Exit 8 (2025)

While commuting to his second job, a man (Kazunari Ninomiya) receives a call from his ex (Nana Komatsu) with news that she’s pregnant. When she asks if she should keep the child, the man begins to panic; but being a sperm slinger is just the beginning of his problems. He discovers that he is trapped in an unending maze in the underground subway system. The same hallway repeats over and over again, and his only way out is to pay close attention to the details and to turn back when he sees any anomalies. And worse still, he isn’t alone down there.

For the first time in the history of filmmaking, a movie has come out based on a video game! I’ve only ever seen a playthrough of the 2023 “walking simulator” that Exit 8 is based on, but it translated to a film quite well thanks to a great script from Kentaro Hirase and excellent direction from director/co-scripter Genki Kawamura. This liminal space horror film has some chills, but mainly it’s hypnotic and thrilling with an unexpected emotional punch. The creators of the game and the filmmakers deftly capture the horrors of the endless mundanity of the daily grind and the terror of when chaos rolls up to break the loop we’ve come to rely on.

 

The INV4SIAN: Review Roundup

Well, happy Halloween everybody! This post will conclude an entire month of Asian cinema reviews here at the Cinema Somnambulist blog palace. I hope you all have been enjoying this cavalcade of goodness (and only occasional not-so-greatness). As usual, I have watched way more films than I can hope to write full reviews of within any kind of a thing called "time". So, here's a list of 13 more films that I watched in order to celebrate Asian cinema. Check it out:

Skin Striperess (1992)

Skin Stripperess is the trashy tale of a shady dude pimping out his girlfriend to secure investors for a beachfront development project. When she dies in a freak electrical accident, her spirit returns and funks his ship up. A monk (Ching-Ying Lam) is called in to exorcise her spirt. It doesn’t go very well. I enjoy this film’s gore (especially that skin stripping), colorful lighting, and liberal use of fog machines. Unfortunately, there’s animal violence with frogs and snakes getting murdered onscreen. Dig the music lifted from Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) on this film’s score. I kind of liked this one, but would never sit through it again.

A Monstrous Corpse (1981)

This Korean remake of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974) is somewhat disjointed and flat, but has enough cool moments to warrant a viewing for fans of Jorge Grau's masterpiece. The story (that follows the original's very closely with only slight variations) is about an experimental radio transmitter that awakens the dead. The version I'm reviewing is either censored or was very tame from the get go, but that's okay since the countryside setting is beautiful and the music features some neato synthesizer work. Not too shabby, but not essential viewing.

Mail (2004)

Mail is a collection of stories featuring a detective who specializes in sending ghosts to the afterlife. After being very impressed by the manga by Housui Yamazaki, I have to admit I was a little let down by this shot on video (and probably made for TV) adaptation. Part of the problem is that it's so cheap looking, but also I wasn't expecting an episodic collection of stories crammed into a feature length movie. Stylistically, this movie can be summed up in the main character's ridiculous looking baggy leather pants. You're better off reading the manga, though Chiaki Kuriyama (of Battle Royale (2000) fame) is in this and she makes everything better (sometimes).

Witch from Nepal (1986)

Before you even ask, it's not pronounced "weyatch frown nipple". Chow Yun-Fat plays Joe, just your average Jim, who ends up getting himself involved in a supernatural battle against the forces of evil. He also strikes up a romance with magical Sheila (Emily Chu), much to the chagrin of his girlfriend Ida. Witch from Nepal is pretty awesome with its magical fun, dreamlike qualities, emphasis on spectacle, corny love story, and genuine weirdness. Low key but also kind of essential if you're a fan of Hong Kong madness. At the time of this review, Witch from Nepal is on Tubi. Go for it!

Kakashi AKA Scarecrow (2001)

A remote village is getting ready for their Wicker Man-like festival by putting up nightmarish scarecrows all over the damn place. Kaoru (Maho Nonami) has shown up in the middle of tthis wacko fest to find her missing brother. She should have not done that. This quiet and eerie little movie was a nice creepy surprise. Any time I can find a Japanese horror film from the late 1990s/early 2000s heyday that is unseen by me, I'm gonna jump on it. Kakashi is tinged with a melancholic vibe and is graced with beautiful cinematography and cool sound design. Director Norio Tsuruta has made quite a few horror films in their career including Ring 0: Birthday (2000). I wish Kakashi was more talked about. I mean more than me right now. Highly recommended. 

Ghost Eyes (1974)

Pao-ling (played by Szu-Chia Chen) is a manicurist that meets a mysterious optometrist who seems to have some strange power over her. Could he be a vampire? This is a solid horror film from the director of COrpse Mania (1981). It has some scary moments, is super melodramatic, but also brings the silliness at times. I ended up rooting for the heroine. I really wanted her to be okay. The music and the cinematography give this one some occasional giallo feels which I always appreciate. 

Look Out, Officer! (1990)

Seasoned police detective Piao (Bill Tung) is killed by a smelly drug kingpin and returns from the afterlife as a ghost. He teams up with police cadet Hsing (Stephen Chow) and his former partner (Stanley Sui-Fan Fung) to set things right. This one is pretty bad (those fart and pee jokes), but enjoyable enough for Stephen Chow fans. A cat poops on an altar... twice. There are some clever gags and I got a kick out of the hokey music stingers on the soundtrack. There's plenty of ghostly malfeasance and even some sorcery in the plot. There are some jokes at the expense of Vietnamese immigrants. Boo. No one asked for that.

Exte: Hair Extensions (2007)

A body is discovered in a crate of human hair. Thanks to a shady security guard/hair fetishist at the morgue, the hair ends up getting sent to a hairdresser and used as extensions. But it's cursed hair, y'all! So yes, this is truly one of the strangest films I've ever seen, which is hardly surprising since it comes from writer/director Sion Sono. Chiaki Kuriyama stars in this one and well, you know, she rocks. This isn't all just freaky and hilarious weirdness. Exte is also emotionally brutal and can get pretty disturbing. If I reveal too much, it would be a disservice since you need to see this one for yourself.

Howling Village (2019)

A lady goes searching for her brother who disappeared at the legendary “Howling Village”. I freakin’ love how prolific Takashi Shimizu is. The guy has directed over 25 horror movies and TV shows at the time of this writing. Howling Village is a very pretty and gloomily atmospheric film with some overly melodramatic moments near the finale, but overall, it’s a solid effort. Keep an eye out for Renji Ishibashi, one of my favorite character actors whose credits have already pushed past the 400 mark. The worst thing I can say about this film is that it felt about 5 minutes too long for me. I suspect that if you’re vibing with it, you won’t mind at all.

Forbidden Siren (2006)

Oh no! Not another cursed village movie! Why does this keep crappening to me?! In 1976, a terrible disaster struck a small island village leaving only one survivor. A writer moves there with his two kids and is warned by the locals not to go out at night when the island's siren goes off. His daughter (Yui Ichikawa) almost immediately discovers that shit just ain't right in this spooky place. This one really surprised me. It has a really cool, unique vibe to it. I dig the Lovecraftian vibes and the claustrophobic nature of the island setting. Now I want to play the video game it's based on.

Heartbeat 100 (1987)

Trying to remember the plot of this movie is almost impossible thanks to my gibberish notes. BUT... I will try. Murderous thieves hiding out in a small village terrorize some tourists, including a writer (Maggie Cheung), who's just looking for a relaxing working vacation. That should do it. Anyway, Heartbeat 100 won me over with its uncomplicated plot, spooky moments, garish lighting, surprising gore, corny comedic situations, and a killer ceiling fan. It's basic as hell but entertaining. Not a strong recommend, but if you're in the mood for some Hong Kong trash, give it a whirl. One of the characters is named Weeny Eyes and also there's a poodle named Chu-Chu.

Vampire Hunters (2003)

Four vampire fighting monks battle the forces of evil to save the life of a beautiful girl. That is the VERY SHORT version because, this is way too complicated to get into here. I kept seeing this one for rent at Hollywood Video, but never took a chance on it. I'm really glad that I finally did because it's a winner! Co-produced and written by Tsui Hark and directed by actor-turned-director Wellson Chin, Vampire Hunters is very imaginative with some inventive gore and cool vampires. This came out right before dodgy CGI took over, but there's a few cruddy digital touches here and there. A lot of the film takes place on sound stages with practical effects aplenty. There's also just the right amount of humor mixed in to keep things from ever getting too serious. 

Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue (1992)

Thanks to his dad's experimentation, college athlete Shin becomes Kamen Rider, a half-man, half-grasshopper superhero. It's up to him to battle an evil syndicate called "The Syndicate", who plan on using his dad's work to take over the world. Where has this movie been all my life? The creature effects are as cool as they are slimy. With its schlocky melodrama and heightened over acting from the cast, this one just hits all the right beats for me. It plays like a kids movie, but there's nudity (laughable swimming pool sex scene) and tons of violence (arterial spray!). The jammin' synthesizer score alone should make this essential viewing for 1980s creature feature enthusiasts. Based on the hit TV series that has spawned many, many iterations, I heartily recommend this and its very fun sequel from the following year called Kamen Rider ZO (1993).

THE INVASIAN: Elegant Beast (1962)

 

Tomoko (Yûko Hamada) and her brother Minoru (Manamitsu Kawabata) are bad kids! They lie constantly and they cheat everyone they meet. But that’s okay for their parents, because they taught them how! Mom and dad, ex-soldier Tokizo Maeda (Yûnosuke Itô) and his wife Yoshino (Hisano Yamaoka), are a pair of slimeballs that have moved into the apartment that Tomoko’s lover Shuntaro (Kyû Sazanka) pays for. Joke’s on him because he thought he would have a little love nest just for he and Tomoko. [sad trombone]. And that’s just the beginning of Tokizo and company’s insane schemes of blackmail and chicanery. But has the Maeda family finally met their match in the form of Minoru’s calculating lover Yukie (Ayako Wakao)?

Movies about bad people can be tricky. It’s easy to make the viewer wants to grab a machine gun, jump inside the film, and start blasting away at the baddies. For me, that film would be The Crucible (1996). But it’s much better when I actually WANT to spend 90 minutes with the bastards. I want movie villains to be sexy, charming, or funny and the ones in director Yûzô Kawashima’s film called Elegant Beast (1962), manage to be all three; if not all at the same time. Sorry, Yûnosuke Itô, you’re not one of the sexy ones to me, you’re hot in your own way!

Stagey due to its origins as a stage play, Elegant Beast never feels stilted. The amount of work that went into making this film as dynamic and precise as it could be is pretty mind-blowing. This film gives me the joy of watching master filmmakers at work. For you fans of Japanese horror out there, writer Kaneto Shindô, who also penned the play this film was adapted from, would go on to both write and direct two masterpieces of the genre, Onibaba (1964) and Black Cat (1968). Cinematographer Nobuo Munekawa does a hero’s job of never letting this single setting film from ever getting stagnant.

The cast in Elegant Beast is just incredible. Yûnosuke Itô and Hisano Yamaoka are perfectly cast as the (Demented) Parents of the Year. Their cardinal rule for the house is simple: We don’t care if you cheat the world but bring the money home for the family. The way they spend the opening credit sequence staging their apartment to look poorer than they are is pure genius. And the ways that they stay one step ahead of everyone they’re ripping off is a hoot. Yûko Hamada, who I know best from The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968), is as gorgeous as she is delightful to watch being oh so bad onscreen.

Elegant Beast is a lovely film about a bunch of assholes who rip off garbage people (aside from that one poor sap). It’s hard to make the Maeda’s out to be the villains when everyone in their universe just sucks! The setting is intentionally drab (a welcome explosion of color at sunset notwithstanding), but the characters are certainly not. The mix of neorealism and the surreal makes this clever and darkly humorous tale a real treat for Japanese arthouse fans. Sadly, Kawashima died at the age of 45, and we can only imagine what more great films might have come from this incredibly talented director.

THE INVASIAN: House of Terrors (1965)

 

Yoshie (Yûko Kusunoki) receives news that her husband has died under mysterious circumstances. Then she finds out that he had a mistress AND even had a creepy old villa out in the middle of nowhere that she’s inherited. You take the good. You take the bad. You take them both and then you have… the [Japanese] facts of life. A major selling point of this real estate Yoshie has been death-gifted is that it comes with a hunchbacked servant (Akira Nishimura), whose name may or may not be Igor. She’s in her new/old creepy ass domicile for about 5 minutes before the spooky sounds and weird visions and unexplained deaths begin.

Much like another black and white Japanese horror film I absolutely love called The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968), House of Terrors (1965) reminds of reading horror manga from the likes of Kazuo Umezu. Director Hajime Satô would go on to direct another bizarre horror masterpiece called Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968). But with this film, he’s firing on all cylinders bringing the eerie and naughty screenplay by Hajime Takaiwa to life. Takaiwa was a very prolific screenwriter that wrote in pretty much every genre you can think of. Based on this little gem, I wish he’d done more horror!

There’s not enough Japanese horror on disc and we need to cherish every one one of these classics as they come out. House of Terrors is an essential work of Japanese horror cinema with its joyously convoluted plot, over-the-top madness (and horniness) of the characters, and deliciously filmed gothic setpieces. There’s almost as many cobwebs as there are constant screams from the characters! I bet you all of my wealth that House of Terrors pairs beautifully with Hiroki Matsuno’s The Living Skeleton (1968). Do you dare to find out for yourself? Are you prone to the heebie jeebies? Don’t you want a chance to win my fortune (which is actually just a creepy old house and an Igor)? Some restrictions apply.