Reviews

There's no doubt about it, this one is a tear-jerker, solely designed to push the buttons as hard as it can to affect the audiences emotion. Teenage love, making past wrongs right, the death of a lover, typhoons, it's all here. And what's most amazing is that, for the most part, the movie does it. Always hovering on the edge of cliché, but never tipping over, "Crying Out Love" essentially works.

The story is told in two parts, flashing back and forwards often. One involves young Sakutaro who begins a relationship with the cute as a button Aki Hirose at a time in both of their lives when puppy love is turning into something real. The second is Sakutaro about fifteen years later, trying to come to terms with the loss of that relationship which he never quite recovered from. And his new girlfriend, Ritusko has a secret.

Without giving away too much, that first story works. And, boy, does it. It is inter-cut beautifully with older Sakutaro remembering and searching for meaning. You know exactly where it's going, but the thrill is in the journey here, and it captures the explosiveness and pain of first love and the same of young loss.

The second story, however, falls apart. After the first one ends, some loose ends are left to be connected, and they are, perfunctorily and ham-fistedly. And the actual finale, while far from ruining the film, adds nothing to the emotional power of the majority of the film.

I honestly cannot say I liked this movie. I appreciate what it is, which is a genuinely creepy movie shot in 8 days on consumer-grade digital video by one of the masters of Japanese horror. However, what I cannot appreciate is the disregard for character development or practical story-telling.

Masuoka is obsessed with video. He's got his own apartment under surveillance (from within, oddly enough), he carries a small camcorder everywhere he goes, and he seems to be plugged into random cameras throughout the city. And what he's looking for in all of this video is the ultimate in fear. One day, walking in the subways, he encounters a bizarre suicide. The victim sees something that only he can which, apparently leads him to stab himself in the eye. Obsessed with finding out what this man saw, Masuoka goes underground. Literally. Underneath the city he finds a bizarre netherworld. And one naked girl chained to a wall. Who may or may not be his daughter.

Sounds weird, hunh? Well, it sure is. The use of digital video, cut with even grainier digital video makes for a creepy look, and the sound work is a constant video hum which increases the paranoia and overall strange feeling. But that's really all the movie is. Just a really creepy exercise that never builds into something coherent. Characters pass through with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but they sure are creepy. Many big ideas are pitched (like another dimension of freaky demons leaking over into ours. Ouch!), but they're never taken anywhere.

If you're a fan of Shimizu's work, you'll notice his fingerprints all over this. However, this is a departure in many ways. It is not built around the "boo" factor which pervades most of this other work. It is a much dreamier, atmospheric film than his others. It doesn't seem as concerned with scaring as it is with just creeping the hell out of people. Which it does. What is missing is who this guy is. What he's all about, why he's videotaping everything. And maybe a coherent story.

But, holy crap, a movie shot in 8 days! Kudos.

This movie's eerie, I'll give it that. But scary? Sadly, no.

A bank robbery goes wrong, the survivors rendezvous at a house, someone evil is in the house. Bank robbery aside, this movie has been done. And done. Many, many times before. I respect the fact that the movie was shot for practically nothing and that it represents a noble attempt to return to those halcyon days in the horror genre when killings were brutal, the production decidedly unpolished and, for the most part, the movie terrifying. But rather than paying homage to films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Malevolence" adds nothing to them. "Continuing in the tradition of" is very different from "aping."

Ultimately, this movie is more Greek tragedy than horror. Things start off at a turning point for the characters, things fall apart, people die. What the movie's lacking is a real sense of horror. It's awfully hard to be scared when everything happens right on schedule.