By Mark Schilling
In Japan horror used to be the genre that seldom showed its face in polite company. The
big-ticket Hollywood items got the big theatres, as was their box office due, but the local
product often played in dives that should have sold roach spray together with the popcorn.
Now, though, horror has gone upscale, if recent openings in central Tokyo theatres are
any indication. Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro, a collection of horror shorts by eight young
director and based on true stories submitted from around the country, on August 21 at
Cine La Sept, a forty-seat arthouse in the trendy Shibuya entertainment district.
Also opening the same day in the same venue, as a late show, was Ki*Re*I, a psycho
horror flick about a young woman who runs a plastic surgery clinic -- and takes on a
patient who will a huge amount of money for a most unusual operation. At least it has the
pedigree of being based on a award-winning short story by Kei Yuikawa.
Meanwhile, Baus Theatre, an arthouse in the suburb of Kichijoji, is screening The
Groaning Drainpipe, about a mother and daughter who move into a house with a stopped
up drainpipe -- and discover a suspicious man lurking about. Directed by Ataru Oikawa,
the film is based on a popular horror comic by Junji Ito, best know for the Tomie series.
Most arty of all, however, is The Face of Jizo, Kazuo Kuroki's new drama about a young
woman who lives with the ghost of her father in the ruins of postwar Hiroshima. Though
mostly high-minded reflections of the lives and souls of hibakusha (atomic bombing
survivors), the film has its share of chills. It is playing at Iwanami Hall, Japan's leading
temple of cinematic art for nearly four decades.
What about the teenage boys on school break looking a good shock at the local
multiplex? Well, there's always Fahrenheit 911.
