By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Starring Arisa Deguchi and Minehiro Kinomoto
Written and directed by Tomojiro Amano
Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures Inc.
Regrettably, some movies are to be endured rather than merely watched. This is not to say that so-bad-its-good is not a justifiable and occasionally enjoyable way to watch the wayward horror films we are gifted from time to time, but the distinction should be made between when films are laughed at vs. laughed with. We laugh at Plan 9 from Outer Space, and we laugh with Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. Both are fun, but one does not have us engaging with the film as the director intended. (Filmmaker intent is a whole different can of worms worthy of a separate article, so that ripe discussion will end here.) THIS MAN, which had its North American premiere at this summer’s Fantasia International Film Festival, falls squarely in the category of unintentional comedy.
The film’s premise is intriguing, though only partially thought through. Much like in Dream Scenario and A Nightmare on Elm Street, one man is appearing in people’s dreams, and his nocturnal presence is spreading. Many of these people then begin dying suddenly and violently later on. How much later? Well, that depends. It might be the next day, overnight, while they are at work, later that week, or perhaps never. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the timing of these deaths.
And how do these ill-fated dreamers die? Any which way, of course. It might resemble their dreams and it might not. It might be bloody or it might be more mysterious. To add a special and confusing twist, the killing might be at the hands of a hypnotized stranger or family member. Heck, sometimes these unwilling participants step in after the death has occurred to make all of this even more inconsistent. Anything is on the table!
Pulling us through this deadly nighttime plague is a boring family of three. Hana (Arisa Deguchi) and Yoshio (Minehiro Kinomoto) are a young married couple with an adorable young daughter. What the two alleged lovers lack in chemistry, they make up for in overall attractiveness and beige personalities. They listen to the news of the growing body count with caution as people within their professional and social circle start to dream of this mysterious man and meet their fates in myriad ways.
You know what else they do? Well, Hana has an extra-long lunch with her sister talking about school and all of her teachers. And Yoshio goes to the gym and does some sparring with a man who turns out to be the junior investigator assigned to the case of the killer sandman. Does this detail ever impact the film in any way? Aside from acknowledging the coincidence briefly, this largely has nothing to do with anything.
To attempt to end this nightmare, the married couple seeks out a sorcerer, which may be a cultural or translation issue, as this man seems to act as part exorcist, part shaman. Again, the scenes with him are long, mostly uninteresting and inconsistent in function within the film’s mythology.
The themes and general attempt at story in THIS MAN show some sort of attempt to capture the essence of J-horror that was so celebrated in the early aughts. However, there is absolutely no connective tissue to the look and feel of Ringu or Pulse. Everything in THIS MAN takes place in broad daylight, with clearly staged sets, and incredibly well lit. There is no intrigue or style to inch it toward that exalted horror subgenre, to the point that it visually reads more like a romantic comedy or sitcom than a horror film.
Inevitably, there will be those who find THIS MAN to be a uniquely bad/entertaining little movie. But in that same respect, it is hard to deny that the film categorically fails at what it sets out to unironically achieve. The Fantasia audience seemed to have fun with this one, but that is more praise than it deserves.
