By MICHAEL GINGOLD
LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER:
Starring Kazuya Kamenashi, Nanao and Riho Yoshioka
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Hiroyoshi Koiwai
Warner Bros./Netflix
UNDER PARIS:
Starring Bérénice Bejo, Nassim Lyes and Léa Leviant
Directed by Xavier Gens
Written by Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang and Xavier Gens
Netflix
Amidst their usual run of star vehicles and huge action movies, what were the chances that Netflix would premiere new movies by two of international horror’s bad boys within a few days of each other? It happened this past week, as the streamer sneaked LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER (pictured above), from Japanese taboo-smasher Takashi Miike, into its lineup with no fanfare, and gave a somewhat better-promoted debut to UNDER PARIS, the latest by New French Extremity filmmaker Xavier Gens. Both find their directors working in more mainstream mode than usual, and than their admirers would probably hope for.
LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER’s stealth placement in the Netflix lineup with no U.S. theatrical exposure (save a showing at New York City’s Japan Society, where this writer caught it) has caused some consternation among Miike’s fans, particularly given that it’s his first horror feature in the decade since OVER YOUR DEAD BODY. It opens with a sufficiently lurid bang, as a child’s voiceover recounts the fable of a lumberjack who was really a monster (as seen in pages from an illustrated book), while a mob of well-dressed men invade a Gothic old house in the woods and confront a woman named Midori (Reon Yuzuki) with a makeshift lab and a number of young corpses on the premises. The encounter does not end well.
Next, we’re taken to a mountain road where another suited man, lawyer Akira Ninomiya (Kazuya Kamenashi), causes a car accident and then makes short work of the other driver. Both setpieces involve great spurts of arterial blood, and soon after, Ninomiya is attacked in a parking garage by a hatchet-wielding figure resembling the pictures of that monstrous lumberjack. He appears to have been the target of the same fiend who has been committing so-called “head trauma” murders, removing the victims’ brains–and soon after, while recovering in hospital, Ninomiya finds out that he has a “neuro chip” implanted in his own grey matter. All this happens by about the movie’s 20-minute mark, during which time we’re also introduced to Ranko Toshiro (Nanao), a profiler working the serial killer case, and her colleague Noboru Inui (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), who has a connection to one of the suspects. Oh, and Ninomiya committed that opening slaying to protect himself and Kurou Sugitani (Shota Sometani), who’s just as sociopathic as he is.
The script by Hiroyoshi Koiwai, based on a novel by Mayusuke Kurai, thus plants plenty of seeds of intrigue, whetting our appetites to see how they all tie together. Further gruesome acts of violence play out amidst frequent black-humored lines of dialogue and bits involving Ninomiya’s cold personality, played with just the right steeliness by Kamenashi. The movie even dabbles in ethical questions as the origin and purpose of that neuro chip is revealed. Somehow, though, it never all comes together as a satisfying whole. The longer LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER goes on, the more it succumbs to talkiness, particularly in the final third, when it relies on a huge amount of exposition to cover its bases on the way to the climactic action. And even with a running time of close to two hours, certain backstory that feels necessary goes unexplored, such as the basis of the deadly relationship between Ninomiya and Sugitani.
Miike and his collaborators, notably his frequent cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita, certainly deliver a slick-looking, stylish product, but there’s something a tad impersonal about LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER, at least within Miike’s oeuvre. It feels like he was a director for hire here, and for all the storyline’s unusual turns, the film lacks the twisted spark of inspiration that fueled the movies that established his rep. The filmmaker’s fans will no doubt be happy to see him back in fright territory, and LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER does deliver a share of grisly/bizarre surface pleasures, yet those devotees might well wish for a little less talk and more exploration of the gritty/disturbing possibilities of the material.
Given Gens’ background with the ultraviolent likes of FRONTIER(S), THE DIVIDE and MAYHEM!, it was a surprise when he was announced as the man behind the latest in the inexhaustible flood of killer-shark movies. But that subgenre can make for strange bedfellows, and it was equally startling to see Bérénice Bejo, an Oscar nominee for Michel Hazanavicius’ THE ARTIST who also co-starred in Hazanavicius’ zombie comedy FINAL CUT, in its lead. UNDER PARIS (known as SOUS LA SEINE in its native France) even sets up a metaphor for itself in its opening sequence, where a team of environmentalists are taken out by an oversized mako amidst the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific, before the deadly fish makes its way to France. It’s well-done enough to raise hopes that UNDER PARIS will swim free of the usual run of direct-to-video/streaming trash, and it’s certainly a higher-class project than a lot of its competition.
Bejo plays Sophie, sole survivor of that attack (which claimed the life of her husband), who is approached three years later in Paris by Mika (Léa Leviant), an activist with the S.O.S. (Save Our Seas) group. Mika has evidence that the shark responsible for that past tragedy–a tagged specimen given the name “Lilith”–has somehow found its way into the Seine, and may already have claimed the life of a driver whose car crashed into the river. The exploration of that submerged vehicle, with big teeth marks on the door, offers visuals I can’t recall seeing in a film like this before, as does that prologue with all the floating refuse. The proceedings of the plot scripted by Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang and Gens, from an original idea by Edouard Duprey and Sebastien Auscher and screen-adapted by Yael Langmann and Olivier Torres (whew!), are more familiar. Scientist Sophie teams with an authority figure, River Brigade sergeant Adil (Nassim Lyes), in an attempt to both stop the threat and convince the mayor (Anne Marivin) that it’s real, while the latter will neither heed their warnings nor shut down an impending Big Event (a swimming triathlon).
For a while, UNDER PARIS does distinguish itself from some of its ilk by treating Lilith less as a monster to be feared than an animal doing its thing and a problem that needs to be solved, which makes it a closer cousin to the Ozploitation cult flick DARK AGE. As such, there isn’t a lot of attack action between that first massacre and a bravura blowout set in the flooded catacombs beneath the city. Still, Gens keeps things moving well, with solid production values, including the shark CGI and occasional physical props that are credible enough to make their scenes work. Adding a bit of gravitas, the filmmakers layer in environmental concerns, suggesting that climate change and altered habitats have led to Lilith’s increased size and atypical behavior, while true-life phenomena like a beluga whale in the Seine and sharks in England’s Thames river are dropped into the dialogue.
Not that much that happens in UNDER PARIS will be mistaken for reality, though. The movie gets nuttier as it goes on, and the final act goes completely off the rails, paying off a setup in the first 15 minutes in ways that take the action way over the top. It’s all played with a straight face, and throughout the film, that conviction behind the scenes and the actors all believing in their characters, and even the most outlandish situations, make it easier to just sit back and enjoy UNDER PARIS on its own terms. JAWS it ain’t–it’s not even DEEP BLUE SEA–but in a sea of cheeseball low- and no-budget flicks, UNDER PARIS is well-crafted and diverting enough for nature-amok fans fishing for simple aquatic thrills.
