Reincarnation (2005)

REINCARNATION
2005
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Starring Yuka, Karina Nose, Marika Matsumoto, Keppei Shiina and Shun Oguri

Longtime readers of the blog are well-aware of my hard-on for the Ju-On/Grudge series and my reverence for its creator, Takashi Shimizu.  Sparing everyone the excruciating details, I find the original Japanese cycle of films (weird-ass Ju-On: Curse 2 notwithstanding) to be the single finest horror franchise of the 21st century.  Saw can eat a dick, these movies know how to bob-and-weave between multiple storylines - sometimes within multiple films - and keep your eyeballs surgically implanted to the screen the entire time.  All the while, everything just makes perfect sense, and every new twist and wrinkle added to the formula just feels totally right, all ending with evil lil' girl Kayako ready to wreak some vengeance at the end of Ju-On: Grudge 2.  I still go to sleep pissed every day that we haven't gotten the follow-up film to that.

Not long after checking out that series, I sought some of Shimizu's other films.  One of them, Marebito, is one of the single best mindfucks I've ever seen.  Unfortunately, the only other Shimizu flick in my library is the one we're looking at today, and boy, is it an exercise in tepidity.  Reincarnation (known as Rinne in Japan) was one of six movies released by producer Taka Ichise as "J-horror theater," and a year after that was one of the "8 films to Die For" in the inaugural After Dark HorrorFest.  Is that still a thing, by the way?  I don't even know.  I can only assume that it got this attention due to the past successes of Shimizu, because the flick certainly isn't that impressive.  With that background info out of the way, let's get moving.

The movie is essentially one of those "multiple timeline" films that always confuse the holy hell out of me, particularly when I'm dealing with a foreign language.  It opens with what is admittedly a pretty messed up scene as college professor Norihasa Omori goes on a rampage, killing 11 hotel guests, his own children, and finally himself - all while he films the entire thing.  It's not quite up there with last week's Ghost Ship massacre, but it's a a pretty nifty way to start a horror film and really grabs your attention.  Unfortunately, it' all downhill from here.

Taking a cue from Ju-On: Grudge 2, Shimizu's plot device is that of a film being shot about the requisite horror movie "past evil" crime.  Keppei Shiina does a decent job as Matsumura, a horror movie director who wants to make a film about the massacre.  In one of the many sterling examples of many genius ideas in the realm of horror, he wants to film said movie in the very same hotel where the murders occurred 35 years earlier.  His key hire for the movie is actress Nagisa Sugiura (Yuka), and it is with this character that we spent the vast majority of the remaining running time.

With so much camera time, Yuka ranks somewhere between Kimberly Beck and Melanie Kinnaman on the likability scale, but unfortunately doesn't have a whole ot of depth beyond what little the movie gives her in the way of development.  She is starring in the movie-within-a-movie as the Professor's doomed daughter, and a good portion of the first third of this movie revolves around the excruciating details of making a movie.  We even get a good cameo from Takako Fuji as a hotel maid, something that made me mark the hell out, but all in all it's pretty slow-moving in the early goings.

So where are we going?  Well, Sugiura starts having nightmares, visions, and hallucinations about the past massacre, eventually believing herself to be the reincarnation of the character that she is playing.  This is interspersed with a "B" story of sorts involving a college student (Karina Nose) and actress Yuka (confusing, I know, but this one is played by Marika Matsumoto), who auditioned for Sugiura's role at the beginning of the film.  Yuka has her own remembrances of a past life, and these two characters go about trying to piece together just what in the hell is going on.

Watching this movie after several years of it laying dormant on my shelf, I couldn't help but think that the movie had been a LOT better if these two characters had been the focus and scrapping the entire "film within a film" aspect, with Nose's papers supporting the theories of reincarnation and Matsumoto's character showing some psychic prowess being the things that drive the movie forward after both characters spend a night in the hotel and experience some weird, wild stuff (second /Johnny Carson joke in as many months).  Don't say that I don't offer constructive criticism.  This was my favorite aspect of the film, and I definitely could have done with more of it. 

Eventually, Reincarnation reaches a crescendo that shoots for the sort of wild, unpredictable finishes that the Grudge movies are known for.  But everything has been thoroughly telegraphed up to that point, and it just falls incredibly flat.  This is where the lack of emotional attachment to any of the main characters really shows; in Ju-On, we got to know Rika like our own sister, and her fate at the end of the film hits you in the gut like nothing else.  My response at the end of this flick?  "Eh, so that happened."

So it is with Reincarnation, a movie that I have now watched on three separate occasions to see if there is an appeal to it that I'm missing.  Alas, there isn't.  Having said that, there are three more recent films by Shimizu that I will have to check out and review soon.  Hopefully, the guy has found his groove back since this one, and this slow, slow, oh-so-slow burn that doesn't burn was just a hiccup instead of a new trend.

* 1/2 out of ****.  Not especialy scary, interesting, or fascinating.  Avoid.