Hidden Track

Japanese horror films have a way of getting under your skin and staying there for the entire weird ride. The films, by their very nature, are slightly different than western versions of this demented genre as the recent renaissance would indicate. And the Americans have been happily remaking them one right after the other, but something seems to be lost in translation, indeed, as the creepy qualities don’t linger quite as long.

That isn’t to say that the American take on Ring wasn’t filled with whacked-out goosebumpery, or that its legions of imitations haven’t had a scare or two, as well. However, there is something to be said about the original films, as the Japanese, for just a few dollars less, can scare the shit out of you and make that silly little walk back down your dark hallway even more daunting than it was when you weren’t suddenly hearing teeth chattering, distant whispers, and strangulated monkey yelps. No, I haven’t a clue what a “strangulated monkey yelp” sounds like, but ‘creepy’ is the right word for this week’s initial film in our Hidden Flick – Double Feature, Ju-On, which, in good ole Americanized English, translated to Buffy the Vampire playing the lead in The Grudge. READ ON for more of this week’s Hidden Flick…

Alas, the Sarah Jessica Michelle Parker Geller Williams version isn’t too bad, but it just doesn’t rank as high as the original. Actually, the director is the same—Takashi Shimuzu who wrote and directed Ju-On and would go on to helm the Geller version—but the subtle Japanese nuances are gone. Let’s get to the initial film, Ju-On, which has moments of unpredictable terror within a never-ending fright fest set in Spooksville, Japan—and the location is key as the Japanese have an incredibly long history of telling ghost stories in such a way that are beautifully poignant and terribly chilling. You’re sitting in your little apartment, enjoying your solitude, drinking green tea, avoiding the eyes peering down at you from an air vent, and TAKAHASHI CHRIST!!…was that dead grandma crawling along on eight legs with her bones tapping out “My Geisharona” on the staircase? And what’s with the scary kid with the freaky black ‘n’ red eyes…shouldn’t he be, like, in school, eating white rice and sucking back a Red Bull?…oh, he’s dead, too. Alrighty, then…I’ll just turn on some lights, now.

Plot: A family was slaughtered in a house—we don’t know why or seem to care since we’re too busy waiting for the next shock—and those that come into contact with the house or anyone who foolishly decides to cross paths with someone who may have entered the haunted abode, die. If you enter the house, you will NOT make it to the next scene, and it is a little terrifying as each cinematic chapter is titled with a character’s name that taunts one into believing that anything other than horrible death will take place. Young, brash, and original, while working on a very low budget, Takashi Shimuzu unleashed a film that hides in your skin, dripping into veins, and questioning sanity.

Catch this little horror gem before losing your mind in the beautifully bizarre universe of animated pioneer, Ralph Bakshi, in the landmark film he wrote, produced and directed the year before he would helm The Lord of the Rings in all its animated glory in 1978.

This second film in our little demonic Double Feature is Wizards, which is Bakshi’s personal favorite and my own more than guilty pleasure in animated bravado when I’m not drifting through time whilst digging through eye-and-ear raping sessions with Gilgamesh, Avatar, Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Perfect Blue, Metalocalypse, Aeon Flux, Witchblade, Vampire Hunter D and others of the cinematically twisted and lyrical Goth Anime Kingdom, or GAK, a place that can be just as silly as it is innovative.

James Cameron is currently working on two projects which embrace animation, live action and 3-D while Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are riding along a parallel film path with their own animated trilogy—Tintin—which somehow doesn’t sound as exciting as anything that Cameron could conjure (or the gargantuan talents of Guillermo del Toro, of Hellboy, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth fame, who is set to helm two Bilbo films that will tell the tale of what happened before The Lord of the Rings in the perpetually pending The Hobbit, for that matter). However, Bakshi got there first and he did it with animation, live action, drawings, porn music, weird psychedelic landscapes, Nazi villains, medieval warriors, scantily clad female hipsters, elves, sorcerers, goblins, robots, donkeys that talk, and eye candy that was unparalled at the time of its release and, although slightly dated, still holds up to repeated viewings. Bakshi offers his only audio commentary for any of his films on Wizards—including, surprisingly enough, his other gold nuggets Fritz the Cat and The Lord of the Rings—as this one film is the monolith that he wanted to be remembered for, and it isn’t a bad counterpart to a horror film like Ju-On, which is completely devoid of humor, for obvious reasons, as it stalks the halls looking for someone else to damage; whereas Wizards, you GET damaged to watch it.

There are huge scenes of hilarious animated innovation in Wizards—whole settings where Bakshi took footage of war scenes, his cool drawings and celluloid magic, and dry-humped them into oblivion with his own visual montage tapestry while splicing in a soundtrack that assaults and dazzles. Anyway…there you have it, a two-fer-da-price-of-one in this latest edition of Hidden Flick as we continue to shake up your viewing habits with a fair share of imagery that you wouldn’t see anywhere else but within the confines of your safe and comfortable environment. Hmmm…better latch up that dead bolt lock, just in case—never know what is out there, or what may already be inside…