Gurozuka

Gurozuka (2009)

This Japanese import tells the story of a group of College girls that go off to shoot a movie for their film club. The two girls that planned the trip don’t tell anyone that they are shooting a horror flick until they arrive at the isolated house where they are staying. Then they let everyone know that they will be dramatizing an event from the clubs past that involved the death of one girl and the institutionalization of another. Does this sound like a good idea to anyone? Sure enough someone starts to kill the girls off until the big reveal.

After having watched this I’m finding myself without any real strong feelings about it. There are some good points to point out. I found some of the jump scares to be very effective. They aren’t used too much and none of them are cheap (cat tossed off camera…). The atmosphere of the movie is also appropriately creepy which gives the movie a fun spooky vibe. This is further helped by the way that it is shot. The woods and the house are presented in such a way that it adds to the atmosphere. It was also a nice touch that the story hints at a supernatural element with it maybe being a ghost. I also found the twist ending to be okay at least the 1st one (more on that later).

But Gurozuka is a mixed bag for me. While the story is solid the characters aren’t established very well. They are all so similar that I was finding myself having trouble following who is who. Since there are some very important plot twists this was a bad thing. There is also very little blood on screen. Other then a couple of quick shots there is no violence. We get to see bodies staged after the fact, but that is about it. When I sit down to watch a movie about a crazed killer I’d like to see more of the red stuff. The pacing of the movie is also not that great. It takes far too long for them to establish that something is up. We get a lot of scenes of characters wandering around calling for each other. I also was surprised at some choppy editing. We get scenes where the music cuts off abruptly and another where the killer seems to jump from one side of the room to another. And while I like the 1st ending of the movie they went and tagged another one on that was really annoying and felt forced.

There are some things that are done well with Gurozuka and some others that aren’t. Basically I feel like this one is just a mediocre flick. If you dig Asian horror then you might want to rent or stream this one. But I can’t imagine that you will want to purchase it. I don’t see any need to watch it again. For more information on this head on over to the Synapse website at http://synapse-films.com/

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer