Takashi Shimizu is talented. His best known film in the West is the traditional-styled and American remake, The Grudge (2004), of his own equally traditional Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) (with the latter a remake of his superior, non-linear video project, Ju-on (2000)). Like fellow countryman and filmmaker, Shinya Tsukamoto, Shimizu has a fertile imagination and grasps fringe and weird concepts in ordinary contexts. Shimizu's best work expands on these ideas: Ju-on (2000) (victims of extreme violence remain among the living as vengeful spirits, committing acts of extreme violence against the living, solely because they resent those around them); Marebito (2004) (a freelance cameraman spends his days walking and filming while what he sees with both his eyes and camera begin to change); and Rinne (2005) (a film crew attempts to re-enact events and make a film about a mass murder at the very location where the murders occurred). One of his most recent films, The Shock Labyrinth (2009), continues his trend. 
Imagine a spiral staircase. It is a powerful symbol for both time and space. Imagine the bottom of the stairs as the origin of a specific time and imagine its top as the ending with its climbing stairs as time’s progression. The concept as a whole can be seen by viewing the stairs from the side; however, by looking down upon the stairs from above, one only sees its top circle. How many actual steps there are remain hidden. Finally, imagine the spiral staircase collapsing upon itself: several circles of stairs lay in close proximity, almost jumbled. This collapsed spiral staircase, now as a symbol for both time and space, to put it in an understated manner, causes time and space to become jumbled. This is the shock labyrinth, serving as Shimizu’s narrative technique for his film (also a powerful visual motif within). 
Ken (Yûya Yagira ), now in his early twenties, returns to his childhood village. He reunites with his friends Motoki (Ryo Katsuji) and Rin (Ai Maeda). It begins raining. An unexpected visitor arrives, another childhood friend, Yuki (Misako Renbutsu). Ken’s exit from the village was known: his mother died which prompted his father to move the child away; and his return was expected by Motoki and Rin. No one knows where Yuki has been for several years or why she decided to return on that particular evening. 
Specific imagery within the film holds the key to its understanding--at first, disorienting and ridiculous: a child's backpack. This particular backpack is a stuffed bunny wherein its belly a child's keepsakes are found. Two straps connect the bunny's shoulders to its hind legs, and a child can wear it on his/her back. An endearing image, perhaps, but seeing the backpack absent from a child is just ridiculous: this item belongs in the world of adolescence, and it holds no particular significance to any adult. However, imagine a different association with the item: what if the stuffed-bunny backpack was associated with a specific person linked to a moment in childhood? When Ken, Motoki, Rin, and Yuki reunite this image has a specific association, tied to an incident that occurred during their childhood. This incident is returning to them in a powerful recall during the present night. Seeing events through these characters' eyes is deftly crafted by Shimizu. On this level, The Shock Labyrinth is a narrative and visual mystery.
The Shock Labyrinth is a haunted house in an amusement park where the main characters visited as children. Now as young adults, they revisit the place. The Shock Labyrinth where the events and players of the past literally meet the players of the present to create an ending for each. 
The Shock Labyrinth was filmed and presented in 3-D (which adds an incidental (?) layer of meaning to the film). Unfortunately, I suffer often from baggy eyes and never had the inclination to view the film in that format (coupled with having little interest in the format). However, it is available in a two-disc set from Taiwan. It is English-subtitled and contains both a disc for the 3-D version (with glasses) and the non-3-D version. The set is encoded Region 3 and can be purchased here. Like most of Shimizu's best work, The Shock Labyrinth leans more towards the arthouse than the multiplex and merits more than one viewing. Also like most of Shimizu's best work, The Shock Labyrinth stands as a fantastic alternative to traditional contemporary cinema. The less said about the film the better--most definitely suited for those seeking the offbeat and unique.
Imagine a spiral staircase. It is a powerful symbol for both time and space. Imagine the bottom of the stairs as the origin of a specific time and imagine its top as the ending with its climbing stairs as time’s progression. The concept as a whole can be seen by viewing the stairs from the side; however, by looking down upon the stairs from above, one only sees its top circle. How many actual steps there are remain hidden. Finally, imagine the spiral staircase collapsing upon itself: several circles of stairs lay in close proximity, almost jumbled. This collapsed spiral staircase, now as a symbol for both time and space, to put it in an understated manner, causes time and space to become jumbled. This is the shock labyrinth, serving as Shimizu’s narrative technique for his film (also a powerful visual motif within). Ken (Yûya Yagira ), now in his early twenties, returns to his childhood village. He reunites with his friends Motoki (Ryo Katsuji) and Rin (Ai Maeda). It begins raining. An unexpected visitor arrives, another childhood friend, Yuki (Misako Renbutsu). Ken’s exit from the village was known: his mother died which prompted his father to move the child away; and his return was expected by Motoki and Rin. No one knows where Yuki has been for several years or why she decided to return on that particular evening. Specific imagery within the film holds the key to its understanding--at first, disorienting and ridiculous: a child's backpack. This particular backpack is a stuffed bunny wherein its belly a child's keepsakes are found. Two straps connect the bunny's shoulders to its hind legs, and a child can wear it on his/her back. An endearing image, perhaps, but seeing the backpack absent from a child is just ridiculous: this item belongs in the world of adolescence, and it holds no particular significance to any adult. However, imagine a different association with the item: what if the stuffed-bunny backpack was associated with a specific person linked to a moment in childhood? When Ken, Motoki, Rin, and Yuki reunite this image has a specific association, tied to an incident that occurred during their childhood. This incident is returning to them in a powerful recall during the present night. Seeing events through these characters' eyes is deftly crafted by Shimizu. On this level, The Shock Labyrinth is a narrative and visual mystery.The Shock Labyrinth is a haunted house in an amusement park where the main characters visited as children. Now as young adults, they revisit the place. The Shock Labyrinth where the events and players of the past literally meet the players of the present to create an ending for each. The Shock Labyrinth was filmed and presented in 3-D (which adds an incidental (?) layer of meaning to the film). Unfortunately, I suffer often from baggy eyes and never had the inclination to view the film in that format (coupled with having little interest in the format). However, it is available in a two-disc set from Taiwan. It is English-subtitled and contains both a disc for the 3-D version (with glasses) and the non-3-D version. The set is encoded Region 3 and can be purchased here. Like most of Shimizu's best work, The Shock Labyrinth leans more towards the arthouse than the multiplex and merits more than one viewing. Also like most of Shimizu's best work, The Shock Labyrinth stands as a fantastic alternative to traditional contemporary cinema. The less said about the film the better--most definitely suited for those seeking the offbeat and unique.
Shivers, written and directed by David Cronenberg, is set almost wholly in Starliner Towers, only twelve minutes away from Montreal, on Starliner Island in isolation. A slide-show sales pitch plays behind the credits, detailing the amenities which the apartment complex has to offer. It is a small world unto itself. Janine (Sue Petrie), a Starliner resident, is experiencing marital problems with husband Nicolas (Alan Migicovsky) who has grown extremely distant and cold towards her. Meanwhile on a upper floor, an older man assaults a very young woman in an apartment. The older gentleman is fixated upon her stomach. He opens it and burns the young woman's insides with acid. The police arrive to investigate the death. Doctor Roger St. Luc, Starliner Towers' resident physician, discovered the young woman's corpse. Dr. St. Luc was summoned to the apartment by his old teacher at medical school, Dr. Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein). Hobbes is the older gentleman who attacked the young woman. He has killed himself, as well. 
"Roger," says Lynn Lowry's character, who plays Roger's nurse and lover, "I had a very disturbing dream last night. In the dream, I found myself making love to a strange man. Only I'm having trouble, you see, because he's old...and tiny. And he smells bad, and I find him repulsive. But then he tells me that everything is erotic. Everything is sexual. You know what I mean? He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. Disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. Even dying is an act of eroticism. That talking is sexual. That breathing is sexual. And even to physically exist is sexual. And I believe him. And we make love beautifully." 
Shivers is Cronenberg's debut feature-length film as a professional filmmaker. Despite the film being thirty-five years old, it undoubtedly is still very much shocking and provocative. From the idyllic modern setting of Starliner Towers, its residents present the diversity of civilized folks of both genders in a wide range of ages, living in harmony, together. The original title of the film was "Orgy of the Blood Parasites" (35)--a wholly apt yet deceptive description. In the brief set-up which I detailed for the film above, all psychological and physical problems, abnormalities, manifestations, etc., all result from the presence of a parasite. As the parasite infects one resident that resident infects two who infect two more and etc. Their actions become violent, perverse (-ted), and sexual. David Cronenberg offers his insights: 
Roger's old teacher (and perhaps mentor) Dr. Hobbes has a wonderfully allusive name which hides much of the film's philosophical background. Cronenberg, a serious court jester of cinema, is not content with just exploring philosophical ideas but contrasting them: those with a cursory knowledge of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche will see quite a bit of his philosophy, as well. The film is by far not totally cerebral: it's quite organic. Cronenberg presents philosophical ideas and questions or rejects them. The genesis for the creation of the parasites is a wonderful perverse joke which reflects this. 
I don't know where these extreme images come from. It seems very straightforward and natural and obvious to me as it happens. Often they come from the philosophical imperative of a narrative and therefore lead me to certain things that are demanded by the film. I don't impose them. The film or the script itself demands a certain image, a certain moment in the film, dramatically. And it emerges. It's like the philosophy of Emergent Evolution, which says that certain unpredictable peaks emerge from the natural flow of things and carry you forward to another stage. I guess each film has its own version of Emergent Evolution. It's just like plugging into a wall socket. You look around for the plug point and, when you find it, the electricity is there--assuming that the powerhouse is still working. That's as close to describing the process as I can get. (41) 
Shivers is driven by raw energy from an extremely fertile and creative mind; and the film runs with subversive, perverse, and wicked themes and imagery. (Imagery at times is evocative of Pasolini's Salo, made and released around the same time.) Subtle sexual imagery like Lowry getting rebuffed by a preoccupied Roger only to disrobe in front of him while he handles an important phone call to the taboo--Roger opens the door to witness an older man who introduces a young woman as his daughter who then embrace. In another brilliant brief sequence, Roger encounters a man and a nude woman tussling in the hallway. He points his revolver at the couple but he cannot discern whether one or both is infected; whether they will lose interest in each other and attack him; or whether they're having kinky fun. Roger's reaction is ambiguous but interesting. It's an at-times rough-looking film but also has some very creative compositions. Indisputably, Shivers is one of the best horror film debuts, ever. 
All parenthetical numbers that follow facts or quotes represent page numbers from Cronenberg on Cronenberg, edited by Chris Rodley, Faber and Faber, London, 1992.
The director, Takashi Shimizu, is talented. Interestingly (and perhaps ironically) upon its first viewing, the narrative of Marebito is compelling (screenplay by Chiaki Konaka from his novel), and it is easy to surrender to the story and watch it unfold. During a second viewing, it is easier to become detached and watch how the film is constructed. Masuoka doesn't just capture footage with his video camera but he reviews it at the end of the day. At his work deck with multiple monitors and equipment, Masuoka is able to slow, freeze, and replay the events. If Masuoka walked the streets of Tokyo every day and captured the events with only his eyes, then all his critical review would have to come from memory. With his video footage, Masuoka can apply a much more critical eye. During the suicide subway footage, Masuoka is able to capture one frame of a split second, a quick glance by the man down the hallway of the subway. Viewing this one frame during this split second, Masuoka becomes obsessed with what terrified the man and he wants to replicate the experience. Marebito is about the perception and construction of reality. What the eye sees, what the mind perceives and what video captures creates the film.
Most of the scenes away from directly advancing the narrative seem innocuous. In one telling sequence, Masuoka is walking the streets and holding his camera near his waist. The footage that he is capturing is fuzzier than the primary film footage which Shimizu is using as stock for Marebito. In Shimizu's footage, the faces of street people are blurred, but there is no blurring in Masuoka's footage. A man in a suit walks past Masuoka, and as he turns into a tunnel, Masuoka is confronted by the passing man. Were you recording? he asks. Masuoka lies and says no. The man presses him again and demands the tape in Masuoka's camera. Did you do something bad? asks Masuoka. The man doesn't answer that question, and Shimizu offers no evidence whatsoever for the viewer to speculate upon the question. The blurring/no-blurring footage from Masuoka/Shimizu juxtaposed with Masuoka's encounter with the man (Masuoka gets beaten for his cassette) leads to no discernable, rational answer. Maybe, however, that some people just do not like being captured on camera.
One of the oddest quirks that Masuoka has is filming his apartment while he is gone. During the course of Marebito, he finds a dweller in the underground and houses her there. Footage is shown of Masuoka purchasing a surveillance camera, designed, as the salesperson describes, to monitor your pets, like a cat, when the homeowner is absent. Masuoka is able to monitor his houseguest from his cellular phone via remote from the camera. However, Shimizu shows his viewer the point of view from the remote camera in Masuoka's apartment before he discovers the dweller in the underground. Why would Masuoka want to film his apartment then, seemingly unoccupied? Perhaps the answer is in the question, as "seemingly unoccupied" is the phrase which hides Masuoka's fear. At the end of a day at his work desk, Masuoka reviews his house footage from the remote camera. He watches his house guest move around and notices in the footage that she is alerted by something/one. The footage blacks out and for twelve seconds, Masuoka has no idea what happened. His house guest is traumatized, and presumably, what caused her distress occurred during the twelve-second blackout. Masuoka is distressed, but the flaw in his plan to capture the world around him is revealed (or the world that he wants to capture/perceive): he cannot completely create his own reality, regardless of his methods.
Marebito has more layers. Quite a few jokes are made at the media's expense, and Masuoka also has a mental condition, which may or may not be clouding his perception of reality. In any case, Shimizu's sensitive portrait certainly deserves sensitive viewing. Few films like Marebito are so meta yet so organic that for this reason alone, Marebito is worth viewing. With films like the original V-cinema Ju-on, Reincarnation, and this one show that Shimizu's cinema is often top-shelf and extremely provocative.
While Deodato's first statements regarding his Vortice Mortale (The Washing Machine) (1993) seem straightforward and clear, his second statement, "it's a very intimate movie and should have had well-known actors," is cryptic. By "intimate," one can assume that Deodato means that The Washing Machine is a film with few actors who are burdened with carrying the film's plot. This is true: The Washing Machine really has only four principal actors: Philippe Caroit, who plays Inspector Alexander Stacev; and his character becomes entangled with three sisters, Maria (Ilaria Borrelli), Vida (Kahia Figura) and Ludmilla (Barbara Ricci) in a murder case. By qualifying "actors" with "well-known," perhaps Deodato is also insinuating that better actors were needed to carry the film.
Just speculation on my part. The Washing Machine is carried by the eroticism of its three actresses, and the kinky fun that their director has with their characters. 
In the film’s best visual sequence, Alexander has gone to a museum to see Maria. Maria, in addition to her giving music lessons, spends her free time with the blind. On this particular day, the museum is closed to the public, so Maria and the group of blind patrons are allowed to touch and feel the sculptures while Maria gives commentary. Enter Alexander, who by this time in the story is well-seduced by the three sisters, especially Maria. She walks over to Alexander, feigning blindness. She disrobes and allows Alexander to feel her, much like the blind patrons are doing to the sculptures. The fear of getting caught heightens their excitement, as one of Maria’s wards comes dangerously close to discovering the two. Deodato reserves his relish for his actresses--a tight close-up of a handcuff hitting a railing or a high heeled shoe propping up or a skirt sliding up or a dress falling down. Claudio Simonetti’s score (one of his better later pieces) feels oddly out of place accompanying sex instead of violence; yet this is where the excitement is within The Washing Machine. 
Luigi Spagnol’s script is familiar. Alexander is the cop who in the course of an investigation becomes seduced with his suspect(s). During the course of the investigation, twist and turns ensue, and his obsession towards his suspects leads him astray (as the director attempts to lead his viewer astray from obvious clues in the mystery). A lot of the relevant sequences to the mystery are through hearsay: Alexander questions one of the sisters, and she tells her version. Deodato renders each story visually, so each sister’s credibility is always an issue. Personally, I could care less how the story ended, as most plots usually end with the most ludicrous result imaginable. How The Washing Machine actually ends remains hidden for the curious viewer. 
The Washing Machine loosely portrays the three sisters like traditional witches; so when Alexander, against better judgment, continues deeper into his obsession, the metaphor, he is under their “spell” is oddly appropriate. Other visual motifs like Maria’s black cat and the titular washing machine substituting for a cauldron are also present. It’s a very creative touch and strongly felt throughout the whole film. Deodato is a brilliant visual stylist with a unique eye; and he really captures the beauty and atmosphere of the Budapest setting. It’s a lot more fun watching the three sisters have their way with Alexander than watching him stumble through an investigation. Obscure.
Minaccia d'amore (1988), also known as Dial: Help, directed by Ruggero Deodato, is about an evil and sinister presence torturing poor Jenny through the telephone. Or as Deodato describes the film, "It was given a theatrical release in Italy and it was bought by Berlusconi for Mediaset. It's a delicious film. It's a fantasy film and this is the reason that I like it. The story concerns a telephone which falls in love with a girl who is trying to make a call to her friend, and which kills all the people who hang around the girl. This is the type of fantasy film which I like. Zombie films don' t interest me, a telephone which falls in love, yes. Hard horror is not my genre, I far prefer fantasy." (from Cannibal Holocaust and the Savage Cinema of Ruggero Deodato by Harvey Fenton, Julian Grainger, and Gian Luca Castoldi, FAB Press, Surrey, U.K., 1999, p.28.) Deodato continues, "It was not exactly my idea. It was a very old script that no one wanted to do because it was too difficult. Normally you have a monster, a zombie or killer doing the evil in a movie. Here you have a...telephone. For me a film is interesting when it is difficult to make. To be honest, I really like the finished film. With a bigger budget I think it could have been a fantastic film." (from European Trash Cinema, Vol. 2, No. 7, edited by Craig Ledbetter, Springwood, TX, 1993, p. 17) 
The "very old script" for Minaccia d'amore (1988) "that no one wanted" was originally penned by Franco Ferrini. Ferrini describes its genesis: "The film [Turno di notte] is the story of a single man who, alone at night, hears a cry on the radio, marking the beginning of a real nightmare for him and Barbara De Rossi. ¶ In fact, from this film onwards, I started using the media as the diabolical element in my stories: in Turno di notte it was the radio, in Minaccia d'amore it was the telephone, in Demoni the cinema and in Demoni 2...l'incubo ritorna the television. I would like to carry on the series..." Ferrini states that he sent the script for Minaccia d'amore to Dario Argento in 1983, who "showed a certain interest" but "decided to let it go." Despite Argento rejecting Ferrini's script for Minaccia, the two began a creative relationship which would spawn Argento's film Phenomena. (from Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta, Phantasma Books, Florida, 1996, p. 49) 
Whether its a story of a telephone falling in love with a girl or about a diabolical medium of modern technology, however creative these themes may be, Minaccia d'amore is above all a Ruggero Deodato film: beautifully-composed, well-paced, compelling, nasty, and perverse (-ted). Jenny's encounter with the maniac in the subway is just wrong. Despite the attempt by Deodato to overshadow his sinister implications by having his maniac attempt to violently rape Jenny in the subway, who is then saved by a machine (in a bravado move which would make all the machines in Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive squeal in jealousy), the imagery of an empty syringe as a weapon is offensive. An empty syringe is a pitiful weapon; and a sharpened wooden pencil would be far more effective in inflicting damage. If one thinks of the era during which Minaccia was made, then the potency of the damage that the empty syringe could inflict is far more frightening. A truly nasty undertone and almost signature Deodato touch. 
Jenny is a gorgeous model initially depicted as self-absorbed: she does not have time to speak to her shy, awkward, and sensitive neighbor, Riccardo (Marcello Modugno), as she is obsessed with an expected phone call from a lover (who has spurned Jenny and allows the telephone/love motif to begin). Jenny's admirers fall over her footsteps. For example, Mole. When Jenny begins to show serious distress at a party, regarding the mysterious and frightening happenings around the telephone, Mole does not suggest to Jenny to call the telephone company: he is on the job personally, tapping into switchboards at her apartment building, installing a new telephone in her apartment, and parading around the vast underground networks to uncover the source of the telephone evil. Mole might be adept at fixing telephone technology, but his initiative goes far beyond the call (rimshot) of duty. Poor Riccardo almost dies the first evening that Jenny seeks his help, but the opportunity to have Jenny desire him for any reason is quite all right. 
Deodato is attracted to Jenny's powerful beauty and sexuality as well. In an audacious sequence, Lewis's Jenny, now under the influence of the energy-derived evil, is forced to dress in her garters and corset; and with some striking compositions, she models for the viewer (as her character is all alone in the setting). Jenny gets into the bathtub, now a dangerous place with the source of water and impending doom of the energy evil, and she writhes in the bathtub in a continued benefit for the viewer. Jenny's character is a sexual object and Deodato never hides this sentiment. Yet, it is difficult to view Minaccia and not feel for Lewis's Jenny during the absurd, violent, and strange sequences that ensue. It is also difficult to not become involved in the story. Perhaps the story is so absurd and fantastic, each subsequent sequence is unexpected and unusual; or Minaccia is so attractively lurid and seductive. 
Claudio Simonetti provided the score for Minaccia d'amore, and it's not nearly as effective as the score that he composed for Deodato's The Washing Machine (1993), but it works well within the film. The look of the film is superficial and glossy, which is very appropriate, and the cinematography by the excellent Renato Tafuri is superior. Deodato's cinema never suffers from the lack of an extremely interesting montage of images. Minaccia d'amore is, like other Deodato cinema, a conundrum. William Berger who plays a small part in Minaccia, echoes this sentiment: "Deodato is quite a crazy guy, but strangely I work best with the really crazy ones. Deodato changes within seconds from the sweetest person to a complete madman." (from European Trash Cinema, No. 13, ed. by Craig Ledbetter, Springwood, TX, exact year unknown (1995 or 1996 presumably), p. 11.)