JJ79 Blog

Released: February 25, 2006
Director: Takashi Miike

*****

Ah yea, the infamous edition of the Masters of HorrorQueer as Folk and The L Word to television would have a problem with some of the content in Takashi Miike's (Audition) installment. Imprint isn't even true horror, at least not the kind of horror we'd expect from the series. It's more unsettling and shocking than anything else. Look no further than the prolonged torture scene of Komomo halfway through the film. We watch as she is repeatedly burned, long needles are stuck underneath her fingernails and into her gums and she is hung upside down, apparently urinating on herself in the end. All because a jade ring was stolen from the house madam.

But let me back up a bit. Set in the 1800s, Christopher is an American journalist trying to find his one true love-Komomo-on an island of whores and other degenerates. A deformed lady of joy tells him Komomo is dead and, in three different stories, recounts what happened, each one more grotesque than the last.

I was oddly unaffected by what passes for horror here. Sure, scenes of brutality and torture, not to mention unpleasant images, pervade the 63 minute film, though the are a different breed of horror. Blood and guts (and fetuses) are all the rage in the last half...as is a positively off base sister character. And its that final revelation which not necessarily dooms the movie, but comes damn close. See, if you want to set a film within the confines of reality, fine. But keep true to that reality.

Otherwise, Imprint is an impressively shot film, looking good enough to throw onto the big screen with no alterations. Whereas early segments of the series betrayed their television roots, Miike's contribution is wide in scope and ambitious in plot. It looks fantastic, the acting is uniformly impressive and there are no obvious cheats with the violence. On that count, it delivers. As a horror film? Not so much.

 

(spout.com)