directed by Koji Shiraishi
Japan
80 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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Oh boy.
I'm watching these out of order because they can be a bit hard to find and continuity doesn't seem to be too much of an issue. I'm not exactly sure how many there are, but I can't imagine there'd be a lot more of them after this one, because of... well, the way that it is. I tried to avoid spoilers in my review of Shivering Ghost, but I'm going to make no such effort here. It's just too complicated to dance around everything that happens. Depending on translation, the full title of this movie is something like "Terribly Scary and Weird Files: The Most Terrifying Movie in the World". You can't lose with a name like that.
So the setup is the same as the past films: a documentary crew producing a show where they investigate the weirdest, creepiest videos they can find is sent a new video, this time from a fan who goes into a notoriously haunted village specifically to shoot something to send the crew. His girlfriend disappears, and when the crew tracks him down, he attempts to kill himself in front of them and then disappears as well. The crew ventures into the village themselves, and from then on it goes in so many different directions that I can't sum it all up in one paragraph.
Right off the bat I was not as enthused with the supernatural stuff here as I have been with the previous two Senritsu Kaiki films I've seen. Compared to everything else, the wispy ghost hands erupting from people's mouths and grabbing their heads just feels a little wishy-washy. The thing I've come to expect from Koji Shiraishi is imagery that's jarring and unfamiliar; the ghost hands feel like something I've seen before. Even the investigation into the village is kind of boring, with the exception that somebody claims it to be the birthplace of the writer of Yotsuya Kaidan, who they allege was also a black magician and is somehow involved with the current extremely haunted state of the village. But it's all very routine: pixelated footage of what we're supposed to believe are severed animal heads and bloody body parts, people screaming, getting possessed, that kind of thing. I should note that there's a real-life idol in this film, who shows off her actual gravure books and whatnot that you can actually buy. I have no idea why she's there and neither does she. She mentions that the film crew paid her specifically to go along with them but that she thought she was doing some kind of variety show. No concrete explanation for her presence is ever provided. Along with her, they have an exorcist from a previous film, and a scientist who is clearly not buying any of the crew's nonsense. Kudo, his cohost Ichikawa, and their three guests each apply their own unique method of investigation to the haunted village.
And then this movie loses its entire mind. I'd started running out of patience for what had been a sparse depiction of silly possessions and bad CGI ghost hands when The Most Terrifying Movie in History took its first hard turn into the bizarre and then took about thirty more. We find out that Kudo, the host of the investigation show, is connected to the village via his parents, who were scientists working there on a project to create enormous, demonic super-soldiers during WWII. (For some reason these soldiers must be girls, hence why Kudo himself didn't get turned into one. Also they're naked.) Kudo brought along another weird talisman, which ended up merging with his body and eventually causing him to get sucked into the worm dimension (second Shiraishi film I've seen that involves somebody getting sucked into the worm dimension) where he witnesses his cohost being decapitated and is transported to the past. He meets his parents and his child self, and after failing to convince his parents to stop their research, he murders both of them. This doesn't seem to do anything to stop the giant ghosts of the super-soldiers from escaping the village, which leads to one of the most memorable final shots I've seen from a filmmaker whose most recognizable signature is memorable final shots. All that is only a quick rundown of what happens in this film.
It's pretty clear now that the backbone of this series is Kudo. He's unhinged in a way that is hard to describe. The completely deadpan way he's played by Shigeo Ôsako makes him feel real-life unhinged, not movie-unhinged. He does seem to have real human feelings - he attempts to stop a guy from cutting his own throat, and appears concerned when the exorcist disappears - but he also just straight-up kills at least three people. He might be self-aware, at least a little: someone asks him if he's an idiot and he says "maybe". Kudo's kind of terrifying because there's no trigger when he goes sicko mode. He's just constantly ready to punch people and beat them with aluminum baseball bats at a moment's notice with no preparation. His film crew are visibly scared of him but for some reason keep going along with whatever he does. I think they're afraid to leave him alone for fear of what else he might do. There are very few characters who feel as bonkers as Kudo. He also becomes a kyodai hero by the end of the movie, so yeah. Ultraman Kudo.
I really don't know what to make of this one. It devolves into chaos harder and in more directions simultaneously than maybe any other Shiraishi film I've seen. I would say that the actual paranormal stuff feels somewhat subdued, but "subdued" is not quite the right word - it feels different because it's taken to the macro scale. This is where the weirdness breaches containment, and now there's a bunch of giants roaming around the country, and all the characters are trapped in the worm dimension. It's no longer just a haunting, it's everyone's problem, and that makes it feel a little less personal and a little less creepy. But for sheer insanity factor, for the Kudo Method taken to its (il)logical extreme, you can't beat this. Unless you can. I still haven't seen all of these movies. And there's something to be said about how the restraints of budget do not keep Shiraishi from crafting something with as much impact and complexity as anything else. It shows that if you're dedicated enough, the medium of film can be used in pretty much limitless ways.
Apologies if this review is not quite up to snuff. I'm working on something.
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