Yogen (Premonition) (2004)
JAPAN --- horror

Dir: Norio Tsuruta

Anyone who remembers the US television show "Early Edition" will be familiar with the plot and subject matter in this second entry of the J-Horror series of films. Fortunately, this film sticks a little bit more closely to the formula of the sub-genre without straying into some strange areas that fails to even entertain, let alone scare, the audience. Based on the 1973 manga "Kyoufu Shinbun" ("Newspaper of Terror") by Jiro Tsunoda, "Yogen" involves a high school professor (The J-Horror occupation of choice) who becomes involved with a haunted newspaper that foretells the future.

The film opens with a brief shot of an old newspaper obituary of Chizuko Mifune (the subtitles has her last name Kifune). This woman was a real-life self-proclaimed clairvoyant with psychic abilities in the Meiji dynasty (roughly around the mid 19th century to early 20th). According to this film, she killed herself and apparently foretold her own death from a newspaper article. Next we are shown a family driving on a road trip. Professor Hideki Satomi (played by Hiroshi Mikami) is finishing some business on his laptop in the backseat with his young daughter, Nana as his wife, Ayaka, (Noriko Sakai of Ju-On: the Grudge 2) drives them along. Hideki must pull over to a phone booth to urgently email his work. It's here he sees a crumpled piece of newspaper clipping with the headline "Young Girl Killed in Auto Wreck". He opens it further to see a picture of his own daughter. Meanwhile, his daughter is locked in the car seat, as Ayaka tries unsuccessfully to pull her out, she goes to get Hedeki. Out of nowhere, a huge truck slams into the car, and with the daughter trapped in the backseat the vehicle explodes. The couple rush over to the car, but realize it's already too late. Hedeki tries to find the newspaper, but it has blown away.

Three years later, we see Hedeki living alone, divorced from Ayaka, and he has become something of a paranoid distraught recluse. Ayaka on the other hand conducts research experiments with local psychics. She has been trying to collection information from these psychics through the use of nensha (thoughtography) about "the newspaper of terror". One of them, an older woman, expresses apprehension about recounting her own encounter with the phantom newspaper. She gets into a really metaphysical explanation of its possible origin, and confirms to Ayaka it is very real and very deadly. Ayaka brings up a man named Rei Kigata, who named the phenomenon, who will figure in the tale later.

Hedeki in the meantime finds himself having strange psychic episodes, one that even involves him experiencing a kind of deja vu moment. He also is involved with a morose female student of his, who suggests she has had an encounter with the newspaper herself. The paper begins to warn him about her as well, predicting her murder as a knifing victim. Meanwhile, Ayaka gets a strange and disturbing phone call from whom she believes is the old woman, prompting her to go out and check on her. Once there she goes through the house looking for clues of the woman's whereabouts and finds a scrapbook of past newspaper clippings accompanied by psychic photographs, as well as a phone number for Rei Kigata. When Ayaka gets upstairs, she finds the woman dead with a photo clutched in her hand. Ayaka calls Hedeki to set up a meeting.

Later, Hedeki is in class and goes to the student he believes is the next knifing victim, when she reveals she too has seen the phantom newspaper, and warns him it is best to do nothing. That night, Hedeki receives a visitation from the paper, as it slams against the window of his apartment. It contains the article with his student's death. Rushing out to the rescue, Hedeki realizes he's too late to save his student, as he confronts the killer but the girl ends up dead anyway. The next day he meets with Ayaka as she shows him the psychic photograph the woman had is of his face in a newspaper article. They both go to a mental institution where they see a man who had similar psychic predictions was driven insane. Soon, Hedeki's predictions begin to increase, and Ayaka goes to him as they go to find answers from Rei Kigata. They get to his place of residence, your typical shotgun shack in the boonies, and find it abandoned, but much like "Ringu" some clues were left behind via videotape. They watch old recordings of Kigata, as he describes his attempt to thwart the "dead zone" by changing the future. They find out Kigata ultimately became a ghostly figure and perished. Hedeki and Ayaka realize that he's in a catch-22, no matter what happens he cannot escape destiny.

"Yogen" is one of those psychological thriller/suspense forays into psychic phenomenon, with a decidedly horrific bent. I'm not so certain it can be called a horror film outside of some forced moments. IMHO, the story and emotional impact of the opening, may have kinda robbed the movie of allowing the audience to be in for some fun scares. We just witnessed an innocent little girl die for crying out loud. Though admittedly, there are plenty of very creepy moments peppered throughout the film. It feels like the director wants to take us on a melodramatic episodic trip with Hedeki, but realizes the story of Hedeki and his family must be resolved. All in all, this film raised the bar for the series a little.

Ringu (Ring) (1998)
JAPAN --- horror

Dir: Hideo Nakata

The film that began the international J-Horror sensation and till this day inspires countless copy cats in the popular sub-genre of horror cinema. The ghostly woman with long black dishevelled hair has been a traditional fixture in Japanese folklore for centuries, but the stark difference with the film "Ringu", is its marriage with modern technology.

The film could be seen as an essay in a nations regret in partaking in the creation of a kind of Frankenstein's Monster with advanced technology. Thanks in part to Reganomics in the 1980's, the world stood by as many leading technology firms and businesses outsourced to Japan for labor and taxation reasoning. Consumers in return bought up their merchandise such as Nintendo, Sony (who is credited with the prototype of the videocassette), Fujifilm, Casio, et al. Even today Japan looks like a futuristic wonderland. The question is, do the Japanese harbor some underlying fear or regret in that ingenuity? The answer is, probably, and as this film poses, the future may not be so much of the threat as that of the past.

"Ringu" has been adapted from the 1991 novel of the same name written by Koji Suzuki. It takes place in contemporary Japan and follows a reporter's investigation into an urban legend of a cursed videotape, that turns out to be all too real. The film opens with two teenage girls, Masami and Tomoko, gossiping about a local urban legend until Tomoko tells her friend that something similar happened to her and her boyfriend earlier that week. The legend goes, while visiting Izu, a boy wanted to record a tv show while he went out to play. When he returned to watch it, he realized the channels were different, and there should have been nothing recorded since that channel did not exist. When he did play it back, a strange woman appeared and told him he would die in one week. Tomoko and her boyfriend were also in a cabin in Izu when they watched a videotape. When the phone suddenly rings, the girls get scared, and Masami boldly goes to answer. They learn it's only Tomoko's mother, and their fears are relieved, until Masami leaves. Alone, Tomoko hears the television come on in the living room by itself, at first she's startled but goes to turn it off. Soon however, she meets her expected fate. Now investigative journalist, Reiko Asakawa, questions some school girls about the legend. They of course all have those "a-friend-of-a-friend" type testimonies, but Reiko picks up on the fact that Izu is the tie that binds. She and her young son attend the funeral of their cousin Tomoko, when she confirms the deaths of Tomoko's group of friends who all rented a cabin in Izu and died. Reiko returns to Tomoko's room, and finds a receipt from a local photolab. She picks it up and finds pictures of the kids on their vacation, except one where all the faces are warped. She realizes all clues are pointing to that cabin in Izu, so she decides to take a trip out there herself. After checking in, she discovers the infamous videotape in the form of an unassuming unmarked videocasstte. She pops it in the player and watches it.

We see the tape contains a series of very strange images, and immediately after viewing it, she sees the ghost of Sadako in the reflection of the television screen. To make matters worse, the phone rings and she answers to hear a buzzing sound. Startled at the revelation that this legend is all too real, she seeks the help of her ex-husband Ryuji, who's now a university professor. She tells him to take a snapshot of him with a Polaroid camera and sees her picture has been distorted like the kids' photo. Ryuji watches the tape, but he doesn't receive a call. He tells Reiko to make a copy of it for him for further study. Ryuji and Reiko thoroughly study the videotape, putting the pieces of the images together and discover this may have been created by someone from someplace called Oshima island. As the couple begin to unravel the mystery, they find out the source of this was a psychic girl named Sadako who died in a well on the island. Now they must find a way to evade the curse, especially when their young son has also watched the tape and time is running dangerously short for them all.

Sadako's tale is an amalgam of two very famous ancient Japanese ghost stories. One being the Yotsuya Kaidan and the other being Banchō Sarayashiki. Though the film is essentially a ghost story with a somewhat technological facet, it doesn't feature overtly high-tech infrastructure, or the spooky old house. In fact it seems to go out of its way to feature exactly the opposite from both degrees with either wide open isolation or congested interiors and exteriors. This serves as a contrast to all the cellphone, video cassettes, and Polaroid cameras utilized throughout "Ringu". There are touching moments with the son and his grandfather and some melodrama between Reiko and Ryuji. The J-Horror tropes were all first established here with the ancient ghost story, evil side of technology, cursed school girls, a single mother, and a doomed college professor.

On the sound design front, one could write an essay (as I'm sure many have) on that aspect of this film alone. It too has gone on to be highly imitated and found its textural construction in nearly every kind of J-horror since. Sure, there are the typical horror movie jump-back sounds to startle you, but underlying that is a whole storytelling device that's somewhat operatic; from the low almost long-distance train whistle for the timestamps, the buzzing insect-like noise of the phone calls, to the crackling white noise positing of Sadako's stalk. It's interesting that this film was actually directly inspired by two Western region films. Suzuki claims he was inspired to write the book after seeing the Tobe Hooper haunted house film "Poltergeist". Nakata suggested that he drew inspiration from David Cronenberg's "Videodrome". "Ringu" is a classic horror film in an era that relies increasingly on shock and gore, which lead to the appeal of J-Horror films. The film has its shortcomings like the lack of further explanation of Tomoko's or that the main characters (particularly Ryuji) clearly appear to possess psychic abilities. The film is a slow burner that allows the suspense to and mystery to build one step at a time. It is unfortunate not enough films today allow the audience to use their own intelligence to figure things out. "Ringu" was followed up by a couple of sequels that, of course, failed to engage and innovate the genre like this one little masterpiece.

The Brood (1979)
CANADA --- horror/science fiction

Dir: David Cronenberg

Does there exist a nether region of the mind that so deeply represses some of our darkest emotions that somehow it can be manifested? Director David Cronenberg explores this question, in what could be one of the greatest films in true psychological horror. It is certainly one of the directors quintessential films. Known for his explorations into a sub-genre he almost single-handledly created in "biological horror", Cronenberg here searches the mind of a woman with repressed issues and the dangers of opening the horrors of the past. Something that was all too prevalent in the introspective "ME" generation of the 70's.

Frank Carveth (played by Canadian actor Art Hindle) is a father and husband in the midst of a bitter divorce as his estranged wife, Nola, (played to the hilt by Samantha Eggar) is undergoing a newfangled kind of therapy at the Somafree Institute. Dr. Hal Raglan (played by the legendary thespian Oliver Reed) runs the center, and is a slightly sinister controlling research psychologist who has developed "Psychoplasmics", a new way of channeling negative emotions and releasing them physically. The Carveth's daughter is a platinum-haired 5-year-old named Candice, who is the quiet observer caught in the middle of her mother's therapy sessions and her protective father. Whenever I see little girls like her or the "Poltergeist" girl I think of "Village of the Damned". Intentional?

After Frank observes one of Dr. Raglan's sessions with a patient in an auditorium, he's convinced his wife is not truly being helped. He's acquired even more disdain for Somafree when he discovers what he assumes are bruises on his daughter. Frank confronts Dr. Raglan about what is happening to his wife and demands to see her, but he only implores the session must not be interrupted by any means, save for their daughters frequent visitations.

Later, we see that Dr. Raglan, in his own way, does question Nola of her possibly hurting Candice, but only gets the revelation of her deep ire for her own mother. Frank takes Candice to stay with her maternal grandmother, who's clearly a chronic alcoholic. This coupled with the little tidbit of back story about Nola's "bumps" creates the rationale for first victim of the film. The grandmother goes to investigate a noise in the kitchen and she is brutally attacked by a diminutive child-like creature in a red parka.

The police later notify Frank of the incident at work and express concern for Candice's calm demeanor after this ordeal. Frank soon tries to find alliances against Somafree. Particularly in a sardonically eccentric former patient of Dr. Raglan's named Jan Hartog. Hartog has filed legal action against Raglan, who he believes may have caused his cancerous growth, thanks in no part to "psychoplasmics".

Meanwhile, Nola's father is in town to bury his late ex-wife. His visit to Somafree to see Nola is unsuccessful, and like his late wife is later murdered by the same dwarf. Raglan's interest in Nola Carveth has increased as the body count goes up. Soon Frank finds Nola's father dead, and the demoniac creature which he takes to the police, which takes him one step closer to the terrifying truth of his wife and her lineage.

Made in the same year as his "out-of-genre" film "Fast Company", "The Brood" was really where Cronenberg found himself as a director. The film is much more polished in its air of mystery and focused on its ambiguous message on what could be seen as a statement on "Women's Lib and the destruction of family". Also the commentary and possibly jealousy that woman can create life and men cannot. This is cemented in a couple of things in the film, mainly Frank's profession as an architect.

This was a personal film for Cronenberg, who was going through a rough custody battle and divorce involving his own daughter. The origin of this kind of film harkens way back to William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" infused with Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde". As opposed to the latter, here dwelling more on a maternal female rather than a male with regressive tendencies and a monstrous second nature. One problem I have with the film is the creatures discovery. Anytime something even the least bit supernatural crosses with something based in realism like police and news media, I personally can't take serious. It takes a good writer to balance it and make it believable. The score is provided by Howard Shore, who with this film was inducted in the Cronenberg repertory. Having come off of being Saturday Night Live musical director , he makes his first attempt at composing a film, and its definitely not his best. This seems too influenced by Bernard Hermann's "Psycho" and other horror films of the zeitgeist to really standout on its own.

Don't Look Now (1973)
ITALY/UK --- horror

Dir: Nicolas Roeg

I came upon this movie twice when searching or looking for other films. It came up once as a suggestion on my Netflix subscription. Then it came up on IMDB as a related film. Fortuitous or not, I figured I should give it a shot. I went into it blind as bat, not having read anything but the description of the film. I read no reviews before. After watching it, I looked up other reviews and such and found it has it's place in film history.

"Don't Look Now" is an unassuming horror/suspense film, that film tells the story of a couple recovering from the horrific accidental drowning of their young daughter. At the time of her death she was wearing a red rain slicker, and the parents John and Laura Baxter (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) soon become estranged. They decide to leave their only son and take a working "vacation" to Venice, Italy might be the cure to their grief stricken estrangement. We are in the middle of the gothic Venice setting; complete with intentionally labyrinthine streets full of statues, churches, and gondolas pulling people to and fro. In this, John Baxter's architectural assignment is to restore a 16th Century church, probably no coincidence if you see the cathartic message there alone.

However, fate intervenes, as the couple encounter two elderly sisters in a cafe, one of which is a self-proclaimed psychic. The blind woman informs Laura that she sees their dead child and Laura has no problem believing it as she is given specific evidence. Laura literally passes out, and is hospitalized, as she reveals to John what the blind woman told her about their deceased daughter. John on the otherhand is a bit more skeptical about the whole situation. The film alludes to the fact that John too is psychic having already had a premonition about his daughter's drowning.

The two sisters' message to John via Laura is to simply to leave Venice. This should have some resonance with the couple as they discover a serial killer is loose. At some point in the film, the couple share a highly explicit and erotic sex scene. Having coincidentally just watched "Lust, Caution" (The R-rated version) just a day before, I was amazed at what they got away with in this film. This completely took me by surprise. Anyway, John consults some help from the Bishop of the church he's helping to rebuild, as he sees a young girl running through the streets with a red rain slicker. It's only when two foreboding circumstances come about that John is prepared to heed the psychic's warning. One, has a near deadly accident on the scaffolding inside the church, the other is an accident back home with their son, to which Laura goes to tend to the matter. However, John sees Laura has returned without notice on a nearby funeral gondola with the two sisters onboard. He quickly chases after her, but catches her to no avail.

He believes something is wrong as Laura has not contacted him, and even goes so far to suspect something sinister from the elderly sisters. Going to the local police to have them investigated, it is only at the point of finding them that John gets a call from home from his wife that their son is alright and she's coming back. However, John confronts the sisters and apologizes for his hasty suspicion of them, until the blind sister again warns that he is still in danger. That he is.

Upon my initial viewing, "Don't Look Now" felt like a Hollywood cash-in ripoff of the "Rosemary's Baby" and "Excorcist" ilk being produced at the time. Then my attitude changed, as it seemed to resonate with me. I kept thinking about it, and it felt kinda Hitchcockian with a Polanski-like vision, and I wasn't sure why. Then I found out it was based on a story by British author Daphne Du Maurier. This name is not a marquee name by any means, but I looked into her and discovered this woman had a huge influence upon Hitchcock, so much to the point three of his films are based on her works! The fact of the matter is, this film deserves all the accolades it gets because of its adult approach to the horror genre.