(2012)
Dir - Kōji Shiraishi
Overall: MEH
Kōji Shiraishi's on-going Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi series kicks off with the first of a two-parter of sorts that dropped in 2012, the elaborately-titled Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File 01: Operation Capture the Slit-Mouthed Woman. The formula is established where Shigeo Ôsako and Chika Kuboyama each play videographer ghost hunters who investigate paranormal videos that are sent to them, hooking up with the original footage shooters, replaying the scary bits in slow motion, returning to the scene of the otherworldly incidents, and editing it all together in a conventional formula. Before the series would go further into outrageousness and all-out mockumentary parody, it adhered to the more sincere and unnerving tone of Shiraishi's seminal Noroi: The Curse, as well as the other multitudes of found footage movies on his resume. Fans of his particular J-horror brand of the sub-genre will have enough here to be interested in, even if much of the logic is flimsy and Ôsako's character frequently ruins things with his inexplicable rage-fueled outbursts that everyone else just nonchalantly puts up with.
(2012)
Dir - Kōji Shiraishi
Overall: MEH
Released a month after Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File 01: Operation Capture the Slit-Mouthed Woman, the follow-up Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File 02: Shivering Ghost follows an identical route and carries over a plot point or two while exploring a singular narrative of an all new supernatural mystery. The story is more interesting than that in the first installment, as well as less redundant considering that Shiraishi already tackled the slit-mouthed woman urban legend five years earlier in Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman. Here we have something that alludes to outer space, other dimensions, characters getting possessed and convulsing on the ground, protoplasm outbursts with flowers in them, people disappearing, mysterious buildings, and weird guys who do not answer any questions that you ask them. These are motifs that Shiraishi had and would continue to explore with varying success, and a few moments here are effectively creepy, but once again Shigeo Ôsako portrays one of the worst characters in any found footage project. He hardly says much and when he does, he is bound to go from zero to sixty on the rage scale, physically beating men and women alike while screaming at them and simultaneously putting them in continuous danger. It is a baffling choice to take with an entire series' main character, but if one can stomach his unnecessary and obnoxious outbursts, this is otherwise a worthy outing.
(2013)
Dir - Kōji Shiraishi
Overall: MEH
For the third Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi series installment Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File 03: Legend of a Human-Eating Kappa, it at first seems like we are going to be sparred Shigeo Ôsako hot-tempered director character since he is still in a coma and his partner and cameraman are soldiering on with a new case. Regrettably, it turns out that Ôsako merely has to walk around with a cane for awhile and is otherwise just fine and ready to spring back into action. That said, he comparatively behaves himself here in the team's new plight to rid a dangerous pond of some pesky kappa creatures that have a history of making people disappear there. There are several glaring narrative inconsistencies, and this contributes more to the paranormal investigator's laughable lack of ability to keep their subjects safe when venturing into dangerous terrain. If one can forgive the goofy liberties taken with the material and simply bask in the formulaic found footage set pieces, there are some good moments here, as well as some over-the-top ones that would point the direction that the rest of the series would indulge in.
(2013)
Dir - Kōji Shiraishi
Overall: MEH
Four episodes in and the Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi series gets around to one of Japan's most frequented urban supernatural motifs, namely haunted bathrooms. Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File 04: The Truth! Hanako-san in the Toilet introduced the concept of time/dark dimension jumping into this universe, and apparently the returning three characters have amnesia and forgot all about it since in later installments, they act just as amazed and excitingly shout the same boasts that they are capturing such phenomena for the "first" time on camera. Things get more outrageous here than ever before and also more unintentionally comedic, unless Kōji Shiraishi is in fact deliberately going into tongue-in-cheek terrain. It is difficult to tell since Shigeo Ôsako, Chika Kuboyama, and their never-complaining cameraman still posses no sense of humor whatsoever and have a problematic lack of chemistry with each other that would continue to be the case throughout the franchise's run. As usual though, any complaints that one can launch against these movies and many of Kōji Shiraishi's wild found footage mockumentaries in general are complaints about things that are there by design. So a jerky montage into an evil nether-realm, spontaneous deaths by falling desk chairs, lots and lots of running around and back and forth, also lots and lots of screaming, and supernatural rules that are both blatantly ignored and made up on the fly are all here to delight/annoy your senses.
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