(2000)
Dir - Toshiyuki Mizutani
Overall: MEH
While it boats an interesting premise, Toshiyuki Mizutani's Isola, (ISOLA Taju-jinkaku Shojo, ISOLA - Multiple Personality Girl), struggles to gain its footing and delivers lackluster results. Set during the immediate aftermath of the Great Hanshin earthquake, it throws a benevolent woman with ESP up against a young girl whose body gets possessed by a troubled spirit that was left in an astral projection state during the tragedy. It takes ages to flesh-out all of the details and the comparatively more interesting first act gives way to a cumbersome plot full of characters that range from bland to unlikable. It is fine performance wise, plus Mizutani peppers the film with orchestral musical swells and one or two freaky scenes where assholes are forced to kill themselves via gruesome means due to the psychic influence of our antagonist. Otherwise though, the pacing is persistently unhurried and the finale likewise has no sense of urgency to it. Some lousy digital effects, (because early 2000s), do not help much either, but with its formulaic and schlock-less presentation, it still fails to click.
(2001)
Dir - Ten Shimoyama
Overall: WOOF
An adaptation of Shukei Nagasaka's visual novel game Otogirisō, Otogirisou, (St. John's Wort), is the first horror film from director Ten Shimoyama and also a terrible one. It suffers both stylistically and narratively, which leaves nothing else to appreciate. Right from the get-go, the presentation is off-putting since we have a couple of video game developers creating a story around one of them recently inheriting a haunted house, footage of which is filmed and sent back to said game devs in real time even as things grow more convoluted. At the same time though, Shimoyama breaks up the plot and shows everyone alive and well, rewinding certain events, and making some sort of hybrid experience that is part choose-your-own-adventure and part straight-faced horror movie. The story endlessly drags though, plus we are treated to minutes and minutes of our two main characters slowly, (slooooowwwlllyyy), walking into rooms where the camera lingers on the nothing that happens to them. That is when the cinematography is not going all over the place and cheap digital effects, pixelations, and artificial color distortions are not making the already poorly-shot visuals that much more obscured. The filmmakers deserve credit for trying something unique, but the results are unwatchable.
(2009)
Dir - Lee Yong-ju
Overall: MEH
This debut and the to-date only horror film from South Korean writer/director Lee Yong-ju Living Death, (Possessed, Distrust Hell, Bulshinjiok), weaves through its formulaic trappings with a sincere hand, but it still fails to be properly engaging. Part of this is due to the confused structure. Large portions of the heavy narrative are told in flashback, but they are often done so without any cinematic cues as to when we are back on the present track. Coupled with this, things become more and more convoluted, dealing with characters who may or may not be ghosts, a missing thirteen year-old that is either possessed by evil spirits or is some kind of savior for humanity, (or both, or neither), an off-her-rocker Christian zealot of a mother, a sinister shaman, a frustrated police detective with his own set of baggage, and a barrage of "suicides" that range from people jumping off of buildings to poisoning themselves so that they can vomit to death. Tone wise, Lee keeps things dour and flashless, though he still indulges in those annoying volume swells and the occasional jump scare. Sadly, the heavy subject matter and adequate performances get overwhelmed by a story that cannot seem to make up its mind as to what themes it is actually exploring, becoming a mild mess of brooding atmosphere more than something that one can really sink their teeth into.
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