LATEST OBSSESSIONS (3)

GROTESQUE (Jap.: Gurotesuku) (2009)

A young couple Aki and Kazuo (Tsugumi Nagasawa and Hiroaki Kawatsure) are snatched off the street while having their first date as a romantic couple after a few years working in the same office, and wake up shackled in a scary basement, which has all its walls covered with plastic. With no further explanation, a sadistic madman (Shigeo Ōsako) degrades, tortures and mutilates them. Initially, he punctures Kazuo's belly with a screwdriver and slices his tongue, then rapes both, one at a time, forcing the other to watch. Sometimes he stops the torture to provide medical assistance and cure the couple's wounds, so they can continue alive for a long period of time. This way he cuts off all their fingers, makes collars with them, pops out Kazuo's right eye, removes the girl's nipples and cuts off her right arm.
As the torture progresses, it is revealed he is simply doing it for sexual stimulation, and tells the couple he wants the two to survive...

Director: Kôji Shiraishi
Producer: Kazue Udagawa, Kyôsuke Ueno
Writter: Kôji Shiraishi
Starring: Hiroaki Kawatsure, Tsugumi Nagasawa, Shigeo Ōsako
Running Time: 73min, Japan: 69min (censored version)

Rating: 7/10

HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE (1996)

The film begins at Space Station Minos in the year 2127. Paul Merchant, the man who built the station, has a robot solve the Lament Configuration (the robot is subsequently destroyed). However, several guards led by Rimmer capture Paul. Paul tells Rimmer the story of his bloodline.
A flashback is shown to around 400 years ago. Philip Lemarchand, a French toymaker, makes the Lament Configuration for a wealthy aristrocrat named Duc de L'Isle, who is obsessed with dark magic. He and his apprentice, Jacques, kill a woman and remove her insides from her skin, and L'Isle uses dark magic with the Lament Configuration to summon a demon princess named Angelique in the woman's skin. She is theirs to command unless they stand in Hell's way. However, Angelique and Jacques betray and kill de L'Isle. Lemarchand, in the process of inventing a design (the Elysium Configuration) to destroy the demons, attempts to steal back the box but is discovered. Jacques callously informs the toymaker that he and his bloodline are cursed until the end of time because of the box he created, before ordering Angelique to kill him. However, his wife survives...

Director: Kevin Yagher, Joe Chappelle
Producer: Clive Barker, Anna C. Miller, Paul Rich
Writter: Peter Atkins
Starring: Bruce Ramsay, Valentina Vargas, Kim Myers, Charlotte Chatton, Paul Perri, Doug Bradley
Running Time: 86min

Rating: 8/10

AUDITION (1999)

Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged widower who lost his wife to an illness seven years prior, is urged by his 17-year-old son, Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki), to begin dating women again. Shigehiko is somewhat doubtful of his father's love life, but plans to move out when he finishes school and does not want his father to be alone. Aoyama's friend and colleague, Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a film producer, devises a plan to hold a mock-audition, in which young, beautiful women would audition for the "part" of Aoyama's new wife, under the impression that they are auditioning for a new film, but actually so Aoyama can marry one of the finalist contestants.
Aoyama is immediately enchanted by Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina), a 24-year-old woman with a soft voice and reserved, yet confident, mannerisms. In her audition, Asami says that she was once a ballerina headed for greatness, but had to give up dancing after an injury. Aoyama, still reeling from the death of his wife, is attracted to her apparent emotional depth.
Yoshikawa warns him about Asami, saying that he has a bad feeling about her. None of the references on her résumé were able to be reached and her job history is shaky. The music producer she claimed to work for had gone missing. Aoyama is so enthralled by her inner and outer beauty that he is blinded by his feelings for her.
She lives in an empty apartment, furnished only with a sack and a telephone. Four days following the audition, she sits perfectly still in the middle of the floor next to the telephone, waiting for it to ring. When it finally does, the sack lurches across the room and makes gurgling sounds. She ignores it as she waits a few rings before answering.
When Asami answers the phone, she confesses to Aoyama that she never expected him to call. After several dates, she agrees to accompany him to a seaside hotel...

Director: Takashi Miike
Producer: Satoshi Fukushima
Writter: Ryu Murakami (Novel), Daisuke Tengan
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina
Running Time: 115min

Rating: 9/10