I'll Take My Fish Pan-Seared, Please

The reason a bomb explodes with such outward force is due to rapidly expanding gases being confined to a much smaller than required space. In the blink of an eye, what was once an explosive substance the side of a deck of cards now requires the volume to contain outward rushing force the size of a dump truck. It’s this combination of confining space and raging force which creates a devastating blast.

These concepts can be applied in practice to other biological and chemical situations. Take the human being for instance. I’m not suggesting that we fill one fine specimen with C4 and measure the result (something I’m sure will make it into a Saw film at some point). Instead, take the example presented us in the Japanese physiological horror film, Cold Fish. This is the perfect proof of concept to demonstrate what happens when a person’s mind endures more than it can reasonably be expected to contain, much too quickly.

From Midnight Cheese

Have you heard of Cold Fish? It’s the new crazy Japanese thriller from Shion Sono who, among other things, directed the strange and indulgent Suicide Club. It’s billed as based on the real life events, the strange case of dog store owner slash husband and wife serial killers. In the film’s case, we’ve switched out dog store owners and substituted fish store owners. I’m jumping a head into this slow burning sizzler though.

As Cold Fish begins to unfold, we’re brought directly into the plodding and expectations-failing lives of the Syamoto family. Our protagonist, widower Nobuyuki, owns a middling tropical fish store which seems to exist somewhere between totally failing and teeth scrapping by. Taeko is his second (younger, bustier) wife, not adjusting well to her new life as a domestic, cooking dinner in their meager accommodations at the back of the store. Mitsuko is Nobuyuki’s daughter. She resents her stepmom, who is closer in age to her than her father, and completely resents the meager life which her parents are providing for her.

From Midnight Cheese

After setting the table, for our story as well as dinner, Mitsuko is caught robbing a store. Her parents are incredibly shamed when they arrive to pick her up. Seriously, I’ve never seen two people bowing and asking for forgiveness as many times as the Syamotos do. They are depicted as the honor driven, upstanding Japanese couple who would do anything to avoid shame and dishonor. They’re very tightly bound people, keeping everything under control, including how miserable that are. It’s very opposite to western sensibilities. They couldn’t be any more down on their luck and miserable.

Enter Murata, a very boisterous, friendly, talkative and ultimately pushy person. He always gets his way. Observing the shame of the Syamotos, Murata steps in to talk them out of trouble with store security. By a very strange coincidence, he also owns a tropical fish store. Ah but his store is very large, very successful, very extravagant…very western. He insists that Mitsuko should come work and live at his store, giving her purpose, getting her away from a stepmom she hates and a mediocre life at her parent’s store.

From Midnight Cheese

But Murata’s intentions aren’t altruistic; else this would probably be a completely different genre of film. The nature of he and his wife’s mental damage is for you, the viewer, to discover on your own. I will tell you that the gore is spread around in the film, doled out in meal sized assaults to your senses. It never lasts over long and it’s more absurd than disgusting. It does reach Evil Dead 2 levels of comedic gold, but it’s not meant to. It unsettles us, just as it unsettles Syamoto. Reverence for the dead is not a thing to be found here.

Even though this is 144 minutes, it never feels over long. Rather, Cold Fish feels like an arduous journey to the breaking point; to madness but not back. A resolution IS reached, but for whom? Cold Fish hits DVD shelves tomorrow thanks to Bloody Disgusting Selects.

From Midnight Cheese

Yellowbrickroad, a Rare Specimen

People watch horror films for a myriad of reasons. For most folks', the desire to be scared and discover the depths of their fear is that goal. I remember that feeling from when I was little, but as I grew up and into more of a genre fan, the fear faded to a background element, something rarely taken out of the closet and tried on. It's actually kind of humorous that most horror films today are actually just exploitation films with a budget. Here, though, comes something fresh made on a meager budget of half a million dollars that manages to bring suspense and fear in spades.

Yellowbrickroad is the curious story surrounding the small New Hampshire town of Friar. The opening sequence tells the tragic tale of this town, which in 1940 saw all of it's residents follow a hiking trail into the wilderness, through a series of period photographs. It's very evocative of Ken Burns' documentary style. More importantly, it brings the creepy right from the outset; it's unsettling.We're told about an army recon team that was sent in to find the townsfolk, discovering that many had frozen to death but still more of them were murdered brutally. This information and the location of the hiking trail are classified for decades, causing the stories to become myth to become legend. It's declassified in present day, in time for our group of stalwart protagonists to attempt to write book on the subject and dare to venture the same route into the wilderness. I have to admit that beyond the initial setup sequence, the first twenty minutes of the film were a bit slow, as we're introduced to each member of the group.

Let's be fair though, you aren't watching this film to become tenderly attached to a cast of characters. Solely based on the type of movie this is, you have to know, somewhere in the deepest recesses of the lizard part of your brain, that bad things are very likely to happen. Before long, the musical siren call begins it's slow assault on the party's sanity. And my sanity as well. I found myself being bothered by it almost a day later when I tried to go to sleep and that's just downright creepy.

That's the trick here, Yellowbrickroad gets under your skin achingly slowly. The build up is the meat of the film. In this way, it recalls The Shining, very specifically. It isn't as technically sound as Kubrick's take on King's story, but the effect is the same. The tension is there underlying every scene in the film from the halfway point through to the end. Unrelenting, the film doesn't show it all off like the gaudy horror of today, but rather forces the viewer to fill in the blanks. I don't know about you, but being weaned on the tit of 80's horror, my mind fills the blank in pretty graphically. If you're looking for an old school horror fix set to the tempo of today, check out Yellowbrickroad. It releases today on DVD via Bloody Disgusting's Selects label.