Synopsis
To his mute sister's dismay, a young boy puts a dying rabbit out of its misery with a brick -- and soon the siblings end up in a world of nightmares.
Tormented
2011 ‘ラビット・ホラー３Ｄ’ Directed by Takashi Shimizu
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Tormented is a wonderfully creative and charming J-horror film by veteran director Takashi Shimizu. It’s low budget and features a slew of cheesy effects and moments, but the dream-like visuals and set pieces are creative and manage to juggle some genuinely creepy moments with the cheesiness.
This is no Marebito or Ju-On but it’s worth a watch and quite lovable.
78/100
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First, let me begin by saying that I probably like this movie a lot more than I should, but that's probably true of all Takashi Shimizu's work.
This sequel to 2009's Shock Labyrinth follows two siblings, the adult Kiriko and her ten-year-old brother Daigo. Daigo, right at the beginning of the film, bludgeons a rabbit to death, a disturbing image, but one we can almost excuse because the rabbit seems to be sick, in pain. It seems to be a child's misguided attempt at doing the right thing, so it's easy to write off, noting little more than the fact that it's the first apperance of rabbits in this film. However, this ends up being more significant than you might…
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Blech. Didn't work for me at all. Whatever credit I give this movie comes from the joy I felt when the rabbit suited character showed up and I was sitting next to a certified furry.
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Japanese genre filmmaker Takashi Shimizu(MAREBITO,7500[a.k.a.:FLIGHT 7500]) follows up his 3-D horror outing SHOCK LABYRINTH with this 3-D follow-up psychological thriller that has a young woman(Hikari Mitsushima[LOVE EXPOSURE,DEATH NOTE:THE LAST NAME]) whose young brother(Takeru Shibuya[KAIDEN HORROR CLASSICS]) is haunted by the presence of a rabbit that appears as either a small doll or as a human sized figure that Hikari soon winds up seeing and being haunted by,which brings their father(Teruyuki Kagawa[CREEPY,SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO]) along as many dark secrets from Hikari's past are released that bring along further horrors to haunt and terrorize her.
Originally filmed as RABBIT HORROR,TORMENTED offers plenty of chilling on-screen sights without comfortably leaning upon the reliance on exploitive elements as there is no duty nor explicit…
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Marries some of the worst parts of J horror with a nonsensical mindfuck plot, but none of that matters because there's some terrific imagery here and there, and Christopher Doyle's 3D cinematography is outstanding. Honestly has some of the coolest looking 3D shots I've ever seen.
B
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Opposite of a slow burner. A scare a minute from start to finish. And it worked for me, in part because of it's (unintentional?) hilarity but also because of some pretty fun jump scares. A giant rabbit violenty grabbing a child is pretty horrible as it should be. (they should've just called this Rabbit Horror as in the original title btw, i'm sure more people would watch it) There is also an abundance of CGI, which doesn't look great or even good, but some of it is so bizarre it's actually kinda awesome. Almost made me want to watch a 3D movie again, if you can believe that...
Another thing is the psychological horror plot of the whole thing, which isn't particularly original but is executed well, keeps the suspense high and moves you swiftly through the eighty minutes. And Hikari being the lead doesn't hurt either of course.Fun.
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Tormented is probably best known as a minimal film from the director behind the Ju-On/The Grudge films. But I would argue it's better than those, even though viewer ratings indicate otherwise.
A mute woman working as a librarian at her old school keeps an eye on her younger brother, who is a student there. She considers him misunderstood—hated by the other students for the mercy killing of an injured rabbit. However, when a stuffed rabbit comes into his possession, weird things start happening around their house and the rabbit keeps pulling him into another world.
Tormented's strengths are such that talking about some of the key strengths are a pretty big spoiler. It riffs major themes of grief and being…
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CHAINSAWNUKAH 2020: The Man Who Queue Too Much
Day: 1I'll give Takashi Shimizu this much: he certainly believed in this one. The plot is so densely packed with eager symbolism, the angst is so palpable, and the 3-D visuals are so fussy that you really feel his confidence that he's onto something radiate out of the screen. Unfortunately he was most decidedly not onto something; this is a deeply, profoundly stupid plot with no recognizable link to any imaginable lived human experience, and so you may find it a little hard to invest as deeply in it as Shimizu does.
But that doesn't mean the movie doesn't have its charms, most notably in the sharp 3-D photography by Christopher…
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Tormented is a film that I am going to have to watch again to fully grasp everything that happened. Unfortunately, I was only half paying attention, so I wasn't able to get many of the plot points, and even if I had, I still would have guessed the ending. It has a pretty good atmosphere, but isn't anything I'm going to be ranting and raving about. It gave me vibes similar to Donnie Darko, but that's probably the only good thing I can say about this film right now. I'll definitely have to watch this film again, just so I can fully understand everything that was going on.
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Really fast paced without sacrificing character development or suspense, interesting but cliche plot (imagine mixing Coraline, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Donnie Darko together, and then adding in a few J-horror tropes), decent effects (the rabbit thing even twitches it's nose and blinks), and full of cheesy jump scares, I enjoyed it and don't think it's as bad as everybody says it is. It was weird and a bit angsty and certainly complicated but I appreciate the lack of pretension in it's attempt to tell the story. While I know in my heart that this was completely mediocre I was still entertained because there was always something happening due to the great pacing.
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Takashi Shimizu sure loves to make the same film over and over. Tormented (or more awesomely known as Rabbit Horror) is practically another Ju-on iteration. Once again here’s a J-horror centering on a young woman who falls prey to a long-haired ghost—only this time it’s a long-haired ghost wearing an adorable bunny suit. The rabbit costume comes across as more cute than scary, though. Also there are far too many jump scares here for my liking. The killer bunny scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a lot more terrifying than this in its entirety. Anyway, the film stars Hikari Mitsushima whom I adore dearly. She is always a pleasure to see and I can just about watch…