AOKIGAHARA FOREST - WORLD'S HOT SPOT FOR SUICIDES

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION (WARNING: DISTURBING IMAGES)




Taking a small break from the movies I've got coming up which includes a slew of zombie movies plus some neat looking foreign movies I checked out a couple of real strange phenomena that is better, or should I say worse, than any horror film. Because reality sucks, it really does. 

First, let's take a look at the second most popular spot in the world for suicides (the first is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco), a forest in Japan. I mean people come from all over just to die there. They even have people whose job is to regularly go in to remove the bodies. No joke. Most hang themselves but a few overdose. Few change their minds and come back out. At the beginning of the trail there's even a sign in Japanese and English begging people to reconsider and get help rather than become one of the yearly grisly finds - usually a bit over 100 per year.

I'm talking about Aokigahara Forest, also known as the Sea of Trees or Jukai, that lies at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan. It's called Sea of Trees because from the mountain looking down it's like a green sea and it's that way all year around. The forest has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology. Some blame a book written about it in the 1960's about a young couple who kill themselves there, but actually the legend of this forest is centuries old, as is the history of suicides. 

If you Google Japanese suicide forest, you'll find a video that is both chilling and fascinating. It is an interview and walk-along with a geologist who has been patrolling the forest for decades and is more interested in the makeup of Mt. Fuji and the forest than the gruesome sights that sometimes are found by him. The camera follows him - there is ribbon on trees everywhere - it's how people mark where they're going and how to get out. He says those are the ones that are not quite sure about doing the deed.

He finds an abandoned camp site that's been there a while, a tent pitched in the center of the trail with someone inside (alive) and he tries to talk to the man inside about staying alive and going back to his family. And a little further on, a disarticulated skeleton is indeed found (disarticulated simply means it's fallen apart). It has fallen from the noose and has been reduced to bones. He estimates it probably has been there at least a year. That's how it is unfortunately, it's not his first and is far from his last. This is not the picture, it's of another unfortunate visitor who never left.

Ever feel alone, unwanted, like if you disappeared no one would care? In this age of computers, smart phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. that sounds pretty unlikely although it does happen. In England, a woman who was a beautiful, talented woman with many 'friends' and lovers dropped out of sight with no one to look for her. She was dead in her apartment for three years before they broke in to evict her. What was left of her was in front of the TV, which was still on, wrapped Christmas presents all around her. In the movie Dreams Of A Life which tries to explore just how this could have happened, it was just as clueless at the end as at the beginning. She had friends. She had family. She had lovers. And yet when she 'disappeared' not one of them bothered to search for her? It couldn't have been that hard, her flat was in her name, there had to be records somewhere of where she was.

They interview the friends and lovers and I have to tell you, they kept saying they were 'shocked' 'sad' and 'I can't believe it' but they somehow didn't ring true. And if she was murdered, it is now impossible to tell. Since she had asthma, it is a theory that an attack caused her death but they will never know. I think I felt worse for the poor woman than her 'friends' claimed to. It was brutal. It was unnecessary. It was real life at its worst.



                              

CONGRATULATIONS UK, YOU'VE JOINED THE RANKS OF THE STUPID

Hollow (2012) UK

Let's see... The Blair Witch Project came out in 1999. The first Paranormal Activity movie came out in 2007. And it's only now (at least that I've found) that the UK has discovered the cheap, nauseating way of telling a 'horror' story. Actually this was released in 2011 in the UK, we're just now having the privilege of viewing this abomination. We have a 'found footage' type situation with lots of swinging camera shots, dark everything, a non-plot and BAM, the UK is now just as stupid as Americans.

I think the first
one was more creative...

They certainly got their elements together - first we have a police report about the four bodies they've found (I like it when I know they're going to die), then reference to the camera they've found so we can see the video: We've got four people we don't care about, they're in a place with no cell phone coverage, they hear a spooky story and then we've got the running shots, the screaming at each other, getting picked off one by one, and the 'shock' ending that surprises no one. Very good guys, you've got the formula down.

The four young people consist of a newly engaged couple and two who don't know each other spending a weekend at the bride-to-be's grandfather's cottage (must be nice to have all these extra houses to go to). On the way they pass this tree, ONE TREE, but it is a huge sucker, in the middle of an empty field. Supposedly this tree causes young couples to commit suicide. Uh huh. Sorry guys, my review was written the moment you said that and I was absolutely right. And what the hell - it's supposed to be summer but there isn't leaf one on this sucker. Or the surrounding trees. Maybe this film scared 'em off. Pffft.

Near this spooky tree is an old monastery which is supposed to be haunted by some spirit who helps convince these couples to hang themselves. Uh huh. Religious buildings, old or new, tend to do that. As the movie progresses, slowly, we find that the extra guy had been infatuated with the bride-to-be for years and it's alluded to that he's a bit unstable. The extra woman is a slut. 

The bride-to-be is the smart one (there's always one) and that's not by much. At her grandfather's place we learn he died just recently but nobody has cleaned out his effects. He was a vicar so there's religious stuff everywhere. They find that he kept track of the young people who killed themselves plus centuries old books on the tree - the same tree.

The four people turn out to be as nasty as they are unlikable. The unstable guy goes nuts, the girl shows she's REALLY a slut, and the two engaged ones are no longer. The unstable one disappears and they constantly hear screams and cannot find him anywhere. It's thought he jumped off a cliff into the sea but they're not sure. The remaining three try to get out of there but it's not going to happen. 

In typical duh horror style each gets out of the car into the dark and immediately get 'taken' by whatever or whoever the hell is making this movie much longer than it has to be. Finally the 'smart' one gets out and bam... we get sweet relief knowing the movie is about over. First we get final camera shots of the ex-fiancee guy hanging from the tree next to the slut. The 'smart girl is on a different branch, facing the unstable one who is still convulsing as he drops the camera to the ground. Or does he? Point being, this non-horror piece of 'found' garbage is now over.

Why was this called Hollow you ask? Well, I could say that was the state of everybody's heads that acted (poorly) in this movie, but it's simply because that nasty ole' tree was completely hollow. That's it. Sorry.



                              

MOVIES YOU WATCH BECAUSE/DESPITE OF WHO'S IN THEM





The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)

Let's step (briefly) into the 70's and the love of the creature feature. By the 70's a lot of the creature features kind of fell by the wayside as psycho killers that never die started to take their place. This movie stars Bruce Dern (yay) and Casey Kasem (uh, what?) and Pat Priest (Marilyn Munster) and a cast of... a few. There's really not much to this movie in either substance, special effects or story.

We've got newly married Dr. Girard who likes to put two heads on animals. Hmmm, is that where South Park got the Mephisto character from? The kooky doc has put heads on snakes, monkeys, and any creature he could catch I guess. But he wants to try it on a human. Okay, he's not kooky, he's downright terrible.

Fortunately for him and this movie, a serial killer has escaped from a mental hospital and attacked his wife. He shoots him. Also fortu - moving along there's a very large man with the mental capacity of an eight year old. 

What a good combination (she said with all the sarcasm she can muster). So on the giant goes the head of the serial killer and of course he mostly has the control of the body so they escape and kill and kill and kill...

Finally with Casey Kasem and his incredible toupe's help (?!?), the wife escapes her horrid husband and the two headed idiot/psycho and all the others die in a mine shaft collapse. And that's it. Believe me it was more than enough.

Update 7/14: By now most have heard the horrible story of the last months of Casey Kasem's life and how, even after death, he was treated like a commodity, not a valued human being. Currently it is believed his body was moved to Montreal, where his wife allegedly has a lover. 

“Witnesses will testify that Mrs. Kasem has been lying to Mr. Kasem for at least two years, telling him that they are divorced,” a legal letter attached to Kerri's (Casey's daughter) May 7 petition for conservatorship said. “What possible motive could Mrs. Kasem have for such cruelty? Perhaps the younger gentleman that has been staying at the Malibu house and driving Mr. Kasem's car could answer that question for us.”

Casey Kasem was an enigmatic personality who did many things - there are few who do not hear that voice and not know instantly who it is. He deserved so much better than what he got during his final days. Let us hope his illness prevented him from understanding just what was happening around him. 



                              

MOVIES THAT RIP OFF JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING - INCLUDING ITSELF

Grave Encounters 2 (2012) US/Canada

I hate sequels. I mean I really REALLY hate sequels. Especially when the original movie shouldn't have been made in the first place. I believe I really tore this one a new one when I reviewed it 9/14/12. Yes, I do need an index for just this reason - I had to Google my own review which made me feel - weird. You're not supposed to Google yourself right? Well in the interest of providing a good review to a bad sequel, I guess this time I'll excuse myself and get right on making that index. And finally in July of 2014, I'm working on just that. AND I have a confession to make: both GE movies were... just awful but when I want noise in the background and I'm not listening to music, these are on my regular rotation. You may scoff now.

Grave Encounters was a ripoff of every other movie of its kind. In fact for the first movie I said: 'I made a partial list of movies this rips ideas from: Blair Witch Project, House On Haunted Hill (the remake), House Of Bones, Cloverfield, Poltergeist, Th13teen Ghosts, and so on'. So why should the second one be different? Apparently The Vicious Brothers thought they got away with it once, why not twice? 

I tried to think of a simple way to describe how this movie goes down - got it. It's a very, very stale Oreo cookie. The beginning is that dry stick-in-your-mouth but kind of bleh cookie that you eat first, the middle is better but you've eaten it a thousand times before, and the ending is again... well, see the beginning.

Grave Encounters tried to be different by claiming to be fake but real. The sequel is telling us that this is real but fake. Uh huh. About the only thing I liked about the original is that since the whole thing was supposed to be 'unedited' you got to see how fake everybody was when they weren't 'on' - like the psychic who was an actor wanting to get his 'part' over quickly because he had a better audition somewhere else. That didn't carry you through the whole 'Wait, did it get cold in here?' stupidity but it was a little something.

So here we are redux. The 'real' producer is claiming that of course the whole thing was fake, duh it was a movie. And since it was 'found' where the hell did they find it? But no one can seem to find any of the actors or crew that worked on this 'movie'. 

We start with a bunch of wanna be movie critics like me except they're young so they don't mind voicing their opinions on YouTube. You do NOT want me to do that, trust me. So the reviews are mixed - some claim it was really scary yo' (sorry) others say it was total crap. One kid in particular, Alex (Richard Harmon, who you just want to punch square in the face the second you see him, and punch him again when he starts to talk), tears it up.

Yeah, I want to get my movie reviews from a lazy eyed kid with his hair in his face and his vocabulary stuck at words four letters long. He thinks of himself as a film director and so of course he wants to prove that GE is real. Wait, didn't he say it sucked? Oh yeah, the movie has to move - sorry.

Skip ahead to the gathering of similar idiots and school equipment and a thousand four letter words later and they're on the road to Canada - where the original (and this one of course) was actually filmed. They try to be clever (NOT) by blurring the road signs and bleeping out the 'real' name of the psych hospital from the first movie. I have to digress - I saw a cool sign that said how come horror movies are always made in prisons and hospitals? They need to make one in a Wal Mart. I'd watch that. I've even got a title - 'It Wore Stretch Pants Ten Sizes Too Small'. Could happen.

Uh oh we're reaching novel proportions and this movie is NOT worth it, so just take the first movie, insert teenagers and lots of profanity, the same effects (a couple new ones but not original) and one small twist which was their little claim to anything original. They found 'Lance', or rather Sean Rogerson playing himself/not himself. He thinks he's been there under a year when it's been nine years. He lives on rats and toilet water. I think the kids should have to also for being in this movie... 

Lance/Sean explains that the hospital constantly shifts, which is why they can't find their way out. Only one door will do it 'cause the crazy Dr. Friedkin (every mental hospital supposedly has one - must be in the hospital's contract) was into the occult and experimented on his patients. So. If they can appease the 'spirit' of the hospital they can get out... okay, somebody call the makers of House On Haunted Hill and apologize RIGHT NOW! Oh yeah, that was a remake, sorry, never mind.

So we've eaten our creamy but bland middle and are stuck with the rest of the cookie... I mean movie. This movie was definitely about twenty minutes too long because you expect it to be over loooooong before it finally is. And I really REALLY want to punch that damn kid in the face.

Long story short (too, too late) Lance/Sean recovers enough of his wits to betray the survivors to get himself out but is sucked into some vortex that shows up for no damn good reason, and Alex, our lazy-eyed jerk has decided to listen to the voice who wants the movie completed. Why? So other idiots like Alex will think it's real and come to the hospital. It needs food. DUH. Alex kills his girlfriend with the camera, goes through the magic door and finds himself wandering the streets of L.A.

Our pitiful story ends with Alex and the producer of the original being interviewed. He tells the audience that the sequel was made because Alex is so damn smart and remember, it's all fake. Alex looks straight at the camera and says 'Don't look for the hospital because it's not worth it.' Which of course for young people is code for 'Go as fast as you can to find this stupid place.' In fact you see a flash of a set of numbers just before the credits roll. Supposedly it's the coordinates to the hospital. Want to take a trip? Here you go...

49 14 122 48

Pack a lunch.

Okay, okay, sorry. The really, really, really real building is actually Riverview Hospital, a mental health facility located in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The site is currently only open to hospital traffic between 6:00 am and 9:00 pm. After that you get your facially distorted ghost activity. Maybe. Depends on how much money you have and how gullible you are.



                              

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES - IN 3D!







Scar 3D (2007)

This movie has several things to make it distinctive. No it's not a good plot or effects. Despite the main character played by Angela Bettis (the new Carrie) and an OMG appearance by Christopher Titus (my favorite stand-up comedian of all time), it is the first US produced 3D full length feature film to be completed in HD 3D and the first-ever 3D Video on demand film released for 3D televisions. I know, I know - I almost wet myself too. Okay that's totally sarcastic - for one, who can afford 3D TV's? Who wants one? Oh goody, my show's on - get me my bad glasses would you honey? Oh, and don't forget the aspirin...

That being said (and I'm really sorry Christopher) this movie really sucked. It was so incredibly contrived and obvious that once again I took my horror movie worksheet (patent pending) and was able to pretty much lay out the movie within the first ten minutes. I only had to change a couple of things because this movie made no sense and I do.

Once upon a time there was a nasty serial killer named Bishop who was also the town's mortician so he had privy to all kinds of nasty instruments of torture. He loved to take two at a time, and play a game - he would torture one then the other to see who would crack first and beg him to kill the other so they could go free. Of course no one went free (DUH) 'cause he would have been caught, right? Joan and her best friend are the latest two but somehow Joan escapes and leaves town but the nightmares never stop...

Years later she's grown and comes back to town (NO DON'T COME BACK!!!) to go to her niece's graduation. Her brother (Christopher Titus) is a cop who is raising the girl by himself since his wife died. Before graduation can happen though, kids start disappearing and showing up with the same kind of torture marks Bishop always left. Trouble is, to get away Joan had killed Bishop.

But kids keep showing up dead. Joan is now having massive flashbacks (so we can get the story, duh) and we find out that she actually after only one cut told Bishop to kill her friend - he does. He goes off to finish an embalming of someone else when Joan gets free. She then plunges the embalming needle into him, killing him. Since then she's been plagued by guilt, nightmares, and of course the one scar on her face.

But who's killing the kids? She's convinced it's Bishop, the whole town (including her brother) think it's her - after all, people didn't start dying until she came back. I had the killer but not the motive - a loner who her niece was actually nice to has been doing the killing because he wanted revenge against the kids who shunned him - but why the niece? She had been nice but then again, he just liked killing. But there wasn't a backstory on him so I didn't know his motive, just that whenever they showed a group of kids he was kind of standing off to the side (watch those kids).

So a bunch of people die (including Christopher - nice blood spurt from the neck there fella) until it's found out - but not before her niece had to tell the kid to kill her best friend so she could go free. She asks Joan if the memories ever go away. I'm thinking the same thing about this damn movie.




                              

DEPRESS YOURSELF BEYOND MEASURE






The Afflicted (2011) 

Oh goody, another 'based on real events' type of movie. Actually that is not surprising. The problem (the very, very sad problem) is that this story is repeated in similar form in thousands of homes across the world. They may not end up as severe and extreme as this one, but folks, this stuff happens. For real. This particular movie is 'inspired by the disturbing, real-life story of Theresa Knorr'. Briefly (according to wiki) here's the rundown: Theresa Jimmie Francine Knorr (née Cross; born March 14, 1946) is an American woman convicted of torturing and murdering two of her six children while using the others to facilitate and cover up her crimes. She is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California. As of 2014, she is now 68 years old.

Okay everybody, raise your hands if one or both of your parents were horrible to you. If you could see how many, it might make you sad, but certainly not surprised. Unfortunately. So we get to hear this horrid tale as narrated by Theresa herself from her diary.

Family life was pretty normal until the oldest of four children turned 16. The girl received a fancy pair of earrings from a Pastor who, like most evangelists portrayed in movies is a greedy, whoring idiot who wouldn't know the word of God if his life depended on it. How they know that when this is Theresa's story and she didn't see him do any of this, I dunno. Just go with it, okay?

Right after that day the father leaves because the mother is a sick, Bible thumping alcoholic. That's when things go from bad to horribly bad. The children are beaten, starved, shot, pimped out, everything horrible that could happen, happens. The one boy of course is treated with care and actually participates in the abuse of his sisters. That's pretty plausible, he most likely was protecting himself and becoming more than a little crazy.

This is a bleak, nothing good is going to happen kind of movie and if you get depressed from this kind of thing (or have suffered something similar yourself) you will want to skip this movie. Because the movie ends, not because the abuse ends, but because the youngest daughter (and besides the son the only survivor) gets a hold of a gun and wipes out mother, brother, and then herself. Yeah, it happens, but that doesn't mean you have to watch it. Just love your kids and treat your family with respect, okay?



                              

HIGHER EDUCATION WILL KILL YOU





Shrooms (2007) Ireland

I've always said to parents that you might as well save your money and let your kids get the jobs America needs anyway (there are far too little blue collar workers anymore) 'cause college just gets kids killed. At least in the movies they do. And  in this one... I mean seriously, would you want to shell out thousands for a college education for your young one if you realize that your hard work means that THEY CAN FLY CLEAR THE HELL TO IRELAND JUST TO DO MUSHROOMS?

There is one smart girl (there's always one) who's mainly going because she's sweet on that particular Irish dude that's invited them all to fly 4,200 miles (or more) just to do drugs with him. How special. The particular mushroom that apparently is the rage (for idiots) in Ireland is called forpsilocybin mushrooms, also known as shrooms or magic mushrooms. In the right dosage (which nobody is going to use, I mean c'mon) they can act like an anti-depressant. A feel-good munchie. However, you've got to be careful (if you're stupid in the first place to eat these suckers) because a look-alike with a slight difference is called a deathcap mushroom. At least in the movie it is.

In real life, a deathcap mushroom looks more like an edible mushroom called a caesar or straw mushroom. But oh well, no matter 'cause this movie makes about as much sense as Yellowbrickroad and incredibly is even more stupid. Why? Because dear children, these exact same type of mushrooms GROW RIGHT HERE IN THE BLOODY STATES. Now don't you feel great about spending all that money on your child's education?

I mean even if you set aside the fact that these idiots go clear to another country just to do this, their stupidity just grows from there, like that's even possible. The 'smart girl' (she said with sarcasm) runs into a deathcap and eats it. Why? To get the movie going stupid. She has a seizure but seems to recover. That night while the group of idiots are around the fire, their upcoming drug trip simmering in a tea on the fire, the Ireland idiot decides to tell them a gruesome story. Oh that's a smart thing to do with people about to be on a wacked out drug trip. It has serial killers, supernatural crap and other stuff - the typical boring as hell never happened stuff. But they all take it seriously and become scared.

And from here the movie gets worse. How could it get worse? Oh my children, never underestimate the power of a bad movie maker. From here we get a one-by-one kids getting killed scenario (for which I'm always glad 'cause each kid killed means we're closer to the end) with the 'smart girl' somehow always getting away. They throw in a couple of 'squeal like a pig' type characters so you think that they probably are doing the killings (if you're stupid and I know you're not) but...

Somehow somebody missed these idiots and sent out a helicopter to find them - of course only finding the 'smart girl' alive. Why do I keep putting that like I'm being sarcastic? She IS the one who ate the deathcap - on purpose if you ask me. An ambulance gives her that magic blanket (you know, the main medicine of ambulances) and says she's going to be all right. We then get the entire movie again (fortunately in very short flashbacks) that shows that SHE is the killer. She smiles, and next we see her pressed against the ambulance windows with bloody hands and fortunately our trip is now over.

I think we have plenty of drugs in the United States that we don't need to go clear across the world (okay just a long way away) to get wasted, okay? Oh, and you don't have to make a movie about it either. Drugs are bad, m'kay?



                              

SALVADOR DALI ON AN ACID TRIP






Un Chien Andalou aka An Andelusian Dog (1929) France

Who says everybody was tame and boring back in the roaring 20's? There was Salvador Dali for one - a real party animal. I really don't know what he was like, but if he could make something like this, he was one cool dude. Oh yeah, and Luis Bunuel too.





If you've got about 15 minutes to partake in something - surreal ('cause that's how long this film runs) then put away your preconceptions about what confusing and psychedelic is and have a gander at this piece of art. And it IS art, partly because it was made with Salvador Dali and partly because it explores what you can do with images (no sound of course) that do not have to tell a story or make sense. Oh, and how to make people queasy too. He even appears in the film - a little bit of ego showing there but hey, he made a better 15 minute piece of cinema than a thousand bad B movies.

For 15 minutes, there is no plot, no chronology, just imagery galore that bounces from one thing to another. As for title cards, there is none for the dialogue (there really isn't any dialogue anyway), just a card here and there to say things like 'once upon a time' or 'eight years later' although none of THAT makes any sense either. Because this is not a story, this is art. Some might make your stomach a little fluttery, but hey, if he could have made more, I'd watch it.

You've got eye slicing, men riding bicycles in nun habits, a peek at Salvador himself, jumps from here to there without explanation, and a sudden ending with a picture of a death's-head hawkmoth (yes, they do exist). What more could you ask for in 15 minutes?

'The Persistence Of Memory'