Chime

Renowned Japanese horror filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns with a distinctive and chilling addition to the genre. The story centers on Matsuoka, a former chef who conducts cooking classes while he seeks new employment. One day, a student voices his distress over an inexplicable sound that he cannot escape, which appears to be altering him internally, leading to a loss of self-control and even violent outbursts. The particularly unsettling aspect of this noise is its ability to propagate from one individual to another without any forewarning, rendering each moment of the film fraught with unpredictability and tension.

In a mere 45 minutes, Kurosawa employs a myriad of techniques from his extensive repertoire, crafting a film that achieves a level of creepiness and intensity in just a few scenes that surpasses the efforts of many horror films released this year.

"Chime" does not conform to the typical jump-scare format; rather, it evokes a lingering sense of dread that may resurface days later, leaving viewers with an unsettling image from the film etched in their minds. Watch this film of a filmmaker that's at the top of his game!

Unsettling from start to finish. Despite how heavy this film is on mystery, there is enough to latch onto and to make your own interpretations from.

Synopsis: Chime is a 2024 Japanese horror thriller film about a culinary school teacher who is disrupted by a chime that brings him a sense of dread: Plot: The film begins with a scene in a culinary school classroom where nothing seems out of the ordinary. However, a student named Tashiro says something strange, claiming to hear a chime and that half of his brain has been replaced by a machine. The school administration warns the teacher, Matsuoka, that Tashiro is a little strange.

I thought I'd give it a try. A 6.8 on the IMDB is pretty good for a horror movie, and I am a vivid Horror fan, but boy was I duped! It started OK. A Japanese town is shown in quite a depressive looking view. But then...... a knive, and another knive, and lots of cans in plastic bags. Why are there so many cans in plastic bags? I just didn't get it. Did I miss the story somewhere. The movie is 45 minutes, so is the story in the missing minutes. What happened? Why. A teacher who hears a noise, am I deaf. What noise. What the f.... did happen in this movie. Yes, a beautiful tree outside the building. Oh that's the end....what happened. What was I watching?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Chime" is a chilling 45-minute psychological horror film that masterfully blends mundane settings with a growing sense of dread. It tells the story of a middle-aged school teacher who is haunted by a recurring sound, a chime, that fills him with a strange sense of foreboding. As the film progresses, the teacher's life begins to unravel, and he becomes increasingly obsessed with the source of the sound and its unsettling implications.

Kurosawa's signature style is on full display in "Chime," with its deliberate pacing, unsettling atmosphere, and focus on the psychological state of its protagonist. The film's minimalist approach, with its sparse dialogue and focus on visual storytelling, creates a sense of unease and leaves much to the viewer's imagination. The sound design is particularly effective, with the recurring chime serving as a constant reminder of the unseen threat that looms over the teacher.

The film's ending is ambiguous and open to interpretation, leaving viewers to ponder the true meaning of the chime and its impact on the teacher's life. Some may interpret it as a descent into madness, while others may see it as a reflection of the teacher's own inner turmoil and anxieties.

"Chime" is a powerful and thought-provoking film that stays with you long after the credits roll. Its exploration of fear, paranoia, and the fragility of the human mind is both unsettling and unforgettable.

Kurosawa proving to us in just 45 minutes that he is still one of the best horror directors working today. Chime is a masterpiece in creating dread and paranoia told through Kurosawa's incredible talent of making the mundane feel absolutely terrifying, by flipping the genre of horror on its head and completely averting audience expectations, creating such a horrifying experience.

Watching this right after Cure highlights how closely they serve as companion pieces to each other. Just like Cure, this produces a spectacular audio-visual storm full of fear and anxiety which lingers in your mind long after it's ended. It offers zero explanation for the audience during the short runtime it gives you, leaving you in complete ambiguity, providing any answers only in interpretation. It creates a sense of reality and normality in some scenes, to be entirely replaced by an abrupt and intensely disturbing act of violence, leaving you unable to trust that any scene is safe. Extremely unsettling and philosophically haunting, one of the best horrors of the year.