Face: How Clay Can Be Evil

I always thought the idea of facial reconstruction was used for recreating the faces of cavemen and our ancestors. In this movie, the skulls and recreated muscles in clay are used to identify murder victims who have been destroyed beyond recognition. A useful idea I may add (and actually done). But who knew that recreating somebody’s face could awaken an evil demon of the victim. And much more.

With two seemingly parallel story lines intertwining this film into one thread, Face is a horror movie about very specific diseases and using clay to remake a face. The star of

A bit of the fright?

the film, Lee Hyeon-min (Hyeon-jun Shin), is a face recreator who works for the police to catch whoever is murdering people past the point of recognition. Running along this is the fact that Hyeon-min’s daughter is in the hospital for a heart transplant from a very specific donor. Only able to accept Beta donors with similar to identical organs, this movies draws black market organ collecting with a facial recreation expert. When a fellow face creator named Jeong Seon-yeong (Yuh-ah Song) gets involved, things get creepy and horrific.

I’ll make this face to look like me. The Penguin. Muhahaha.

I was thoroughly confused at parts of this movie. Nobody was really given a name and the main actor looked like The Penguin from Batman. By the end, when everything is coming together, you feel you missed some part because the haunting ghost has something to do with something else, and it just all doesn’t make sense. There were some plot holes in this film when it came to the payoff twist.

As far as fright, this film delivered on a distant cousin with the American version of The Grudge. Now that movie is the only Asian horror film whose remake scared me more than the original. The long black hair and pale face with red eyes was reused in this one and was accompanied by some sort of scratching noise or something. But it is kinda sad when you can call every time and how they’re going to

What’s going on here?

deliver a jumpy scene. Through the mirror? Girl looks out the window? Eye in the box? Yep. It lacked a little bit of “Boo.”

It’s not one of those remarkable films you see that are made by Asian directors (this one was Korean) that has more than just fright, it has substance. This one fell short on script and delivery. For me I can never tell how good the foreign actors are, but you could kinda tell in this one. The whole film was pretty much lackluster. It took uninteresting scientific ideas and made them mix somehow. Oh well, better luck next time, Sang-gon Yoo. 4.5 out of 10.

 

Mirai Nikki: Future Diary

Mirai Nikki, Future Diary.

From the get go I’m gonna call this the standout anime for 2012. Although it was done back in October through April, it’s the show that got me excited and entertained for hours. I pretty much watched this show in a few days. I haven’t done that since Death Note. And Death Note is my favorite anime, so you can see what that says about this one. Mirai Nikki (known in English as Future Diary) has an interesting concept, a wide array of characters (one for everyone to choose and root for), and great animation. I don’t know where the Japanese come up with ideas for shows like this, but these intricate plot anime are where it’s at.

Mirai Nikki is the story of Yukiteru Amano (Yukki for short) and his apathetic life of recording things around them. He never hangs out with anyone or does anything remotely social. I guess you could

You crazy, ninth…

count hiding under his blanket and speaking with Deus, the god of this world. One day Yukki visits Deus and Deus decides to give him a new phone diary, one that can tell the future of things around Yukki. Using this to his advantage over the next several days, Yukki finds himself being chased down by a serial killer. In the course of running away, Yukki runs into somebody he didn’t expect. Yuno Gasai, his obsessive stalker. Learning that there are other participants in this “game” with future diaries, Yukki must fight against others, even kill, in order to become the next god of this world. The game is on.

Some of the other characters of Mirai Nikki (they’re kinda better…)

Just from that last paragraph’s description of the story, don’t you want to watch this intricate plot to figure out what happens? And, for me, it’s all about exploring and discovering the world of this wide ranging cast of diary owners. I have to say something right here to speak to that. This show is about “dead ending”/killing the other owners of the diaries. Every owner has their own reason for participating, and, I’ll say, to a fault, Yukiteru doesn’t. It seems, throughout the entire show, that Yukiteru is only playing this game to not die. He had no aspirations of becoming god, and I guess that’s a reason for playing. But that is a faulted reason. Yuno on the other hand… is a bit more complicated.

But this is the first anime I’ve ever watched where I liked all of the other supporting characters, and absolutely hated the two main characters from start to finish. Yukiteru is apathetic and weak. He has nothing to fight for and no way to fight for it. Minene Uryu (the 9th diary owner) is a terrorist, and although she may want to make the world better, she goes about it all wrong. Every character I did like and I thought had a good

This is what Yukki sees under his blanket fantasy world.

reason for winning isn’t given enough time to do so or the means to do so. This constantly was thrown in my face and was quite frustrating. Yuno is manipulative and never allows Yukki to decide if he loves her or not. With such flawed main characters, I guess it’s okay to hate them to an extent. They have to redeem themselves after all.

And that’s why I was okay with liking this show, despite hating the characters who got 80% of the screen time. I don’t think any show has to adhere to the good/bad dichotomy between protagonists and antagonists. And they don’t have to be a good person to be a hero either. So that’s well done in itself. Nothing in life is black and white.

Pretty PC for 9th Graders…

But the plot! The plot, the plot, the plot! Every episode ends with a cliffhanger, you have no idea where the story is going or when it will end! The intricacy of everyone involved in the Future Diary game is complex and not so easy to decipher. No one is safe and everyone is at risk, even those people outside the game. Betrayal, complex love stories, murder, this show has it all (and not without a bit of sexuality and boobs you wouldn’t expect on 9TH GRADERS). Everyone is out for themselves and it is up to you to side with who you think is right. This show would function perfectly as a choose your own ending game (point and click, preferably) in which you take each character to their limits. And praise Jeebus that Funimation got ahold of this show for dubbing, although I think a Death Note cast would’ve worked just as well.

So watch this show if it’s the last thing you do. It is well worth it and brings a whole lot of genres of anime together into one storyline. Anyone who enjoys good adrenaline pumping television, great character driven stories, and an all around game of cat and mouse with human lives at stake, watch this. You won’t regret it. And I stand firm in this being one of the best anime of 2012, maybe the last few years. Mirai Nikki, I may not like Ninth, but this deserves a 9th out of 10.

Beware the love triangles…

Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

Round 2

Pinhead is back for another romp in the hellish world of pain and pleasure in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. I have to wonder where the issue of pleasure comes in though, because it just seems like a lot of pain and screaming without any of the fetish of sadomasochism. Maybe that’s the moral of the story. Sadomasochism really isn’t for anyone. In any case, let’s jump right into the continuance of the first film, as told by Kirsty.

The movie opens on a scene of Pinhead (Doug Bradley) as his normal, WWII self. Discovering the evils of the box in his bunker, I found it was a great opener to delve into the world of the killer, and find out that Pinhead isn’t really the worst guy in the world after all. He was transformed by the puzzle box, becoming the evil person he is in Hellraiser 2. Or so we’re led to believe. Fast forward to a short period after the first film and we’re back with Kirsty (Ashley Laurence). I give Miss Laurence a lot of props for coming back to a series that, at the time, may not have been received all that well. Whether it was for the money who she saw promise in the series, I congratulate her effort in playing the female antagonist in this film.

That can't be pleasant...

So Kirsty is in a mental asylum. I know you’re thinking, “Hey, was the last movie all a part of her delusion? What a cop out.” But no, that’s not it at all. All of the events of the last film happened. Frank killed Kirsty’s dad and wore his skin. Who, accidentally, killed Julia and allowed her to be sucked into a mattress of the Cenobite’s design. And after all Hell(raiser) breaks loose, Kirsty somehow escapes and is now confined to aforementioned asylum. The detectives don’t believe it when they question her and decide to leave her there. Immediately, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham) seizes this opportunity to examine her, because, as we discover, there’s more to Dr. Channard’s interest than we may know…

Look! Frank can spell!

But then a whole lot of redonkulous events goes down. Julia (Claire Higgins) is reanimated from the mattress by a writhing, bleeding lunatic. She proceeds to relentlessly eat Channard’s face (in the sexual manner) and suck the lives out of a few men, Mummy style (I’m glad this idea always comes back in these movies). The Hellverse is opened and Pinhead and the gang are once again allowed into our world. But, and here’s the twist, Kirsty and this catatonic puzzle solving girl, Tiffany (Imogen Boorman) follow Channard and Julia into Hell to bring the fight to the Devil’s door. Well, not necessarily the devil, but something similar.

I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s worth watching at least up to the second in the series. (I’m up to number 5.) A lot is explained in 4 (Bloodline) although it may be considered the worst in the series. I just enjoyed finding out about

Julia, back with a bloody vengeance.

the Lament Configuration box and its origins in history. Pinhead becomes a better fleshed out villain than a lot of horror series give credit to their slayers. (The only exception to that rule is Freddy Kreuger, maybe Mike Meyers.) We learn about the man behind the pins and begin the road to sympathy, something most people don’t like to see in sadomasochistic serial killers.

As far as this movie doing justice to the first one, I would say it came about 3/4 of the way and then petered out towards the end. The ending itself is kind of a buzz kill to the rest of the series, but don’t worry, it’s not over for Pinhead and Chatterbox anytime soon. It still has all the gore and claymation animatronics you’re looking for in this groundbreaking series. It lays a basis for the series and doesn’t beat a dead horse with its plot. It picks up where it left off with no complaints. I was happier with the acting in this film and I felt the amateur returners to this film hit their stride and knew what was expected of them. I was a bit disappointed in the haunted house feeling that Hell had, or, the MC Escher style the art exuded(shout-out to Max for that one), but it’s all the past. The movie came to do what it did and did it with no fuss. Can’t fault it for that. So I’ll give Hellraiser 2 a solid 6.5 out of 10. And I hope you’re all looking forward to my Hellraiser 3 review.

Ahhhh yes, Dr. Channard...