather silly story. Ito himself admits that the development process wasn’t terribly complex; what if, he essentially wondered, humans were akin to the humble mosquito—voraciously seeking nourishment, in constant peril of being swatted into oblivion. Nevertheless, the tale’s deeper implications lingered in my memory, haunting me. Were the protagonists literally deprived of their agency by paranormal means? Or was their fatal addiction comparatively mundane in nature, indistinguishable from the sort of chemical dependency one might encounter in our own reality? Did a malevolent otherworldly entity manipulate their actions? Or were they doomed by some self-destructive impulse engraved directly into mankind's collective unconscious—a counterintuitive yet irrepressible instinct as inherent and immutable as the need to breathe?

This theme of compulsion recurs throughout Ito’s work (e.g., “Used Record”, “Hair”, “The Enigma of Amigara Fault”), and the ambiguity surrounding it is consistently compelling. The author wisely resists the temptation to provide concrete answers; the true horror, after all, lies in that very uncertainty.

[Click here for more posts on this topic. Happy Halloween!]

Recently Viewed: Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon belongs to the horror genre; that much is obvious. Not from the perspective of the human “protagonists,” though; their journey is more akin to an old school pulp serial, with a group of improbably attractive, aggressively Caucasian scientists venturing to an “exotic” locale (heavily armed, naturally) in search of fortune and glory. The true terror is experienced by the eponymous monster: from its point-of-view, a bunch of violent outsiders invade its territory and attack it without provocation, intent on exploiting its very existence for monetary gain.

Now tell me: who is supposed to be the “hero” in this scenario?

[And yes, this premise does sound surprisingly critical of capitalism, colonialism, and chauvinism by the standards of America circa 1954—which is probably why its deeper implications are relegated to mere subtext.]

The movie is, of course, justifiably celebrated for its technological innovations: beyond its original 3D format (which hasn’t been terribly well preserved on home video), the ambitious underwater cinematography is still absolutely spectacular, while the delightfully tactile “rubber suit” effects utilized to bring the Gill-man to life remain impressive even in a modern context. What really appealed to me, however, was director Jack Arnold’s effortless command of the fundamentals of visual storytelling. I would describe his style as blunt, yet purposeful, conveying the film’s central themes elegantly and economically. Consider, for example, the following shot:

Despite the relative simplicity of its blocking and composition, the image is dense with narrative significance. To the far left, Mark Williams—the financier of the expedition to the titular Black Lagoon—complains about the steep cost of the excursion, outright admitting that he’s banking on discovering a flashy, marketable novelty in order to recoup the expenses. On the opposite side of the screen, marine biologist David Reed argues that such a mercenary attitude is antithetical to the spirit of serious research; the pursuit of knowledge, he insists, requires a leap of faith—for the sake of progress, one must be willing to accept the inherent risk of failure. And situated at the literal center of the debate is love interest Kay, valiantly (albeit futilely) attempting to mediate between the two irreconcilable extremes.

In short, Creature from the Black Lagoon manages to distill its entire overarching conflict to a single frame. And that is the epitome of immaculate craftsmanship.

Recently Viewed: Creepy

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

With the possible exception of The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, Creepy is probably the most accurate title in the history of cinema. That single six-letter adjective describes the pervasively unsettling atmosphere of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2016 psychological thriller elegantly, economically, and succinctly. Like the director’s own Cure, the film finds horror not in shallow jump scares, grotesque gore effects, or supernatural mischief, but rather in something far more chillingly universal: the nuances of human behavior.

To call the movie’s central antagonist a “serial killer” would be an egregious understatement; that label seems too mundane to apply to his insidious modus operandi. He doesn’t merely butcher his victims’ bodies: he infiltrates their lives, erodes their agency and free will, and unravels their interpersonal relationships. Their minds, spirits, and very identities evaporate long before their flesh expires, reducing them to little more than docile, submissive zombies—obedient (albeit unwitting) accomplices to the psychopath’s sadistic crime spree. Most terrifyingly, it isn't particularly difficult to corrupt them; the oppressive, overwhelming burdens of societal norms and cultural conventions have already irreparably weakened their resolve—their tormentor simply needs to discover and exploit their vulnerabilities, gradually chipping away at their brittle defenses until they finally (inevitably) shatter.

The visual style perfectly complements the story’s underlying themes and conflicts. The protagonist, a former police detective haunted by his catastrophic failure to negotiate a hostage situation in the recent past, copes with his physical and mental trauma by burying himself in his new profession as a college lecturer; beneath his façade of passivity and numb contentment, however, he’s clearly eager to atone for his mistakes—making it relatively easy for an ex-colleague to lure him back into the fold with the promise of an especially baffling missing persons case. As the investigation demands more of his attention (indeed, his “purely academic interest” in the disappearances quickly evolves into an all-consuming obsession), his wife begins to feel increasingly neglected and abandoned; despite her valiant efforts to swallow her misgivings and play the role of a dutiful homemaker and productive member of the local community (though the neighbors tend to be either indifferent or outright hostile, consistently rebuffing her attempts to befriend them), her loneliness, alienation, and isolation remain painfully obvious. Consequently, the couple is frequently framed in claustrophobic, symmetrical, fragmented compositions, the space surrounding them externalizing their repressed anxieties, insecurities, and resentments. The camerawork—which is often so subtle that it borders in subliminal—reinforces this sense of emotional inflexibility; these characters are trapped in private purgatories of their own design—and because the editing implements cuts so sparingly, the audience is forced to suffer alongside them through a series of excruciatingly long, uninterrupted takes, ensnaring subject and viewer alike in an inescapable prison of time.

Ultimately, Creepy closely resembles the murderer around whom its plot revolves: it crawls inside your skull and lingers in your subconscious, refusing to grant you a moment of respite. It’s a deliciously disturbing experience; I savored every unnerving image… but having thus feasted on its rich subtext and complex social commentary, I doubt that I’ll revisit it any time soon.

Recently Viewed: Peeping Tom

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Michael Powell's Peeping Tom opens with an extreme closeup of an eye—a striking image that immediately establishes the story's central theme. The film revolves entirely around voyeurism: the power of the observer versus the vulnerability of the observed; the conflict between blindness (both figurative and literal) and perception (e.g., recognizing that a seemingly unassuming neighbor is, in actuality, suspiciously stealthy, rather than innocuously shy); and the overwhelming anxiety of being seen.

The protagonist is a (reluctant) serial killer that meticulously, obsessively records his violent activities, wielding his camera as though it’s an extension of his body and soul—a distorted manifestation of his fractured psyche and repressed libido. His weapon of choice is the spiked leg of a tripod; whenever he brandishes the makeshift blade, preparing to deliver the gruesome coup de grace, he forces his victims to gaze into a mirror—confronting the warped reflection of their own terror, trauma, and anguish. To paraphrase the playful description of his modus operandi that he provides in one particularly unnerving scene: he watches them watching him watching themselves.

Ultimately, Peeping Tom's immaculate craftsmanship and harmonious marriage of style and substance perfectly encapsulate why I find the relatively recent term “elevated horror” so utterly infuriating. It’s an egregiously reductive, misleading label, implying that the “traditional” version of the genre (which is too often conflated with the deliberately trashy slasher flicks of the ‘80s) is artistically inferior by its very nature—that critically acclaimed works like Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Ari Aster’s Hereditary are rare exceptions to some unwritten rule. But rich, profound, meaningful "scary movies" predate those comparatively modern examples by decades; such compellingly chilling masterpieces (including Psycho, M, and—to name a slightly more obscure title—Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets) have always existed in the medium of cinema.

You simply need to know where and how to look.

Recently Viewed: Alice, Sweet Alice

While Alice, Sweet Alice (alternatively titled Communion and Holy Terror) ostensibly takes place in the early 1960s, its themes are decidedly post-Watergate, betraying its 1976 release date (alongside the anachronistic costumes and hairstyles).

The film is aggressively critical of authority, adopting a tone that is pessimistic to an almost absurd, surreal degree. The police, for example, are incompetent at best and corrupt at worst—quick to jump to conclusions and condescendingly dismissive of the public’s justifiable concerns. The church is likewise utterly ineffectual; whatever spiritual guidance religion may provide is irrevocably, irreconcilably tainted by the moral hypocrisy of the congregation. Even the family unit has eroded beyond recognition; parents are obliviously neglectful, often inadvertently favoring one child over another for totally arbitrary reasons. This pervasive sense of societal decay and the desecration of “traditional values” is personified by the character of Mr. Alphonso, a grotesque, lecherous landlord that spies on his tenants, slurps cat food straight out of the can… and shamelessly lusts after little girls. It's an inherently cruel and fundamentally nihilistic setting, predominantly populated by sadists and sociopaths; no wonder, then, that the victims of its myriad iniquities and indignities are so prone to brutal violence.

This relentlessly bleak atmosphere makes Alice, Sweet Alice oppressively unnerving before a single drop of blood has been shed (though the obligatory masked killer rapidly accumulates a respectable pile of corpses—in quite gruesome fashion, at that). Its flavor of horror is quintessentially ‘70s: gritty, cynical, and gleefully transgressive. It’s giallo by way of John Waters—and I adored every gloriously excessive frame of it.

Recently Viewed: The Slumber Party Massacre

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

For approximately ninety percent of its (extremely brief) running time, The Slumber Party Massacre is, to put it bluntly, an atrociously bad slasher flick. The cinematography is flat and inert, depriving the action of any semblance of suspense, atmosphere, or urgency. Interminably long, monotonous scenes awkwardly limp towards flaccid payoffs; neither the scares nor the jokes land successfully, further muddling the already inconsistent tone. The performances are wooden at best, making it virtually impossible to get invested in the conflict. Perhaps most damningly, the psychotic killer du jour is relatively uninspired, lacking the distinguishing features (sinister mask, grotesque deformity) that might otherwise have allowed him to compete with such horror icons as Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger; he’s just a generic dude, bland and unmemorable. Indeed, that basically sums up the movie as whole: dull, tedious, and excruciatingly boring.

Until, that is, the plot arrives at the climactic showdown, whereupon the murderer directly addresses his would-be victim for the first time, thus providing a glimpse into his twisted subconscious:

Those chilling lines of dialogue almost redeem the entire film—almost. Suddenly, the feminist subtext that was heretofore obscured by layers of gratuitous nudity and obligatory exploitative content bursts to the surface of the narrative. The phallic implications of the villain’s weapon of choice (an enormous power drill), for example, are revealed to be totally intentional—especially once the Final Girl manages to damage the comically oversized tool, symbolically castrating her tormentor. Even the antagonist’s nondescript physical appearance resonates with newfound thematic significance: the ultimate threat to our heroine’s safety isn’t some hulking brute wielding a machete or a scarred dream demon with razors for fingers, but rather a random face in the crowd, seemingly mundane and unassuming. It’s social commentary of the highest caliber—compelling, insightful, and (unfortunately) still relevant.

I sincerely wish that it was in service of a better story.

Recently Viewed: Torso

I’ll say this for Torso: it wastes little time; within the first ten seconds of the opening credits, a woman has already removed her shirt, posed seductively for the benefit of the camera, and engaged in an awkward pantomime of sexual intercourse. While such shallow, obligatory titillation doesn’t normally appeal to me, I admire director Sergio Martino’s lack of pretense: he knows exactly what his audience expects and delivers the goods almost immediately.

The film is otherwise rather pedestrian by giallo standards; then again, pretty much everything pales in comparison to the seminal works produced by Mario Bava (Blood and Black Lace, A Bay of Blood) and Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red). I’d characterize the cinematography as competent and serviceable, but relatively unspectacular; the lighting, for example, is borderline naturalistic, with nary a colored gel in sight. Nevertheless, the action is punctuated by just enough bold, moody compositions to keep the viewer invested. This stylistic patience pays off during the movie’s explosive climax, when all of the previously restrained excess and maximalism are finally unleashed in a single magnificent set piece: a deliciously suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse that features minimal dialogue for nearly twenty minutes—a masterclass in silent storytelling.

Ultimately, Torso is the genre equivalent of a palate cleanser: run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road, and aggressively average. And that’s not necessarily a negative criticism; there’s great artistic value in being unexceptional. Not every meal needs to be a five-star gourmet experience; occasionally, a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich will suffice.

Recently Viewed - Tokyo: The Last War

Like many a follow-up to a bona fide cult classic, Tokyo: The Last War (sequel to Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis) is widely considered to be inferior to its predecessor; the reviews that I’d read online were almost universally negative, dismissing it as overly derivative of trashy, formulaic, uninspired American slasher flicks (the later entries in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise serving as a particularly reductive, unflattering point of comparison). This unenthusiastic reception failed to deter me from purchasing a copy of Media Blasters’ recent Blu-ray release (under the alternative title of Doomed Megalopolis 2) at this year’s Anime NYC convention, of course—and the official beginning of the Spooky Season seemed an appropriate occasion to finally give the disc a spin.

To the surprise of nobody familiar with my easily pleased cinematic palate, I disagree with the critical consensus. Despite its obviously lean budget—which necessitates a less sprawling cast and more modest special effects than the preceding film—The Last War still manages to feel ambitious within its relative limitations. Indeed, I’d even argue that the narrower narrative focus lends the plot a greater degree of urgency and momentum; it is, after all, significantly easier for the audience to become invested in a conflict that revolves around a small handful of genuinely sympathetic characters, as opposed to a bloated, unwieldy ensemble of vaguely sketched archetypes.

Additionally, it’s not as though the movie is lacking in visual flair; it is consistently as spectacular as it can afford to be. There’s an especially impressive sequence, for example, in which the nefarious Yasunori Kato (a role reprised by the inimitable Kyusaku Shimada, whose magnetic screen presence elevates every scene—including those in which he never physically appears) slaughters a group of soldiers in magnificently brutal fashion. One poor bastard is hoisted aloft by psychokinetic energy and slowly twisted in half at the waist; another is decapitated by flying debris, his headless corpse twitching and spasming for several seconds after the fact. The commanding officer, however, suffers the most gruesome demise: forced by supernatural means to clutch a live grenade, the man can do nothing but scream and flail in desperation until the explosive inevitably ignites, graphically (albeit not entirely convincingly) tearing him to shreds.

Ultimately, Tokyo: The Last War hardly deserves its less-than-stellar reputation; it’s perfectly enjoyable on its own merits. Sure, it veers closer to conventional horror than the series’ previous installment (which is best described as “epic urban fantasy”)—but as a fan of both genres, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. Heck, in my opinion, this dramatic departure in tone and style only makes it more interesting. Not better, mind you—just compellingly different.