Organ

I really like this movie. I think it's really artful but also disturbing. In fact I understand that some people don't like it because the movie is hard to understand, and it has so much story in it, that I can't make a summary. Also is the Japanese filmgenre very different from the American and Europe cinema, and not all people like this. But this is really a must see for fans of movies like Pi, Tetsuo or Tetsuo II. It got all in it, dream scenes, disturbing gore scenes, a good soundtrack and a bad atmosphere, because everything in the movie is dirty, cold, ugly and brutal. So if you like to watch something different then a mainstream Hollywood movie you have to get this cool journey to the insane world of Kei Fujiwara

I just watched this movie last night, and I didn't understand it until I read the Mondo Macabro entry on it by Pete Tombs, and some of the reviews here (evidently, I'm not alone in thinking this film loses power by sacrificing narrative clarity for thematic integrity). The fact that the film is low budget and shot in 16mm (somewhat grainy; it would be great to see a Blu-Ray version with better subtitles) adds to the viewer's frustration. Still, Kei Fujiwara has undoubtedly created a nightmarish alternate universe and managed to get it on film which is at least worth five stars.

Organ is really more of an avant garde art film than straight horror, but then again, if you watch a lot of Japanese horror, you've probably noticed that this island culture takes the genre more seriously than in the west (which tends to see it as a more exploitive, money-making, freshman-director type genre). I can't say I enjoyed watching Organ much, but I do respect the director's unflinching vision and daring in bringing such a brutally dark tale to fruition.

Well, the first thing about Organ is, that you should not try to understand the storyline too much. This movie is extra-strange yet lives of its trashy and bizarre pictures. If you like purulent ulcerations exerbating and real weird erotics - it is the real thing for you. Don't expect a pure splatter movie but a picture with intense horror... To the story (as well as I can tell it): a biologist with a big mutation (spicy) cuts out organs from dead and alive people to sell them. After locking up the brother of a cop (whom he cuts off his limbs and letting him alive for unknown purposes) he is chased by the cop. And that's it...the rest evolves... Now to the effects: real cool sometimes, but also trashy and funny, butterfly collections, birthings, slimy blood-dripping...yet not state-of-the-art. Nice soundtrack also. For a conclusion, it's a real bizarre japanese splatting horror movie you should not miss if you want it different. I rate it a 7 of 10, but it has deserved a 10 for cult-factor.

For the first half, I was actually enjoying this quite a bit. I appreciated the gore (the hallucinatory sequence of one of Saeki's victims emerging from a cocoon-like object is easily the highlight to the film's gore) and found some of the disturbing bits to the film quite promising. For instance, Saeki having a secret room in his school office where dead and mutilated bodies were stored (Numata's brother, for instance) was a disturbing concept. I also found Numata's investigation of the gang compelling since it came with emotional stakes. For the first half of the film, I was on board with the film and eager to see how everything could culminate. Unfortunately though, somewhere around the halfway point, the film gets increasingly harder to follow. With so many characters and motivations being added, it became more and more difficult to keep track of who was who and what the motivations of everyone was. Eventually, many scenes in the second half made me ask "Where did this come from?" repeatedly. This culminated in a messy and ponderous final act which took all kinds of confusing fates to the various characters and crammed them into each other in a very unpleasant way. The final fight in Saeki's school office was horrendously messy, in particular. Also, while I enjoyed the gore at first, it didn't ramp up as the film went on and eventually got to a point where I kept asking "Didn't they already repeat a similar effect several times?" as I watched it. So yeah, just a big letdown overall. I wouldn't quite call it a bad film though as the first half contained enough potential to prevent it from being a complete waste of time and, in spite of what I said about the second half, there were a few promising moments thrown into the mix (that was few and far between though) that gave me brief breaks from the second half's mostly ponderous tone.

If you want to see a bizarre film then you can't do any worse than this quickie from japan, this film resembles the likes of Brain Damage and Videodrome. The music will stick in your head long after the film has finished.

If you are seeking the japaneese David Lynch then look no further than the director of Organ