Thursday 29 October 2020

CURE ***


 This Japanese serial-killer chiller is just grisly enough to satisfy the fan-boys and smart enough to please those who like to take their brains with them when they go to the cinema. People are being murdered in Tokyo and their killers are found close to the bodies but claiming either no memory or understanding of their crimes and it's left to laid-back detective Koji Yaskusho to figure out what's going on.

The film is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure" and since it first appeared in 1997 has built up something of a cult following. It's like a Japanese version of "Seven" and Kurosawa builds up the suspense beautifully, using tiny shock tactics rather than big jump-out-at-you scares and eliciting a genuinely eerie performance from Masato Hagiwara as the man who's probably behind the killings. A superb use of sound effects also adds to the general feeling of unease making this one of the most unsettling horror films of the last 25 years.

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