Shock Labyrinth F.T. Movie Review

SHOCK LABYRINTH   4/10
Yuya Yagira, Ai Maeda, Misako Renbutso

A group of four friends once again find themselves trapped (surprise, surprise) in the horror style funhouse that took the life of one of their number ten years earlier. Will any of them make it out alive or will the sins of the past return to destroy them one by one? To be honest, after about forty minutes in, I pretty much lost the will to live myself and wished for good old tried and trusted Sadako to climb out of the television and put me out of my misery. Seriously though, I can't stress enough how confused I was during this mish mash of Asian horror copycat frights, flashbacks, and false leads. We spend the first hour merrily trouncing backwards and forwards through time until both times actually become horribly entangled, and it is at that point you become absolutely certain that the movie must be crammed with plot holes the size of Belgium...but you just don't give a shit anymore. by the end of it my head felt like a bag of balloons. That is not how a horror film should make you feel. Terrified, tense and nervous, yes. Confused, tired and actually a little melancholic...no.

TERROR   2/5

Fish-eye lens does not equal fear.

There's a good old scattering of typical 'asian horror' jumpy moments thrown around in this picture, as we once again visit the land of the creepy little girl with long dark hair who pops up at the most inopportune moments. We can also cross off dark scary corridors that seem to go nowhere, ghosts, a blind girl who you just know is going to be involved in some terrifying shit later in the movie, inhuman and jerky body movements, flying toy rabbits (I am not shitting you) and the classic 'who is holding my hand then?' fright. These are all tried and tested scares, yet somehow I still felt more sad than scared. This film really had no clue where it was going or what it wanted to be when it was all growed up.
I'm guessing it wanted to be a cheesy music video, but I could be wrong.

GORE   0/5

At one point I decided to see if I could spot any blood at all during the remainder of the movie, and I eventually did, but don't get excited. There's one bloody hand (a tiny cut maybe?) and a few bloody faces throughout, which is not bad considering the actual deaths in this movie occurred by the little girl falling on people from a great height, not only that but she fell on different people in the exact same place. How do you defeat her? Simple, just stay away from that fucking place! Jesus, do I have to come up with everything??

This is as scary as it get's.

NUDITY   0/5

No nudity whatsoever, but considering all the flashbacks (and most of the other scenes as well) involved young children at some point...ghostly or otherwise, I am glad that this score is 0/5.

PLOT/CHARACTER   1/5

I really hope that something was lost in the translation from Japanese to English in this movie, otherwise such classic lines as 'I am sure that I will die in here at this time' followed up by the heartfelt 'If that is indeed true, then I am sure that I will also die in here too' would, or should I say should, never have existed. Thank god for shite translations, at least I got a few laughs during the movie to punctuate my bouts of sadness and confusion. Cheers guys for the emotional, yet utterly boring roller coaster ride! The actual actors seemed as confused and bored as me throughout this daliesque wet dream, and appeared to spend most of the movie staring wide eyed into the distance and slowly going mad. I totally empathised. Is there an actual plot though? I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure, and if I have to sit through it again to find out...I might kill someone. Seriously.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1414581/