There are two types of poorly made films, those which house no artistic merit whatsoever and those made with malicious intent that seek to exploit the viewer’s time while nonetheless garnering its cash. Then there’s films like Shunichi Nagasaki’s Shikoku, which happens to assume both forms of aesthetic insult and artistic depravity.
The illogic in filmmakers’ and production companies’ decision to “get something back” when they are in the presence of an artistic bomb of their own creation is akin to the non sequitur demands by academia to have their faculty enroute to tenure safety to either “publish or perish.” What the latter creates is a quagmire of materials which must be waded through because, in forcing people to say something without bothering to ask whether or not they have something to say, you wind up sponsoring the mass pollution of the literary environment. As such, when financers look at the void where their money used to be after “taking a risk” on an artistic endeavor (God forbid an exec take the time to do a little research in the field of aesthetics instead of viewing the arts as yet another economic cradle to be robbed), films like Shikoku flood the market due to the sole fact that such suits do not house the slightest vestige of concern for an audience’s satisfaction, anymore than they might pause to humor the notion that money can be well spent in the form of ticket sales. All they care and know anything about it that money can be spent and, preferably, upon their product.
That said, get your hip waders on . . . . the cinematic toxicity levels within the surrounding area is extremely high.
In Nagasaki’s unrepentant theft of the premise of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (as it plays out like a vain prequel, which by no means is meant to imply that the slightest correlation exists between Shikoku and the prowess of Norio Tsuruta’s Ringu Ø: Bâsudei), which–and I’m not making this up–includes the line, “Like shit sticks to a goldfish” (regardless if this is a translation faux pas or no . . . ), the plot is atrophied as its only rival is the film’s amateur, immature characterization (imagine dorks on parade shot through a 1980’s lens); poor acting; inane sentimentality; embarrassing lack of style or character; all topped off by the director’s failure to incite even the slightest interest in his viewer as the feature lags, believe it or not, from the first frame until its laborious last. Thank God for small favors in that the feature is largely underlit through much of its running time thus inadvertently helping to hide the fact that what is occurring onscreen is far from a film, or even anything resembling art for that matter.
Then there’s the issue of the quakey, handheld camera, which serves as a means to a physiological and psychological ends in Daniel Myrick’s The Blair Witch Project, that is, to offset the audience’s equilibrium, thus compounding the tension and stress of the predicament at hand. Conversely, Shikoku’s similarly-shot cinematography seems to carry the primary agenda of mere annoyance without otherwise housing a legitimate aesthetic purpose as it calmly tells its tale while its soundtrack politely serenades the viewer. This says nothing of the logistics of such photography being valid in the former’s subjective perspective while, in Nagasaki’s film, the largely omniscient POV is without justification as its undulations refuse to do its audience the curiously of deviating between its sporadic shifts in focus. To put it another way, I often wondered if Nagasaki was drunk during the filming of Shikoku due to the abnormal number of ground-level shots which somehow, miraculously defying the laws of physics, managed to continue to quiver.
In the end, the overt offense of releasing Shikoku wasn’t enough. In an act of either arrogant hubris and the pretentious inability to accept the fact that one’s decisions were erroneous from the offset, or due to mere greed, those responsible for the feature opted to attempt to milk their investment for all it was worth and, as such, subsequently spread their cinematic filth worldwide. And you wonder why some critics applaud the mere mention of independent cinema? In short, on purely artistic and ethic grounds, I’d rather be midway through a conversation about Democracy with Pol Pot over a plate of smoked ribs prepared by Jeffrey Dahmer as Count Vlad begins my pedicure for my forthcoming wedding to Ilse Koch while the Marquis de Sade, with Caligula assisting, preps for my upcoming proctology exam which is to be supervised by none other than Adolph Hitler than to have to suffer the slings and poison-tipped arrows that is Shunichi Nagasaki’s outrageous misfortune called Shikoku.
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
