Kazuo Umezz's Horror Theater Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A collection of 6 horror shorts from acclaimed manga artist Kazuo Umezu.

Review: It's extremely rare, but, believe it or not, sometimes Asian horror does venture into the Christmas realm; technically, "Ju-on: Old Lady in White" took place during Christmas time as well. I'd love to say this whole collection was dedicated to this topic, but only the entry "The Present" features a beloved killer santa, and, in all honesty, it's the only reason to even get this set. I've discussed these kinds of collections before with a few having decent budgets and others, like this, coming off extremely weak. I don't know much about Mr. Umezu, or "Umezz" as he is often referred to as, but he does have a uniquely stylized approach to these stories with an underlying story veiled by the primary events. While I can appreciate subtext, you will often find yourself bored out of your mind not caring enough to figure things out. Oddly enough, "The Present" is virtually the only segment that plays it straight with a surprisingly original concept. Well, let's jump headfirst into this collection and see what we can dig up, shall we? Oh, and if anyone knows any other Asian horror movies that involve Christmas, or any other holidays (besides Chinese ghost month), please let me know!

House of Bugs: Well, we start things off with Mr. Umezz yawning and showcasing his precious candy-cane shirt--you know, gotta come out swinging! Get used to this opening, because it plays, in all its cheesy glory, before each story. Once again, the first entry is the worst, by far. Obviously you don't throw out your ace first, but at least put one of your average segments first to lure in the audience for the rest; a lot of anthologies, collections, and series' start off so poorly, like this, for some strange reason. Anyway, the story is that some married couple is having relationship difficulties due to a number of reasons--mostly cheating. The mystery surrounding the situation is that each tells the events from a different perspective making the other out to be crazy. This concept of presenting the story from different angles could be clever if done correctly, but, alas, it is not presented cohesively. I don't understand the problem here since things should be straightforward: the husband is cheating, the wife is manipulating her cousin, and all parties involved are dumbasses. For some reason the wife is convinced she can turn herself into a multitude of insects or actually can do this feat depending on whoever you believe. This doesn't really have any relevance to the plot as we are never introduced to a reason she would think this or how she would be able to do this. After the husband and his lover kiss in front of the seemingly catatonic wife, she really does turn into a giant spider...I guess. Later, the couple appears to make up, but then the husband is shown to be where the wife had been, so now he thinks he's a bug? I don't get it...something with spousal roles...marriage...drama...blah blah blah. It makes no sense, but if you can gain some kind of perspective on this tale of woe, be sure to let me know.

Diet: Considering this collection was sold at one point as individual volumes, you really got screwed if you bought the first one unknowingly. Keeping in line with "House of Bugs," you have a tale trying too hard to be a different story. At face value we are shown a girl who is rejected by the guy she likes and then begins to see herself as fat and ugly; each time she sees this visage of herself, she vomits profusely. It is eventually revealed that she really is the fat and ugly version and the better looking version is her dead sister that she has begun to identify herself as. So her psyche has become warped due to some unspoken trauma or has it really? For some reason the girl is suddenly better looking again when she decides to seduce the guy she likes, but instead eats him alive...somehow. Pretentiously, the credits roll with a scene at the end showing the girl with the police having a large stomach talking about how the guy is "in her." Okay, I think it's safe to say you can easily see the pregnancy plotline not so subtly hidden, but perhaps there is more to it than that. I guess you could look at it as a girl gets pregnant, the guy was only using her, she imagines her looks leaving, perhaps the same thing happened with the sister or mom, and so she kills the guy. Or, she was fat, the guy screwed her because she was easy, and being with a guy made her feel beautiful. Or, the girl, seeing her mom in action, felt that was how you get a guy not realizing the consequences, and the movie is mostly in her imagination and her becoming "normal" again at the end symbolizes her returning to her old self which is why the guy doesn't recognize her. Or maybe I'm giving this shit way too much credit. Needless to say, nothing makes sense and the movie wants you pondering what it all means, but a fuck you will not give. And the "beautiful" version would have been a lot better without helmet-looking hair!

Snake Girl: At this point you will probably notice the trend that all of these stories are not really about what they claim to be. This time we follow the countryside adventure of a little girl visiting some family members as crazy antics ensue. The superstitious townies believe the girl is some prophesied "snake girl" that would cause disaster and so they want her gone. The girl thinks she is literally turning into a snake, but it's actually her overly nice cousin that is the snake girl. Somehow, through kind words, the girl is able to free her cousin of the snake girl curse and turns her back to normal. I suppose the heart of the story is about friendship and understanding since we are shown the girl talking shit earlier in the film implying that her, and others, bulling one particular girl made her a crazy killer. So I guess we are also dealing with guilt and regret, but, hey, wait a minute, her cousin says that the bullies were talking about her, so that means she was the killer as well as the snake girl? Oh forget it; it is futile trying to figure out the real message going on. While this entry does come off almost as nonsensical as the last two, it isn't as pretentious, the story has a little more action, and it had more horror elements. And there's a happy ending and everything!

The Wish: This is definitely the second best of the group as we have a story that could actually be considered scary for once. A lonely, boy genius decides to build a doll as a friend after becoming convinced it will come to life if he believes in it enough. After spending days doing nothing but channeling his willpower toward the doll, he gives up just as he meets a real friend/girlfriend. Unfortunately for the boy, the doll really has come to life and does not take too kindly to the boy's new friend and attempts to kill her. Later, the doll tries to kill the boy as well as the two get into an amusingly long fight. Unlike all the other segments, this entry simply ends with the doll being destroyed and the boy coming to terms with his mistake; no extra level of pretentious "what does this mean" bullshit. The doll looks creepy and the lighting and setups enhance this effectively with a few disturbing moments. With a real budget, this could have been really awesome and with more time they could have lengthened the scary moments. I would not mind one bit if they tried to convert this entry into a full-blown movie. This is a so-called horror collection after all, and this is what every story should have been like!

The Present: Now we come to the main event and probably the easiest segment to track down on sites like youtube. I feel, hands down, this is the best of the six since it is a surprisingly respectable slasher with some interesting and creative ideas. We are first introduced to the lead, Yuko, when she was a child in order to establish what Christmas used to mean to her. We then jump to present day as she is preparing to meet up with her friends and boyfriend/love interest/crush/whatever for some kind of Christmas celebration. Apparently she is nervous because she is offering herself up as her gift to this guy (aka sweet nookie!). The group goes to, what appears to be, the fanciest love hotel in all of Japan as Yuko has flashbacks and an eerie feeling everything is connecting back to her childhood Christmas. Items strewn about the hotel are oddly reminiscent to Yuko and the desk clerk is some white dude dressed as santa who intimidates the unnerved girl. Before being whisked away by prince charming, Yuko hears one of her friends claim that the santa was a woman. The hotel room itself looks like her old bedroom, but, let's face it Yuko-girl, you came there for one reason--to be aggressively groped before fading to black! If you're scared and think you're going insane, do you just roll over and fuck? I guess some people do. Anyway, the lovebirds are awakened by a loud noise as they investigate the bloody massacre in one of their friend's room. The deaths and gore here are about the level you'd expect from V-cinema, but compared to the rest of the entries, I'd say this is where this collection used up most of their budget. The remaining friends are eventually attacked and ripped to pieces by the ensuing white-guy santa who has a pretty cool weapon. Yuko learns that each person sees the killer santa in the form they always imagined him as a child; in Yuko's case, she imagined santa as the iconic Coke version while her friend thought santa was female and her fuck-buddy saw santa as his dad dressed up. I really liked this notion and it was an original way to demonstrate the killer santa idea. If this weren't enough, the killer santa takes the bodies to his "toyshop" of sorts where he turns the remains into food for his bloodthirsty reindeer. As Yuko tries to make one final escape we learn that she is a total bitch and has been manipulating her lover-boy. Wait, huh? She has to manipulate some guy...to bang her? As cute as you are, I don't think you need to go to that much effort, hun. Well, keeping with the nonsensical themes of this collection, we have no clue what any of it means, because apparently the killer santa is really her childhood self...killing herself...because she's naughty...and doesn't want to grow up to be like that? I don't fucking know. I guess you could say it was all a dream, because Yuko as a kid says she ripped out her own future-self's brain and says she was that santa. Or since it all felt so unusually reminiscent, maybe it did happen and she's simply recalling her childhood self dreaming about it before she dies? Or maybe the whole segment is a metaphor for childhood innocence and how children view Christmas versus when the kids grow up and see Christmas in a more adult way where they can dish out nookie as a gift? Oh you devious Mr. Umezzzzzzzz you!

Death Make: So do we close out strong after having back to back cool segments? Of course not! It sucks too, because this entry started off very promising. Some TV show has arranged for a bunch of psychics to stay at an allegedly haunted building and record whatever shenanigans may occur. There is also a hint of found-footage style, but not entirely--just a lingering feeling that it may have been intended to originally be that way. The psychics are mostly goofballs that don't really have any control over their powers if they have any at all. Eventually weird shit starts to happen and the psychics are picked off by some creature. Sadly, the creature looks beyond terrible with horrendous CGI. The main girl believes that the creature is a manifestation of her powers which doesn't add up since someone died before she showed up and that wouldn't explain the original context of the haunting with some group of girls who died. Somehow the psychics have been trapped in a different world or dimension until only the main girl is left alive. For some reason, this segment momentarily transforms into an action film as the main girl fights the creature and kills it. Then we cut and apparently the girl is an actress and everything is a movie...uh okay. But then the girl goes outside and rubs her arm and can lift up the skin. The end?! Mr. Umezz, you're killing me here! Okay, I'm tired of trying to think up elaborate interpretations for this shit. Let's just say, the girl committed suicide, thus the cut on her arm at the end, and everything has been in her head as she comes to terms with the death.

What can I say, there were two good segments, one okay, one with potential, and two that were terrible. Make of that however you wish. The quality is simply not consistent from story to story making the whole experience feel like a mess. "The Wish" and "The Present" were both really good and could easily be full-length films if they wanted them to be, but something like "House of Bugs" was torturously boring and should have been reduced to like a 20 minute special. I originally saw these entries spread out over many years never realizing what collection they belonged to so the overall craptacularness never really struck me until now. If you can get this set cheap, like I did, then I'd say it is just barely worth buying, but you can probably track down the better segments online. Eh, I'm going to say it's average mostly due to the weaker stories being balanced by the better ones. Well, if you have an Asian horror craving that must be satiated at all times, then check this one out this Christmas.

Notable Moment: In "The Wish" when the boy's doll is knocking on his window creepily. There were so many moments when I kept thinking how amazing this movie could have been in the right hands.

Final Rating: 5.5/10 (overall)