Sculerbob on the latest J-Horror Theatre movies: KANSEN & YOGEN!

Hey folks, Harry here with a look at the latest from the world of Asian horror! We ran a link to the trailer for this double bill a while back and now... here's a look at the final product! Here ya go...

Hi Harry, i noticed that you had a news story annoucing the release of the new J-Horror Theatre movies, Kansen and Yogen but I haven't seen any reviews so i thought i'd send you my thoughts. This is a double bill guaranteed to chill your spine, or at least numb your buttocks. the first installment of a planned trilogy of Japanese horror movie releases entitled J-Horror Theatre. This is at the very least value for money, as you get two full length movies for the price of one ticket. and they even have an interval inbetween so you can go and buy more crap from the lobby. The first movie of the pair is KANSEN directed by Masayuki Ochiai, a relative newcomer who is tolerably well-known for his debut PARASITE EVE. 'Kansen' means Infection and the story revolves around a strange little hospital with weird patients and even weirder staff. "STOP RIGHT THERE!" you're thinking, "haven't we seen this done a million times before?" well, yes, we have; but the classics are classics for a reason, and you can't beat inexplicably dark and dirty institutional buildings for frightening the socks off you. the film begins as a rather mundane hospital drama, with terrible events threatened in the traditional 'look out behind you' score but very little in the way of scares. but soon a mistake by one of the nurses sends the hospital's night staff into a panic and they decide to hide the result in the basement, obviously. Then another body is delivered by the paramedics, which immediately disappears, causing a chain reaction of terror around the hospital and beginning the 'Infection' of the title. at this point no one in the hospital thinks it might be a good idea to leave, or even inform anyone outside the building, no doubt due to SUPERNATURAL STUFF. KANSEN is not the best japanese horror movie i've seen, but it does feature some entertaining scares, good special effects and several twists at the end, most importantly, it features lots and lots of disgusting Green Goo, a bit like saturday morning kid's TV. Overall i would give it 8 out of 10 on the gunk-o-meter. second on the bill is the 'Dead Child Drama' YOGEN, which means Prediction. in which a newspaper (badly rendered in CGI) predicts grisly deaths. The director is Norio Tsuruta, who made the watchable but barely frightening RINGU 0: BAASUDEI. YOGEN is based on an old Manga series so it technically predates movies like RINGU and CHAKUSHIN ARI which it resembles. A family is driving home when the father decides he needs to use a telephone box to send an email on his laptop. while waiting for his email to download he picks a newspaper which mysteriously has a picture of his 5-year-old daughter on it. the next moment as his wife gets out of the car to talk to him, a tanker smashes their daughter to death in a fiery mess of more bad CGI. what follows is an increasingly intricate search for the truth of the newspaper, which plays out like a cross between Ringu and Quantum Leap. despite some good scares, and a very effective scene with a woman with her face missing, this is a rather cheap and average movie which implodes in the last 15 minutes and has more endings than all the Lord of the Rings movies combined. the little girl is a fantastic actress who screams well, but the actor playing her father is far too over the top, and it doesn't bring anything new to the genre. the cheap CGI didn't help and it doesn't feature any Green Goo at all. on balance my spidey-sense tells me to give it 6 out of 10. Hope this isn't old news Harry, if you use it call me Schulerbub.