J-horro rising disc 2
Nov. 10th, 2024 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowhiveSo earlier in the week (Monday and Tuesday), I want he’d the next two films on the j-horror rising boxset. I had intended to post my thoughts on them sooner, I did write them up after watching them, but between the trip and tiredness I just lost focus.
However here are the thoughts on the two films, Inugami and St John’s Wort which couldn’t be more different from each other.
Inugami - 3.5/10
Oh boy where to start with this one.
The basic premise is this: a new guy comes to a village, where he becomes involved with the woman who runs a paper mill. Unfortunately her family is, apparently, cursed by Inugami.
I’m gonna start with what’s obvious from the score: I didn’t like this film and I suspect it’ll be the weakest on the boxset, it’s certainly the weakest of the three so far. As I watched I kept hoping it would get better and, why it has a few interesting things, it’s just so… unpleasant. (Though that’s probably not the right word.)
But let’s start with a positive thing. It starts with some beautiful establishing shots of the location, which is on Shikoku island again. It really looks so pretty and I definitely gave it an extra point for that.
I think one of the main issue is the ‘curse’ itself. The family is apparently cursed by Inugami and blamed for every bad thing that happens in the village. And, for the most part, it kinda feels like it’s more the village pining bad things that happen on the curse and, by extension, the family. In fact only two things seem to be the result of the curse, a woman’s death and a computer screen going funny.
In fact the more blatant supernatural element is the family’s mother, who seems to be a living person at first but nope! She’s been dead for a year and is kinda possessing the main lady sometimes?
Also there’s the head guy of the cursed family. His first appearance says it all about him, he enters the paper mill and the first thing he does is slap his wife so hard she’s knocked to the ground. Pretty much every scene he’s in with a woman he’s either berating them, hitting them or outright abusing them. And there’s a scene where he attempts to rape the woman that owns the mill, who is not his wife but his sister. And it isn’t the first time (although when they were first together they didn’t know they were related.)
Oh and it turns out that first time they were together resulted in the lady getting pregnant. She assumed it died in childbirth but her mother arranged it to be swapped with a baby that had died. Oh and the guy that’s new in town that she’s been having a relationship with (and is pregnant with his kid?) yeah that’s her son.
Again they don’t know that when they start their relationship but when he comes back, determined to save her from her family, he doesn’t care and neither does she. (Which id say is one of the few good things about it, normally it would be treated as a ew think but they don’t care)
Of course the real villain of the piece isn’t any supernatural curse or ghost, but the head of the family, who on top of being an abuse, attempted rapist and bad with money, tries to get the whole family to kill themselves at an ancestor festival. Yeah. I did like that they decided to change to black and white for the festival, it turning to colour only when he died but… yeah.
I like I said, I just didn’t like it. While I could see myself watching Shikoku or Isola again, I really don’t see myself watching this again. But at least it had cute guys and a kinda happy ending (and beautiful scenery).
St John’s Wort - 7/10
The premise of this one is that a young woman, Nami, has inherited a mansion from her father who she never knew. She goes to look at it with her ex Kohei, in hopes that it will help inspire the video game he’s working on. But naturally, things take a turn.
This is a very different beast to Inugami, and, indeed the other films as well.
Most of the film is shot in a strange way with the colours of the film slightly ‘off’ like there’s a filter or saturation thing applied to it. It gives it a kinda dream like quality, while also making it feel like it’s a game. And adding to the vibe is that part of it is shot through Kohei’s handcam and there’s also shots of rooms, clearly from cameras.
The mansion itself feels similar to a Resident Evil type one, complete with keys to find and hidden doors and rooms. Also there’s a lot of horror tropes that you might expect from the premise. There’s a creepy caretaker, there’s a thunderstorm, their car won’t start when they finally decide to nope out of there. And of course, they are not alone in the house.
I liked how different it was, especially compared to the others so far. While they’ve all been supernatural in nature (or at had some supernatural element) this didn’t, which has made it sound out.
I’d say for the first 2/3’s the film was really good. The last third I’m not sure exactly what to make of it. There’s a few twists there, probably one too many, but even so I think it was good overall.
Unlike Inugami, I can definitely see myself watching this again.
However here are the thoughts on the two films, Inugami and St John’s Wort which couldn’t be more different from each other.
Inugami - 3.5/10
Oh boy where to start with this one.
The basic premise is this: a new guy comes to a village, where he becomes involved with the woman who runs a paper mill. Unfortunately her family is, apparently, cursed by Inugami.
I’m gonna start with what’s obvious from the score: I didn’t like this film and I suspect it’ll be the weakest on the boxset, it’s certainly the weakest of the three so far. As I watched I kept hoping it would get better and, why it has a few interesting things, it’s just so… unpleasant. (Though that’s probably not the right word.)
But let’s start with a positive thing. It starts with some beautiful establishing shots of the location, which is on Shikoku island again. It really looks so pretty and I definitely gave it an extra point for that.
I think one of the main issue is the ‘curse’ itself. The family is apparently cursed by Inugami and blamed for every bad thing that happens in the village. And, for the most part, it kinda feels like it’s more the village pining bad things that happen on the curse and, by extension, the family. In fact only two things seem to be the result of the curse, a woman’s death and a computer screen going funny.
In fact the more blatant supernatural element is the family’s mother, who seems to be a living person at first but nope! She’s been dead for a year and is kinda possessing the main lady sometimes?
Also there’s the head guy of the cursed family. His first appearance says it all about him, he enters the paper mill and the first thing he does is slap his wife so hard she’s knocked to the ground. Pretty much every scene he’s in with a woman he’s either berating them, hitting them or outright abusing them. And there’s a scene where he attempts to rape the woman that owns the mill, who is not his wife but his sister. And it isn’t the first time (although when they were first together they didn’t know they were related.)
Oh and it turns out that first time they were together resulted in the lady getting pregnant. She assumed it died in childbirth but her mother arranged it to be swapped with a baby that had died. Oh and the guy that’s new in town that she’s been having a relationship with (and is pregnant with his kid?) yeah that’s her son.
Again they don’t know that when they start their relationship but when he comes back, determined to save her from her family, he doesn’t care and neither does she. (Which id say is one of the few good things about it, normally it would be treated as a ew think but they don’t care)
Of course the real villain of the piece isn’t any supernatural curse or ghost, but the head of the family, who on top of being an abuse, attempted rapist and bad with money, tries to get the whole family to kill themselves at an ancestor festival. Yeah. I did like that they decided to change to black and white for the festival, it turning to colour only when he died but… yeah.
I like I said, I just didn’t like it. While I could see myself watching Shikoku or Isola again, I really don’t see myself watching this again. But at least it had cute guys and a kinda happy ending (and beautiful scenery).
St John’s Wort - 7/10
The premise of this one is that a young woman, Nami, has inherited a mansion from her father who she never knew. She goes to look at it with her ex Kohei, in hopes that it will help inspire the video game he’s working on. But naturally, things take a turn.
This is a very different beast to Inugami, and, indeed the other films as well.
Most of the film is shot in a strange way with the colours of the film slightly ‘off’ like there’s a filter or saturation thing applied to it. It gives it a kinda dream like quality, while also making it feel like it’s a game. And adding to the vibe is that part of it is shot through Kohei’s handcam and there’s also shots of rooms, clearly from cameras.
The mansion itself feels similar to a Resident Evil type one, complete with keys to find and hidden doors and rooms. Also there’s a lot of horror tropes that you might expect from the premise. There’s a creepy caretaker, there’s a thunderstorm, their car won’t start when they finally decide to nope out of there. And of course, they are not alone in the house.
I liked how different it was, especially compared to the others so far. While they’ve all been supernatural in nature (or at had some supernatural element) this didn’t, which has made it sound out.
I’d say for the first 2/3’s the film was really good. The last third I’m not sure exactly what to make of it. There’s a few twists there, probably one too many, but even so I think it was good overall.
Unlike Inugami, I can definitely see myself watching this again.
