This has got to be the best movie ever made about Japanese schoolgirls sitting around bickering and running through the woods whining that I've ever seen in my life. Never mind, scratch that. I'm sure there are probably better examples that aren't as boring and perhaps even have a point. As of this writing, there are just two reviews up on here: one spilling over with accolades and the other blasting it to high heavens. I'm in total agreement with the latter. Then again, glancing over the sole positive review and seeing things like "The point is, there is no point" and "At any point, we can cross the line into nothingness" I'm not at all surprised. I never noticed any sort of purpose to the events in this film nor did I gouge any meaning from this film. Actually, it colors almost completely within the lines of numerous other films I've already seen before. There's nothing at all new here. It's not exciting. It's not interesting. It's not scary. It's not entertaining. It's not some art film. And if there's really some kind of meaning behind all of it, it's lost in a sea of clichés and tedium.
Film students Ai (Chisato Morishita) and Maki (Yôko Mitsuya), along with a rich bitch wannabe actress, two of her friends, a teacher and a psychologically troubled girl who's tagging along seemingly for the sole purpose of providing a red herring, go to the secluded Yuai House to film a reenactment of a series of murders that occurred there seven years earlier. All of this somehow ties into a grainy 8mm movie one of the girls found at their school depicting a robed woman in a Noh mask hacking a guy on the head with a blade. The girls settle in to the home, fight, complain, disappear, reappear and thankfully start turning up dead eventually. After numerous bodies are found ritualistically slain, the girls idiotically continue to go off by themselves to get killed. There are several annoying instances where the characters are all in a room or together and by the very next scene are apart for no logical reason. If poor film and sound editing, inept and lazy plot structure and no attention paid to pacing or continuity whatsoever constitutes 'art' then I guess I'll take the alternative.
Do other things occur here other than walking, talking and dying? Sure, well, uh, someone steals all the food. Exciting, huh? Someone attempts to feed another girl poisoned mushrooms, which would count as interesting if it wasn't a senseless plot device used solely to shield the identity of the masked killer. During a few other scenes, little dolls fashioned from sticks are hung from trees just like in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but I had no clue what that had to do with anything or what kind of significance they had. The part that really had me scratching my head though was when three of the girls sit against a wall wrapped in blankets singing "In the blowing wind, fresh and clean" before one decides to wander off for a bathroom break all by herself DESPITE knowing there's a killer on the loose.
If you're an exploitation fan, you're also s out of luck here since there's no sex or nudity, next to no gore and nearly every single death takes place off-screen. The only aspects I liked were some of the forest locations, some bits of the music score and the eerie look of the 8mm reel. Other than that this is utterly useless. And with so many great Japanese genre films currently not available on DVD in America, why the hell did Synapse waste plastic printing out copies of such a dumb, forgettable film like this? Considering their release was several years ago now and this has still not even amassed 50 votes, it appears not many were even interested. I don't blame 'em.
Film students Ai (Chisato Morishita) and Maki (Yôko Mitsuya), along with a rich bitch wannabe actress, two of her friends, a teacher and a psychologically troubled girl who's tagging along seemingly for the sole purpose of providing a red herring, go to the secluded Yuai House to film a reenactment of a series of murders that occurred there seven years earlier. All of this somehow ties into a grainy 8mm movie one of the girls found at their school depicting a robed woman in a Noh mask hacking a guy on the head with a blade. The girls settle in to the home, fight, complain, disappear, reappear and thankfully start turning up dead eventually. After numerous bodies are found ritualistically slain, the girls idiotically continue to go off by themselves to get killed. There are several annoying instances where the characters are all in a room or together and by the very next scene are apart for no logical reason. If poor film and sound editing, inept and lazy plot structure and no attention paid to pacing or continuity whatsoever constitutes 'art' then I guess I'll take the alternative.
Do other things occur here other than walking, talking and dying? Sure, well, uh, someone steals all the food. Exciting, huh? Someone attempts to feed another girl poisoned mushrooms, which would count as interesting if it wasn't a senseless plot device used solely to shield the identity of the masked killer. During a few other scenes, little dolls fashioned from sticks are hung from trees just like in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but I had no clue what that had to do with anything or what kind of significance they had. The part that really had me scratching my head though was when three of the girls sit against a wall wrapped in blankets singing "In the blowing wind, fresh and clean" before one decides to wander off for a bathroom break all by herself DESPITE knowing there's a killer on the loose.
If you're an exploitation fan, you're also s out of luck here since there's no sex or nudity, next to no gore and nearly every single death takes place off-screen. The only aspects I liked were some of the forest locations, some bits of the music score and the eerie look of the 8mm reel. Other than that this is utterly useless. And with so many great Japanese genre films currently not available on DVD in America, why the hell did Synapse waste plastic printing out copies of such a dumb, forgettable film like this? Considering their release was several years ago now and this has still not even amassed 50 votes, it appears not many were even interested. I don't blame 'em.