Rampo Noir

Exploring the darker edges of eeriness, sexuality, and bizarre, horror-esque art with unconventional layers of psychological deviance, Rampo Noir is challenging as it is horrifically disturbing, presenting the writer's fiction in radical ways, hoping to push boundaries but never quite succeeding. Partly due to the violent, sadomasochistic sex scenes that often crop up, but also because it's not always immediately clear what the filmmakers are trying to say, thanks to their ponderously slow approach. There's only so much time you can spend on artistically rotting corpses and auditory excess before you're going to annoy someone, but the film remains consistently refreshingly and cinematically striking with an unabashed eroticism and willingness to plunge into the dark realms of Rampo's work. Each director breathes life into their own respective take on the material, all have a unique visual style, which help draw you into their strange worlds, be it exploitation or arthouse; each segment carves its own identity, although, admittedly, some more to my taste than others, with the high points being the two segments that bookend the feature and, ironically, come from the two newcomers. Suguru Takeuchi delivers a full-on avant-garde experimental and introspective short, full of evocative imagery in what is a beautifully surreal and breathtakingly stunning, if bitterly short, dive into existential dread. Atsushi Kaneko, meanwhile, more well-known for his status as a mangaka, makes an impressive directorial debut with the finale, blending his usual sensibilities with a lush cinematic intensity and plenty of darkly comedic moments. That being said, the other two segments are far from a slouch. Adapting his third Rampo tale, Akio Jissoji's usual keen eye for composition and signature stylistic flourishes turn his short into a mesmerising fever dream. Hisayasu Sato, meanwhile, delivers a grimly gruesome tale, taking Rampo's work to its most grotesque extreme, containing mutilation and plenty of bodily fluids. It's presented with an unusual use of light and colour, as unsettling as it is provocative, a visceral commentary on physical and emotional dependency. Despite the mismatched feel of the whole affair, Rampo Noir's hallucinogenic approach to narrative and visuals is nothing short of invigorating.

Lengthy anthology of films made from stories by Edogowa Rampo, that all seem to revolve around obsessive love and the consequences of feeling; 'Since I fell in love with you my life has been hell'. First up, 'Mars Canal' comprises a naked man walking across what appears to be a lunar landscape and recalling a naked fight with a lover (?). Not much in this one for me and 'experimental' would probably be the correct tag. Next up, Mirror Hell was a fairly interesting but rather convoluted tale involving mirrors and ladies dying after a tea ceremony. I liked a lot of this but thought it could have been better told. Caterpillar, I thought was masterful. We are confronted with a mere torso and head of a man who is being further injured and degraded (and whipped) by his wife. She says he has returned injured from war and only she can bear to face him but certainly does not treat him very 'lovingly' as we would conceive of the word. There is a lot here of love and hate, of need and possession and although it is at times very hard to watch I was most impressed. The final, Crawling Bugs, doesn't quite match up to the Sato film but is well shot and certainly well worth watching. All told a surprisingly good quartet and tempts one towards the writings of the mysterious, Mr Rampo.

Rampo Noir is one of my favorite horror anthologies, sharing a similar disturbing, visceral feeling to Subconscious Cruelty (2000). (Check out my review for it if you have time.) The film is a fascinating, yet uneven, collection of four stories, each directed by a different filmmaker adapting a tale by Rampo Edogawa. The only constant thread is actor Tadanobu Asano, who takes on a new role in each segment, from a naked wanderer to a private detective. The movie has almost giallo-esque vibes, aesthetically and argumentatively, a strange cocktail of David Cronenberg's body horror and the aesthetic of films like Heroic Purgatory (1970) (check out my review if you have time here) and House (1977).

The directors involved are an interesting mix of seasoned artists. Legendary Akio Jissoji, whose "Buddhist Trilogy" is a work I adore and recommend, and whose name you might also have seen on the famous Ultraman TV series and his acclaimed Art Theatre Guild films, directs one segment. Another is from Hisayasu Satô, an icon of pinku cinema. Mangaka Atsushi Kaneko and director Suguru Takeuchi round out the quartet.

Of the four, the two standout chapters are Takeuchi's opening segment, "Mars Canal," and Satô's "Caterpillar." "Mars Canal" is a short, silent parable about a naked, vulnerable man at a lake, almost like a piece of living art. The simplicity and atmosphere make it a hypnotic start to the film.

The Metamorphosis of Caterpillar: The most absurd and grotesquely captivating storyline is "Caterpillar," the complete story of a war hero who returns home completely dismembered-a quadruple amputee, mute, and facially scarred. His wife, the artist, treats him not as a husband but as a living canvas. She dresses him, feeds him, and parades him around, obsessing over her creation. It's a horrific allegory about control, love, and the monstrous ways in which we can possess another. The wife's affection is a twisted kind of horror; her love is a form of artistic subjugation. She sees her husband as a prize, a bizarre specimen she has reshaped and kept in a jar. In her mind, she's transforming him from a "caterpillar" of war into something beautiful and powerless. The ending climax of this story is a shocking, visceral and fully embracing the erotic grotesque themes of the source material.

The Mirror and the Bugs:

The other two segments, Jissoji's "Mirror Hell" and Kaneko's "Crawling Bugs," are also ingenious but less compelling. "Mirror Hell" follows a detective as he investigates a series of mysterious deaths caused by a man who creates mirrors that seem to burn people's faces off. This segment explores obsession with self-image and the danger of perspective.

"Crawling Bugs" is a strange, unsettling tale of a man with a mental illness that makes him feel like bugs are crawling on his skin whenever he's near other people. He becomes obsessed with a beautiful theater actress, fantasizing about a life with her. This story is an unsettling, dirty dive into the themes of idolization and loneliness, where the protagonist creates his own reality to escape the horrors of the one he's trapped in.

Overall, Rampo Noir is a must-watch for diehards of the directors here and also for anyone who enjoys Japanese horror and isn't afraid of a little absurdity.

"Rampo Noir" is a collection of 4 short films loosely (and I mean 'LOOSELY' like your mouth after a heavy dose of novocaine at the dentist) based on the 1950s short stories of Edogawa Rampo.

The pen name "Edogawa Rampo" is a Japanese katakana phonetic translation for "Edgar Allen Poe" (say them out loud), which shows the author made no attempt to hide the strong influence Mr. Poe had on him. And indeed, perhaps minus Poe's unique sarcastic wit, the two writers are similar in many ways. That is, Rampo was an excellent writer of Victorian surrealism.

Here we have a modern visual adaptation of Rampo's work which falls short of conveying the master's subtle, Victorian style, but as standalone works of 21st century erotica-horror, they are very effective. These films take the psychologically off-kilter imaginings of Rampo and convert them into outright physical, psychosexual nightmares. Rampo never wrote about steamy sex scenes, bondage & blatant perversion, but these adaptations rely heavily on them. Perhaps more noticeable is the way these adaptations are stripped of any morality that Rampo had originally conveyed. These ain't your grandfather's sort of literature. Characters here are unapologetically twisted, evil & sadistic, hardly recognizable as human beings.

If you can get past that, or if you've come here wanting to see some sick, twisted stuff, then read on. You'll probably enjoy these works.

#1 "Mars Canal" - We begin with the shortest one, a silent film showing a man stumbling through a strange landscape while having disturbing, sexual flashbacks. Most people are utterly confused by this one, and indeed the meaning (here as well as in Rampo's original story) is very abstract. The cinematography is gorgeous, making extreme use of vivid greens and light/dark contrast.

#2 "Hell of Mirrors" is so far from the original story that it's unrecognizable, but it has an interesting story nonetheless. The original story was about a man who was obsessed with mirrors to the point that he builds an experimental laboratory dedicated to the study of optical illusions, culminating in a fantastic & shocking experiment where he builds a spherical chamber of mirrors which he enters. The film is, instead, about a series of gruesome murders of women which all involve mirrors. Also stuck in there are some bizarre love triangles and a creepy scene of sadistic sex (none of which is in the original Rampo). I feel this piece's strength is its creepy mood and the mystery aspect of it, as we follow a detective trying to catch the killer.

#3 "Caterpillar" is the sickest of the lot. Be prepared, this one outshines any twisted story I've seen except for maybe "The Human Centipede" (a laughably gross movie about a German doctor who sews a bunch of people together, mouth-to-butt. Who comes up with this stuff??). The original "Caterpillar" by Rampo is about a war hero who comes home disfigured, deaf, mute & quadruplegic. His devoted wife cares for him but wrestles between tender love & her cruel impulses to torment her husband. In this film, the cruel impulses take center stage, are exaggerated and shown in shocking imagery along with sexual perversion. Seriously, this gets even sicker than the 1982 "Basket Case" or any of its twisted sequels. Nothing like the original Rampo except in the opening premise, this film's strength lies in its sheer perversity. Not for the faint of heart!

#4 "Crawling Bugs" is my favorite of the lot because, rather than bombard us nonstop with disturbing images, it breaks up the pace with some satirically bright, comedic scenes. It begins with a jolly, dreamlike scene of a grinning man and his less-than-grinning bride-to-be about to be married in a setting that can only be described as a set from Walt Disney's "Zip a dee doo dah". From there, we get fragmented flashbacks to a consideably darker tale unfolding about a man obsessed with a famous actress. It hops back & forth to the magical wonderland with some excellent dark comedy spicing things up all the way to the hilariously sick ending. Faithful to Rampo or not, "Crawling Bugs" is a real treat for the mildly depraved cinephiles amongst us.

These films have 1 thing in common, and that is an expert approach to cinema as an art form. The films are challenging, fragmented and gorgeously filmed while digging deep into the rancorous well of human depravity. Give 'em a watch, and then if your curiosity is piqued I highly recommend reading the original Rampo stories that spawned them. They're very hard to find, especially in English, so I may try to post a few in the discussion board. I'd love to hear what people think of these adaptations.

I thought the movie was... interesting. Some parts a little too artsy. I'm not really here to debate the movie but, to ask about the warning in the beginning. What are the EXACTLY talking about pertaining the "intended effects"? I'm not sure if they're talking about the blockey distorted appearance of a scratched DVD or if its just the one I'm watching. After a few minutes it gave me a little headache. I thought that that was what they were warning about until towards the end when the guy in crawling bugs says, "what was I thinking?" then the movie was "normal". I had rented the movie from Blockbuster and it was brand new and undamaged.