Meltdown 07: Found Footage Rewind (Part VI)

Noroi: The Curse (2005) dir. Kôji Shiraishi

With (as far as my language-barrier-ed research tells me) at least five mockumentary/found footage films to his name (and three of them in the horror genre), Japanese director Kôji Shiraishi clearly has a certain fondness for the storytelling potential that the format provides, and-- unlike far too many of his peers-- he employs this verite aesthetic to his films in service of the story, rather than constructing a thin scenario to bridge together the handheld frights. This effort is appreciated. The first of his documentary horror films, Noroi: The Curse, was produced in 2005, five years after the initial burst of post-Blair Witch found footage imitators and a few years before the subgenre would rear its head once again. This timing results in the film positioning itself apart from the general trends of either movement and developing its own unique style and concerns (style and concerns that are also markedly distinct from the concurrent and overly flashy J-horror trend, while still drawing inspiration from Japanese folklore). Sure, parts of the film (especially a climactic forest encounter with a sinister force) are reminiscent of The Blair Witch, but not in a manner that feels like a cynical swipe. Rather, those moments only add up to one spooky strand in the complicated web of horrors that the film weaves: other strands include ghosts, possessed women, children with ESP, a tinfoil-hatted psychic, ectoplasmic worms, village sorcerers, ancient demon-pacifying rituals, suicidal birds, and abducted aborted embryos. The fact that Shiraishi is able to reconcile these disparate horror elements into a provocative and ultimately cohesive mystery narrative is miraculous. Furthermore, the fact that he and his cast and crew were able to accomplish the telling of such a coherent story while presenting it through the mediation of multiple forms of found footage is all the more impressive: here we have a film cobbled together from multiple documentaries, TV chat shows, home movies, photographs, and nighttime observation videos, and yet the transitions between them never feel jarring or unnecessarily showy. The position the audience is placed in is akin to that of the fictional documentarian, who immerses himself in the copious data and research surrounding the central puzzle, slowly piecing together the wild and (seemingly) contradictory elements into a unified image of horror. Though Noroi's story is both complex and engaging, it lacks the depth that those films in the subgenre's top tier possess. Consistently tangible throughout the film is the odd tension that exists between the modern technological world and the traditional world of demons and ghosts (and the eerie control that the latter has over the former), but Noroi neglects to make any clear statement regarding the enduring existence of its varied phenomena. Regardless, moments in the film-- particularly the aforementioned forest apparition at the climax-- are among the most unnerving the subgenre has yet produced, and that's worth something.

Occult (Okaruto) (2009) dir. Kôji Shiraishi

A few years later, as found footage was reemerging as horror's aesthetic of choice, Shiraishi released his second documentary horror, Occult. Somewhat disappointingly, Occult uses the same basic approach to the FF genre as Noroi does, with its "Documentary Filmmaker Explores an Occult Mystery Involving Japanese Folklore" premise and smorgasbord of seemingly dissimilar horror elements (here we have: UFOs, stab-happy psychopaths, everyday miracles, a leech child, patterned scars of demon possession, wispy bird ghosts, a squid faced ghost, a camera falling through a portal to another dimension, and (possibly) hell itself). Luckily, what keeps Occult an enjoyable romp, one that manages to stand somewhat apart from its successful forebear, is how nutty it is. Though twists are an expected attribute of any mystery, odds are that even the most seasoned consumers of paranormal enigmas will be unable to fathom the bizarro places that Occult travels to. The film's coda is unlike anything I've ever seen outside of Hausu (1977). What else distinguishes this later film from Noroi is its weird and welcome sense of humor, the most exquisite bit being one in which the documentary's subject, Eno-kun, a possessed man who has been compelled by unearthly forces to suicide bomb a bus station, decides to catch a showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) before committing his diabolical deed and afterwards reports that the movie helped to "cement his resolve." Shiraishi casts himself as the documentarian who films Eno-kun's descent into madness, which adds a smidgen of self-reflective fun, but even better is a cameo by fellow director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure (1997), Pulse (2001)), whose off-kilter and elusive horror films are an obvious influence to Shiraishi. A final aspect of note is the film's fantastic experimental score (some of which you can sample in the below trailer). The soundtrack grates and lulls the ears in equal measure, keeping its listener in a constant state of quiet agitation.

Shirome (2010) dir. Kôji Shiraishi

For his third crack of the found footage horror whip, Shiraishi went for Something Completely Different. Shirome features, at the very least, the most bizarre premise of any FF film yet produced: the real-life, all-teenaged-girl J-pop group Momoiro Clover is persuaded by a director (Shiraishi, once again casting himself in his own role) to be filmed entering a haunted and abandoned school to test out a spooky urban legend about a wish-granting demon, all in order to secure (through demon magic) a spot for the girls to perform on the popular annual television special Red and White Song Battle. In contrast to both Noroi and Occult, Shirome has some rather blatant subtext involving the exploitation of minors in the Japanese pop music industry. Whether intentional on Shiraishi's part or not, the inherently sinister quality of this exploitation is highlighted through both the girls' ultimate selling of their souls in order to achieve fame and their management's callous desire to coerce the girls into dangerous situations without concern for their welfare. The adults in the film also take it upon themselves to psychologically torture the girls: the fictional Shiraishi and his cohorts spend most of the film trying to scare the girls to tears, all in order to fashion a better cheap reality TV program. (In addition to these story-specific critiques of the industry, there are also moments that illuminate the systemic exploitation of young girls in the Japanese music industry as sexual objects. All of the members of Momoiro Clover are disconcertingly simplified, boiled down by their management to a few set characteristics and emotions that they must constantly display and personify. This isn't anything new for pop music, but it becomes more troubling when a 13-year-old girl describes herself (in a sung bio clearly prepared for her by her almost certainly adult male management) as the "little bit sexy" member of the group.) The fact that Shiraishi casts himself as the director exploiting the girls within the film (which, in recursive fashion, he actually is doing by making Shirome) appears to be an implicit acknowledgement of his own culpability, while at the same time using the film to stage a fairly scathing indictment of the absurd lengths the industry pushes pop idol groups to go to in order to achieve fame and success. Then again, it seems just as possible that cultural assumptions are skewing my interpretation towards critique, and that the film might merely be having goofy paranormal fun with a group of spirited pop idols. Either way, Shirome isn't all that fun. At about an hour and twenty minutes long, the film is rather brief and yet still aimless, with the sort of subtle supernatural creepiness that Shiraishi has established his reputation on failing to appear until far too late in the film. But the film is certainly a curiosity, one preferable to yet another FF film in the Noroi mode, even if the end product seems a few significant steps backwards with regard to story, pacing, and genuine horror.

Coming up, in our final installment: The Bay (2012), Area 407 (2012), The Dinosaur Project (2012), & The Frankenstein Theory (2013).

When Horror Came to Shochiku (1967-1968) dir. Kazui Nihonmatsu; Hajime Sato; Hiroshi Matsuno

When Horror Came To Shochiku, The Criterion Collection's 37th release in their Eclipse Series, which strives to provide under-appreciated cinematic gems in moderately inexpensive no-frills DVD collections, is their first dedicated strictly to horror. Though the Criterion Collection is no stranger to Japanese horror cinema-- having previously released Godzilla (1954), Jigoku (1960), Onibaba (1964), Kwaidan (1965), Kurnoneko (1968), and Hausu (1977) in the mainline series-- the four films contained in this new Eclipse set are struck from an almost totally unique vein of genre referents. Those other Criterion horrors belong to a long tradition of Japanese horror cinema that finds inspiration in Japanese cultural mythology, tradition, religious practice, or (in the case of Godzilla) uniquely Japanese ecological concerns. Shochiku Studio's horror output (these four films making up the sum total of it) is more clearly derived from Western cinema, with its multinational casts and decided avoidance of blatant Japanese cultural signifiers leaving each film feeling as if it has been primed for international export. But it would be wrong to call the films mere imitations of horror films with Western sensibilities. Rather, the films engage an assortment of disparate genre conventions from both East and West--ghosts (maboroshi), aliens, giant monsters (dai-kaiju), UFOs, doppelgangers, killer insects, vampires, mad scientists, nuclear disasters--in their frenzied, low-budget madness, producing a quartet of simultaneously goofy and thrilling films that are, frankly, unclassifiable.

The X from Outer Space (1967) dir. Kazui Nihonmatsu

A cloyingly mirthful romantic comedy (in space!) meets a most preposterous giant rubber-suited monster movie, The X from Outer Space is Shochiku's attempt at mining the lucrative kaiju pot and winding up with one of the more bizarre and schizophrenic (though cheerfully optimistic) entries in the canon. It opens at the headquarters of one of those ideal Star Trek era international, multicultural space programs, which, for reasons left sketchy, sends a happy-go-lucky shuttle team into the void of space on a mission to Mars. Six previous missions have failed due to inexplicable UFO interference, and this expedition turns out much the same, with a UFO that looks akin to "the world's largest fried egg" bungling communications and forcing the "astroboat" to take respite on the moon, upon which her unfazed crew flirt with each other and bounce around to the tune of Latin-flavored ballroom music. Soon after the crew set off again, coming into contact with the UFO once more and having their ship's hull covered with blinking, frosted eggs. Scraping one off for a sample and bringing it back to Earth results in the astronauts unleashing the swift development of a gigantic space monster... possessing all the visual ferocity of an antennaed chicken with ruffled sleeves. This monster, dubbed Guilala, birthed in a shower of fireworks and lava, soon makes short work of a cardboard and plaster city, stumbling his gangly way towards the nearest power sources while floor-punching buildings and letting fighter jets crash into his head all the while. He consumes electricity and nuclear power for energy, see, (looking as if he's mindlessly orgasming while doing so), and it'll take the military's combined strength to cover him in shaving cream before he wreaks irreparable damage. In the Eclipse set's liner notes, critic Chuck Stephens pokes fun at the notion of reading any deep themes emanating from either the film's slight interracial romance drama or glowing space omelet. He's right, but I can't help but be floored by the wistfulness with which the survivors talk about Guilala in the immediate aftermath of his killing (probably) tens of thousands of people and the glib lesson that the experience of the frilly chicken monster has taught to blonde-haired astronaut Lisa (Peggy Neal), who then applies it to her love life: "All things should remain where they belong."

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968) dir. Hajime Sato

Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell has the distinction of being the the most visually audacious of the Shochiku horrors. Commencing on a jetliner coasting cautiously through a blood red sky full of blood red clouds, it's no great surprise when events take a turn for the grisly and extravagant. Multiple birds suicide against the windshield, shady deals begin to unfold between the passengers, and a mysterious man attempts a hijacking. The plane loses control and crashes into a mountaintop before anything is resolved, but the situation only escalates from there: the hijacker's body is overtaken by an alien entity in the form of a slithering pile of silver metallic goo that enters him, quite graphically, through a yonic wound it creates on his forehead. The vaginal imagery in this wound is explicit, and the hijacker's campaign of alien-fueled sexual vampirism (enacted indiscriminately on both men and women) complicates the usual gender-specific vampire/victim relationships in an equally interesting and bizarre manner. Also of note is the film's blanket condemnation of human aggression, here pointed squarely at the conflict in Vietnam. The specter of the Vietnam War hovers over everything in the film: a blonde haired American passenger is traveling to pick up the body of her deceased soldier husband, another passenger is an arms dealer setting up dubious exchanges, and the Vietnam War gives the invading alien species the justification it seems to require in order to initiate the genocide of humankind, in a sort of "you-had-it-all-and-screwed-it-all-up" mass shunning. The alien envoy offers "no repentance" to the irresponsible humans and neither does Goke. Innocents die in extreme and merciless fashion, a black and white photo montage of images from Vietnam reminding us of the source of its resolve. As the film ends on a breathtaking apocalyptic tableau, there's little question that director Hajime Sato has painted a bold political critique on his brazen and tawdry genre canvas.

The Living Skeleton (1968) dir. Hiroshi Matsuno

Shochiku's most fascinating genre mashup, The Living Skeleton combines elements of murderous pirates, haunted boats, vengeful ghosts, mad scientists, disguised psychopaths, and wayward bats. The only of these films shot in black and white, its delectable cinematography casts a rain-soaked melancholy over this outwardly simple yet increasingly convoluted tale. It's also the most charmingly spartan production, its hokey special effects (misshapen plastic skeletons floating at the bottom of the ocean, toy boats caught in bathtub storms, rubber bats on strings being thunked against windows) never detracting from the poignancy of the tale in any meaningful way. An initial scene of a group of pirates machine-gunning a boat's restrained passengers segues to events transpiring three years later. Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka) is a young girl taken in by a priest after her identical twin sister (one of the victims in the opening scene) disappeared at sea without a trace. When the long-missing ship that her sister was a passenger on reappears off in the distance of the waters of this seaside village, Saeko and her boyfriend take a disastrous boat ride out to it in a storm. In the aftermath, a ghostly doppelganger begins to take bloody, brutal vengeance on the pirates, most of whom have established themselves as "respectable" members of society with the booty they acquired from the heist. Through this section the film is comfortably formulaic. But, after the surprise strangulation of a main character and the reveal of the sadistic and hypocritical murderer's true identity, The Living Skeleton forgets itself in its perverse ride towards its conclusion. This is assuredly a good thing. The film's most unsettling sounds and images arise from this wild abandon: a sunken-eyed doctor who sleeps on an abandoned ship curled up next to the mummified corpse of his wife with a syringe in his hand and a tape recorder playing the sounds of her orgasmic/tortured moans on a table in the background; a possibly sentient but expressionless corpse clinging with unearthly strength to a man's leg as he drags her along; a boat's superstructure literally melting into the sea. Only in its final, mournful moments does it feel like its contemporaneous Japanese ghost story brethren-- what came before is far too strange and indelibly Western (placing a certain emphasis on Christianity and go-go clubs) to warrant such a simple classification.

Genocide (1968) dir. Kazui Nihonmatsu

The year after helming The X from Outer Space, director Kazui Nihonmatsu returned to Shochiku for another science fiction/horror hybrid, which turned out to be his last for the studio. Genocide is in every way a more accomplished effort than Nihonmatsu's previous film. Its apocalyptic horror derives from a wildly absurd scenario that tops Goke's while sharing a basic resemblance: as nuclear tensions between the Eastern and Western blocs heighten, colossal intelligent swarms of genetically modified insects decide that they would rather wipe out humanity first than risk obliteration at the whims of irresponsible and reckless human beings. No lie, the clever, evolved insects actually communicate this exact intention to a character while he's in a poison-induced trance. The misanthropic ecological message is bolstered by the film's characters, who prove themselves to be all too eager to betray and murder each other, even when facing the total extinction of the human species. Even the character who one would imagine to be the most sympathetic-- a (surprise) blonde-haired Jewish woman named Annabelle (Kathy Horan) who was raped and witnessed the deaths of her whole family while imprisoned in Auschwitz (and who spouts a line that would proudly grace the cover of any lurid 1950s Men's Adventure magazine: "Nazi Soldiers Made Me Their Plaything")-- actively seeks the eradication of humankind because she doesn't "trust humans beings anymore." Because Annabelle, when not scheming, is also the deceitful "plump white butterfly" lover of one the film's main characters, a married Japanese man, the film is also making a more pointed condemnation of interracial relationships than The X from Outer Space could-- sunbathe with a blonde white girl and you just might be precipitating the Insect Armageddon. In addition, there are a slew of unnerving moments here, particularly the bloody mess that the swarms of insects leave when they decide to suicide en masse against the windshields of planes and the agonized sounds of monkeys being wantonly killed by the insects, overheard by two characters as they await their own imminent fates under the protection of a flimsy wooden shack. The film concludes, swiftly, with a murder, a suicide, a plane exploding, an H-bomb detonating, most of the main characters perishing, the insect menace still very much a reality, and a lone pregnant woman stranded in a boat staring at the scorched sun and sky. The events serve as an echo of one of the film's earlier sentiments: "The world in indeed full of chaos and danger."  

Meltdown 03: Lost & Found (Part III)

Zero Day (2003) dir. Ben Coccio

If films like the last two served only to break my spirit in re: the found footage film's storytelling potential, a film like Zero Day then barrels into my life to forcefully remind me of exactly how sublime the method can be when used with a deft and subtle touch. There is no question or nagging doubt tossing around in the back of my cranium that prevents me from calling this the best found footage film I've yet encountered (meaning, not just within the constraints of this marathon-- out of all of them). Admittedly, it's not the best found footage horror film, considering it aspires more to dramatic weight than a chilly atmosphere or a visceral boo. But that's also not to claim that the film (which plays out as the lock-boxed confession tapes of a pair of Columbine-esque school shooters) is devoid of its horrific elements-- barring the nauseating release of its inevitable ending, we are also faced throughout with the horror of the two teens' steely determination to carry out their deed. The FF approach goes beyond being merely appropriate to the subject matter, ending up as an essential foundational device. How else could we more closely engage with these boys to understand their true motivations and those that they offer to the world (which are not quite the same thing)? Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003), with its cold, distancing pop psychology and rationalizations, hasn't half the emotional power. The intimacy of the shared video diary in Zero Day creates a direct link between monsters and viewer that is never not unsettling. We find ourselves naturally able to relate to and enjoy our likeable, charismatic protagonists as they show us how to duct tape shrapnel to pipe bombs-- the cognitive dissonance is almost unbearable.

But it's this too-close approach that enables it to be the most sensitive and realistic film to engage with the Columbine shooting. It allows the film to be adamant in not placing blame upon the old whipping posts (we see that the boys' parents are absolute sweethearts; the boys burn all of their personal possessions before Zero Day with the intention of preventing journalists from blowing their influence out of proportion). Our teen heroes repeatedly blame the high school experience and the dreadful treatment they receive from their peers, but the film smartly never openly agrees with them. In fact, all of the visual evidence we're given is to the contrary (both are affable young men who speak to and blend in with others easily; one of them even has a sort of girlfriend). When the camera is passed around a prom limo from which one of the boys has just exited, we hear the remaining teens in the car briefly discuss that their discomfort with the two future-shooters arises not from dislike but from the degree to which the two have chosen to ostracize themselves from the larger high school social life (although, as we see how dreadfully (though benignly) obnoxious the limo teens are, we do not fault the shooters for staying away). The blame that the film's intricate video diary chooses to reveal falls nowhere but on the teens themselves and their narcissistic psychopathy: they're not sure whether they want to will their confession tapes to Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, or Wolf Blitzer, but they both agree that they should leave the tape running as they exit their car and head towards the school on Zero Day, rendering the scene as cinematic as two bold cowboys riding off into the sunset. Zero Day is an incredible film that with little other than two strong teenaged actors and an understanding of the (at that point still infant) FF genre creates a narrative rife with pathos and social commentary.

Paranormal Effect (2010) dir. Ryuichi Asano & Teruo Ito

Paranormal Effect adheres to the old adage "If It Isn't Broke, Don't Fix It, Just Do It Faster and Change It Enough So You Don't Get Sued." The first half is no more (and considerably less) than Paranormal Activity in Japan. It's not simply a rip of that film's broad concept but also its explicit beats: dopey boyfriend buys expensive camera and decides to film everything despite his significant other's pleas against it; dopey boyfriend disrespects the spirit world (here colored with some patented American disregard for foreign traditions and beliefs); a night vision camera set up to document the couple's bed captures the quasi-possessed girlfriend sleep walking off-camera to do whatever it is quasi-possessed women do; quasi-possessed girlfriend, in her sickness, refuses to leave the haunted residence the night before bad shit goes down. It's blatant and all, but then the dopey boyfriend vanishes and we still have half the film left. Left to its own devices, the film is even less compelling: ten minutes of grating psychiatric interviews with the recovering girlfriend (conducted by a Japanese actress hired presumably only because she could read the English lines, if not deliver them) followed by a prolonged dual paranormal investigation/psychiatric rehabilitation back at the old, plagued flat. Adobe After Effects ghosts whiz across the screen or briefly appear in the foreground, and the crew is "menaced." Paranormal Effect's one bit of (pardon pun) effective scare-making is a self-replenishing bathroom tub full of putrid brown water, unsettling in its very clear implication that any number of horrible things could be lurking underneath-- but of course the film spoils this, too, in a pitifully splashy climax. In searching for the film's poster, I discovered to my astonishment that a sequel is on the way. We are twice blessed.

Road to L (2005) dir. Federico Greco & Roberto Leggio

Road to L (or Il mistero di Lovecraft) possesses one of the more intriguing and promising concepts of the marathon, at least for those both bookish and with a penchant for cosmic horror. It strings itself around the fictional discovery of a lost section of H. P. Lovecraft's diary, which strongly implies that a) he once visited Italy (curious, the film tells us, because previously it had been thought that the perpetually cash-strapped Lovecraft had never left America), and b) whatever grim things he witnessed there were directly responsible for his creative transition from writing comparatively simple supernatural tales to the more far-reaching, grandiose Cthulhu mythos. Set up as an Italian documentary crew's investigation of the veracity of the unearthed documents, the film has primed itself for success. This makes it all the worse when it founders under the crushing weight of its own cloying ineptitude. Road to L is hardly even a film. Though its premise is one ripe for exploration, the filmmakers (who apparently possess little deep knowledge of either Lovecraft or Italian folklore) assume that the mystery they've devised isn't even enough to occupy a short film. In the place of, say, an unraveling mystery, directors Greco and Leggio devote approximately two-thirds of the running time to the shrill arguments between crew members (because naturally we do care if it is the audio technician or the on-screen host who is sleeping with the pretty Italian production assistant). Considering that this crew, unlike many FF whiners, is not in a precarious or life-threatening situation, we despise them all the more. This padding is discarded for a brief ending (which features the all important discovery of some grainy found footage). In these final moments, Road to L shoots for the heights of Lovecraftian dread (finding particular inspiration in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"), and winds up somewhere in the dank gutter. Marvel at the sight of out-of-focus fishmen slathered in blue paint-- assuredly, your wits shall scatter. Thus ended the first day of my marathon. Abandon hope, all ye who dare to follow me into day two. You know, in case you were expecting things to shape up, or something.

Our next installment, if you dare: The Haunted House Project (2010), The Amityville Haunting (2011), and Apartment 143 (2011).