"Rampo Noir" is clearly not fare for everybody. This beautifully lensed, elegantly crafted anthology of four chilling tales of horror adapted from the writings by the Edgar Allan Poe of Japan, Taro Hirai, a.k.a. Edogawa Rampo, falls far short of perfection. Nevertheless, these films are a good stab in the right direction. Mind you, there is nothing horrific here in the sense of grotesque monsters that strangle nubile babes. "Rampo Noir" isn't a lowest common denominator horror film. If you want something with blood, gore, and more, you're looking at the wrong movie. "Rampo Noir" is sophisticated, ambiguous, art-house horror several steps above the old television anthology shows "The Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery." These stories are not the kind of chillers that will keep you awake at night with a security light on, but they will definitely mess with your mind. This is the kind of stuff that you savor and watch over and over unless you cannot handle this kind of horror.
The four films are entitled "Mars Canal" and it differs from the other three because it is the shortest, lacks sound, and is wholly experimental. Freshman helmer Suguru Takeuchi's "Mars Canal" concerns a naked fellow (Tadanobu Asano of "Ichi the Killer") who cavorts in a lush landscape and has memories of beating up his sex partner. There is no logical ending in this surreal saga. The remaining three are more conventional, but calling them conventional may be misleading considering their subject matter.
Director Akio Jissoji's "Mirror Hell" is a murder mystery where the authorities discover the bodies of several women who have had their faces incinerated like a microwave. The police find gorgeous hand mirrors at the scene of each death. "Mirror Hell" is the most coherent of the quartet. People in the mood for kinky sex with a candle will enjoy scene between Azusa and Toru which contains the use of rope and candle wax.
The third offering, director Hisayasu Sato's "Caterpillar," isn't as bizarre as the final entry "Crawling Bugs." Nevertheless, it qualifies as every bit as perverted as you may not be able to imagine, much less tolerate. Indeed, "Caterpillar" forms the make-it or-break-it entry. A possessive wife has amputated her husband's arms and legs to prevent him from going to war. First Lieutenant Sunaga (Nao Omori) can still see and drool. The hero's embittered wife vents her frustration and rage on him. She slashes one of his nipples with a shiny straight razor and later she lashes his bare back repeatedly with a bullwhip. She puts the B in ITCH! The poor fellow is powerless to resist her depredations. He has to absorb her anger. Later, the wife has sex with her husband and allows him to enjoy Comparing "Caterpillar" to "Johnny Got His Gun" is partially correct, but "Boxing Helena" might be more appropriate for this surreal and abusive Japanese yarn. Ultimately, the wife mutilates herself out of guilt while a third party photographs her in a wasteland.
The final entry is Manga artist Atsushi Kaneko's "Crawling Bugs," and it is roughly similar to director William Friedkin's 2005 chiller "Bug" with Ashley Judd. In this tale, a chauffeur afflicted with a paranoia for bugs kidnaps a celebrity stage actress, strangles her, and paints her body. Predictably, things turn even uglier before it is over and the authorities put his head out of the bloated corpse's body. Ultimately, "Rampo Noir" pushes the envelope of mainstream cinema, but it doesn't warp you as much as it ought to have. Watching "Ramp Noir" is like slicing your hand up with a straight razor and thinking about the way the blood leaks through your fingers instead of pain that you are needlessly inflicting on yourself.
The four films are entitled "Mars Canal" and it differs from the other three because it is the shortest, lacks sound, and is wholly experimental. Freshman helmer Suguru Takeuchi's "Mars Canal" concerns a naked fellow (Tadanobu Asano of "Ichi the Killer") who cavorts in a lush landscape and has memories of beating up his sex partner. There is no logical ending in this surreal saga. The remaining three are more conventional, but calling them conventional may be misleading considering their subject matter.
Director Akio Jissoji's "Mirror Hell" is a murder mystery where the authorities discover the bodies of several women who have had their faces incinerated like a microwave. The police find gorgeous hand mirrors at the scene of each death. "Mirror Hell" is the most coherent of the quartet. People in the mood for kinky sex with a candle will enjoy scene between Azusa and Toru which contains the use of rope and candle wax.
The third offering, director Hisayasu Sato's "Caterpillar," isn't as bizarre as the final entry "Crawling Bugs." Nevertheless, it qualifies as every bit as perverted as you may not be able to imagine, much less tolerate. Indeed, "Caterpillar" forms the make-it or-break-it entry. A possessive wife has amputated her husband's arms and legs to prevent him from going to war. First Lieutenant Sunaga (Nao Omori) can still see and drool. The hero's embittered wife vents her frustration and rage on him. She slashes one of his nipples with a shiny straight razor and later she lashes his bare back repeatedly with a bullwhip. She puts the B in ITCH! The poor fellow is powerless to resist her depredations. He has to absorb her anger. Later, the wife has sex with her husband and allows him to enjoy Comparing "Caterpillar" to "Johnny Got His Gun" is partially correct, but "Boxing Helena" might be more appropriate for this surreal and abusive Japanese yarn. Ultimately, the wife mutilates herself out of guilt while a third party photographs her in a wasteland.
The final entry is Manga artist Atsushi Kaneko's "Crawling Bugs," and it is roughly similar to director William Friedkin's 2005 chiller "Bug" with Ashley Judd. In this tale, a chauffeur afflicted with a paranoia for bugs kidnaps a celebrity stage actress, strangles her, and paints her body. Predictably, things turn even uglier before it is over and the authorities put his head out of the bloated corpse's body. Ultimately, "Rampo Noir" pushes the envelope of mainstream cinema, but it doesn't warp you as much as it ought to have. Watching "Ramp Noir" is like slicing your hand up with a straight razor and thinking about the way the blood leaks through your fingers instead of pain that you are needlessly inflicting on yourself.