thomas4cinema

There was a lot of talk about the film, especially after the American remake made it widely known in the Western world. It is one of these psychological horror films where the actual presence of a physical danger (like a woman crawling out of a tv set, to name but an arbitrary example) is only the tip of an iceberg. It is the atmosphere, the general mood of peril that makes the film work, the feeling that something is decidedly wrong in this world, is not playing to the rules we know. And for a non-Japanese audience, the sometimes odd detachment and distance between characters that shows frequently in Japanese pictures adds to the atmosphere of helplessness. That said, there is not much more to be added. The plot is spectacularly thin and not too original, the actors play well, but have not too much to do. A very static feeling is present, a notion of paralysis, which only breaks up a little bit when – during the final scenes  – some standard horror film resolution for the trouble is being found. That means a bit of digging in the mudd, and a bit of crawling out of tv sets, and while all this is done with a good hand for atmosphere, at the end of the day there is not much to be remembered. Apart, of course, from a set of hands without nails coming closer, and closer, and closer… My DVD box includes two more of the franchise, so stay tuned for more unhealthy videos.