Suicide Club
by William the Bloody
Early one May, 54 high school students from different schools got together in the Tokyo subway, held hands, and leapt off the platform to be mowed over by the train. The police investigate and chalk it up as a weird suicide or possibly a cult. However, now suicide after suicide keep occurring, and some in rather large numbers. After one of the investigating officers' family turns up dead, they realize there may be much more to this than they thought. There are some rather disturbing clues: at only a select few of the suicide scenes there is a handbag containing a chain of human skin, a woman named the Bat calls with hints, but so does a prepubescent boy, a website with only colored dots symbolizing the deceased, a cute, young music group called Desert is ever-present, and a cyber punk named Genesis out right claims responsibility. But, why is this happening? What does it all mean?
The Good: The beginning sequence with the students and the train was very neat and did get me interested in the film. My favorite scene in the whole movie has to be when more high school students are on the roof of their school discussing the possibility of a Suicide Club being behind the mass suicides. The flow of this scene seemed almost eerily natural as student after student succumbed to this notion like some freakish contagious psychological disease (the ear on the ledge was a terrific touch!). There WERE quite a few stunning visuals (love the daughter covered in blood. "Welcome home, daddy" indeed!) The music of Desert is disturbingly catchy, in that irritating pop way. The underlying concept of the Suicide Club is pretty heavy, but I liked it.
The Bad: Genesis, the Dr Frank-n-Furter from Rocky Horror meets Alex from Clockwork Orange type guy, really, really took away from the film, but for some reason he got a huge spotlight two thirds of the way into the movie. He even got some sort of music video. Sure, his character had the part of the red herring, which was necessary, but it would have sufficed with only a bit part. His whole "Pleasure Room" lair didn't do it for me, even though the director seemed to be trying REALLY hard to make some sort of artistic statement with this scene. He tried too hard and fell flat. There are also some nurse characters who fall victim to the suicides, which just don't make any sense at all to me. Every scene having to do with them and the security guard where they work make absolutely no sense. They seemed to try to drag a supernatural element into a movie whose point is entirely NOT supernatural. Someone is behind it all, but in a perfectly NATURAL natural way. The filmmakers tried for bloodiness of Sam Rami-esque proportions, but I refuse to believe that people pop like blood-filled balloons upon impact. There were moments where the violence breeched even my hardened levels and I actually had to look away (YOU try watching someone take a carpentry tool to their backside!). Oh, and I saw the ending coming a mile away.
As to what does it all mean? Sadly, not much. This film has a slew of interesting ideas and great scenes, but they were thrown together to create a poor film. Certain parts were connected with others only loosely. The director seemed to want to go for artiness over plot, but lost the point someplace in the editing room. This film had many great concepts, though, that I'd really like to see it remade right.
C+