Forbidden Siren (aka Sairen) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A girl and her family visit an island where the inhabitants disappeared mysteriously 30 years prior.

Review: Similarly to the "Twilight Syndrome" films, this was another promotional movie to coincide with the release of the video game, "Forbidden Siren 2," from the "Siren" franchise. I never played those games, but I did watch someone play the third entry, and it was decent enough with heavy emphasis on survival horror. Surprisingly, this is actually an atmospheric little film with a lot of great imagery. The mystery is most certainly engaging, intriguing, and possessing nearly endless potential. Unfortunately, the ending is terrible and nearly drags down the entire film in the process with a completely nonsensical twist that seriously does not fit the film's established continuity.

The story begins in 1976 when it is discovered that all the residents of a small island off Japan have mysteriously disappeared. The film cites the Roanoke incident along with the Mary Celeste ghost ship as an implication that these events are all connected; other books and films have incorporated this plot line before, but I'm perfectly fine with its usage here. What I'm not okay with is the usage of a video camera that records this discovery...Japan or not, nice try. Unlike those incidents, there was one lone survivor of this disappearance, but he is a raving lunatic that keeps claiming you have to hide when the siren sounds. We then skip ahead 30 years later with the main character, Yuki, her brother, Hideo, and her father coming to the island for questionable reasons to say the least. Something about the dad doing work or to help the son get over an illness never addressed--hell if I know. I should mention Yuki is played by the cute Yui Ichikawa whom I mentioned in my reviews for "Ju-on: The Grudge" 1 and 2.

The current island residents are mostly assholes with only a nice doctor, who is some kind of colleague of the father, and a milfy next door neighbor. The family is warned to stay indoors should they ever hear the siren sound as the original disappearance has turned into a superstition of sorts; the source of the siren is a large air raid tower high atop a hill. While Yuki and Hideo explore the island a bit we obviously get the idea something is not right with the residents appearing to be in some kind of cult; one of them is old man Isao Yatsu, who I've mentioned multiple times at this point, in yet another bit role. At one point, Yuki is separated from Hideo and attacked by the crazy survivor from the disappearance and she gets a hold of his diary. Reuniting with Hideo, Yuki comes across a little hottie dressed in red. And what's this? The girl in red is played by, Mai Takahashi, who you may remember was our friend from "The Present" segment of "Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theater." I was wondering if we'd ever see her again! We'll get back to her later in regard to the ending.

Later that night, Yuki hears the siren sound but is lured outside by that idiot Hideo who has wandered off yet again. The father was also outside when the siren sounded, ignoring the warnings, when he appears to be attacked off screen. The next day Yuki goes to find the father with the help of the doctor when she thinks she finds the father's dead body. By the time Yuki can get the local police, the father's body has, of course, vanished without a trace. It doesn't matter though, because pops is already back at home but is acting abnormal. Yuki decides to investigate what the hell happened on this island and finds a convenient website that tells the audience everything and more. There is something about a legend that the island's people had a disease and ate a mermaid to cure this disease and gain immortality. But somehow the mermaid cursed the island and it's implied that is why the people disappeared. They show a picture of the mermaid who greatly resembles the girl in red, and this website has that bullshit video from 1976 uploaded. This is when Yuki realizes that guy that attacked her is the survivor, but he hasn't aged in 30 years and the website claims he committed suicide.

While trying to find Hideo, again, Yuki finds him hanging out with the girl in red when the siren goes off again. Yuki ends up running into the lone survivor again as he explains that when you go out with the siren sounding you can get attacked by zombie-like creatures (called "shibitos" in the game). This part is kind of cool with the shibitos peeking through various little holes in the survivor's house. Somehow they kill the lone survivor as Yuki and Hideo casually escape. You will probably begin to notice Yuki carrying Hideo a lot in this film which is kind of funny with that brat serving more as a backpack than a real character. When Yuki gets back home they gather their things to flee to the boats, but she is distracted by a hidden room in the house that reveals the current residents are actually the ones that originally disappeared who have turned into these shibitos. Most disturbing of all is that the doctor too is one of the original inhabitants and, thus, a shibito as well. Before Yuki can reflect on this, a shibito version of the father goes apeshit as the lights go out and he tries to catch his kids. This part is pleasantly intense due to the impressive house design and the lighting effects.

Yuki and Hideo manage to escape the father and head to the siren tower to destroy it believing that will end this nightmare. When they climb the giant tower Yuki is attacked by the shibito version of the lone survivor but he fails. At the top, Yuki notices the horizon has turned red in an almost apocalyptic image as she destroys the siren. This does nothing as Yuki realizes the siren is still sounding almost as if it is in the air itself, but she is interrupted by a non-shibito doctor who ruins the entire film. He tells Yuki that the siren sound is only in her head and is a side effect of her mental problems due to her inability to cope with the death of Hideo some time ago. We see a montage of scenes from the film from the perspective of others seeing Yuki talking to no one and that the doctor was trying to treat her. For some reason, the doctor becomes a shibito and Yuki decides to swan dive off the tower but magically survives; and I must emphasize the degree of magic in this miraculous feat. We then skip to the doctor talking to the father about Yuki's condition, and he says that the original disappearances were actually a crazed guy who killed everyone on the island claiming it was because of a siren; it was this act that made the islanders suspicious of anyone claiming to hear the siren. Noticing part of the lone survivor's diary sticking out of Yuki's ridiculously flat butt, the doctor pieces it together with the half he had to learn that the guy wrote about a fourth siren sounding (there had been 3 in the film). All of a sudden, another siren sounds and Yuki is armed with a knife ready to kill. The final shot is of the girl in red standing in front of that same apocalyptic image with the red horizon. Umm okay.

So I want to stress that up until the reveal that Hideo is dead this movie is awesome. The atmosphere is spot on with tiny tidbits of information coming in to gradually introduce and explore the mystery. But just when the pieces of the puzzle are about to fall in place we get this "it's all in your head" kind of bullshit. But you see, it doesn't add up anyway. First off, the whole 1976 plot line happened no matter what and the lone survivor simply killing everyone makes no sense since they didn't find the bodies (or at least it's never mentioned). We'd also have to assume that Yuki imagined the entire website; yeah, it was a contrivance, but I find it hard to believe she imagined it. Plus, why mention the Roanoke and Mary Celeste incidents if they have no connection to the plot? Then there were the photos in the house--what, she imagined those too? What was imagined and what was real is too ill-defined. And what are the odds that two crazy people with the same insanity would coincide on the same damn island? I'm going to say virtually impossible. You could argue Yuki was influenced by reading the diary, but that's seriously reaching. That leads me to the entire existence of the girl in red. If none of it were real, then why the final shot and why have her in the film at all? And yes, she was real as we see a flashback of the girl in red seeing Yuki talking to the imaginary Hideo. In fact, the girl in red is useless to the plot entirely unless she is supposed to be this mermaid. I don't know about all that. What I do know, however, is that Ms. Takahashi voiced one of the characters in the video game and there was a character vaguely like the girl in red so maybe this was intended to bridge the two stories. Or...maybe they had a different ending planned altogether but it was altered for the game (or vice versa) at the last second. In my mind I'm going to simply believe Yuki failed, became a shibito, is seeing random bullshit as a result, and that the woman in red is destroying the world or something.

If you can ignore, or somehow, appreciate the ending, this movie is much better than you'd imagine especially as a mere promotional film. Come to think of it, video game movies are notorious for sucking, yet these low budget promo films from Japan have been exceptionally good considering the little effort that appears to go into them. The scenery is beautiful and the set designs were nice especially with the house Yuki stayed at; speaking of which, the cute girls were a nice touch. The air raid siren has become played out, especially after "Silent Hill" monopolized the use, but it's still effectively unsettling. The film's story and direction appeared to be faithful to the games right down to the red-vision POV shots from the shibito. Overall, this was a great film that I believe fans of the games will enjoy as well as J-horror fans in general. The ending does blow chunks, but the rest of the story manages to save the overall experience.

Notable Moment: When Yuki peeks behind a corner, the lightning flashes, and her zombie father's face suddenly meets hers. I was actually momentarily startled so I have to give them credit for that.

Final Rating: 6/10

Ms. Takahashi as the girl in red (not sure why the photo is so blurry though):