Exte: Hair Extensions

Ever since the wave of Asian suspense films started in the late 90s, the horror genre regained its mainstream popularity. The Asian market spawned an overload of long-haired ghosts, the European market followed with some fine gorefests and nail-biters and across the ocean, Saw conquered the theaters and kick-started a whole circus of remakes, rip-offs and sequels. In short, horror is hot again.

In between all this genre work are still a few films that dare to be different, coming from directors that are more interested in the genre itself than the hype surrounding it. From the beginning, Sion Sono was a director who failed to fit the specific horror mold. Even though his first fan favorite, Suicide Circle, was marketed alongside films as Ringu and Ju-On, he never quite fitted in with the typical J-Horror wave. Apart from the social themes found in his films, it's the general weirdness that separates him from the generic horror template. With Ekusute, his latest effort, he's back to take revenge.

Ekusute is a film about hair. Long, dark, mysterious, Asian hair. One of the most commonly used elements in the Asian suspense wave. Needless to say, the storyline is as crazy as it is fun. When a girl is tortured and murdered for her organs, they also cut off her hair. Obviously, the hair doesn't agree and starts to grow back from her dead body. A local morgue attendant with an extreme fixation for hair finds out and takes her home with him. He starts using her hair for a hair extension business he's been running on the side, at which point the hair extensions go on a murdering rampage. Hell yeah! To make things "worse", Sono contacted Ren Osugi to play the part of the perverted hippie hair fetishist. I still remember the first time I watched Osugi in Hana-bi and Sonatine. Back then I figured he was a normal actor playing an uncharacteristically strange role. We are now several years later, and I know better. Osugi might look like a normal, older guy, in reality he is one of Japan's most insane actors, taking on whatever perverted, quirky and twisted role he can find. He goes completely over the top in Ekusute, giving the film its final nudge into insanity.

Ekusute is for the biggest part a parody on Asian horror flicks, playing around with a bunch of clichés and plot points. The whole hairy background story is crazy, Osugi's performance completely off the charts. Sono manages to be quite creative with the elements at hand, coming up with some interesting death scenes and original plays. But beside all the madness, the film works on another level. Sono integrates a side story about a tormented little kid which gives the film some extra grit and depth. It's the mix of all these elements that makes Ekusute quite dark and unique.

Visually, the film is quite unstable, with rather plain visuals in its dramatic moments. But whenever Sono plays the horror (or freak) card the visuals become top notch. The scenes in Osugi's room are marvelous, making excellent use of lighting and hair effects to create shots that linger on the eyes. In between scenes Sono even tries some Tsukamoto-like magic, with rapid-fire editing of images filled with hair and accompanied by distorted sounds. As a whole, the film is visually pleasing, though it would've been nicer if it had been a little more consistent in its style.

The film remains a strange mix of elements. In the beginning it looks like a simple parody on the J-Horror genre, but after a while other elements creep in which make the film more disturbing than it should have been on first sight. It never plays on scares, but still manages to become a dark and brooding film, topped with some craziness and surreal moments (mostly those with Osugi). It's a bit hard to recommend, as Sono's characteristic blend is rather unique and contains many tricks that might put people off. Still, I enjoy his films as they always succeed in bringing something new to the table.

Ekusute might feel like his most commercial film to date, but that is mostly a disguise. It's a fun, crazy and surprisingly eerie film. 4*/5*

Really interesting film. Great story, interesting characters and a very different villain. I was curious as to how the film would turn out, assumed it would either be campy or gross out but actually turned out to be neither. Story was well paced, emotional and the actors were all enjoyable. Using something so mundane as the "monster" did make it quite hard to take the movie seriously at times and there's a few moments that I found very similar to Takashi Miikes style of absurdity, the film still came together and resulted in a really unique horror experience.

I have to say that i had to laugh when i first read a brief summary, which only focused on the hair-horror part. "Killing hair?! what the .. ?!", i thought. But after seeing "Suicide Circle" and "Strange Circus" i knew that there has to be way more than this ridiculous story.

"Exte" is obviously a parody! But there seems to be an awful lot of people who expected something like the grudge or the ring and are now pretty disappointed. Well, the scenario is pretty cliché and the ending was pretty gruff; nothing has been really explained at that point. Well, there are a lot of indicators which show directly towards parody! ;) At the very beginning for example: all these ultra-cliché dialog which was narrated in an obscure way in third person; the hair-salon which was named after a french serial killer (had to look that up); etc ...

BUT!! This film is still pretty scary ... and i don't mean only the hair, which .. was also scary (yeah, i was kinda scared ;) Human were the most scary/pitiful part here: The girl who was abducted and then used as a source for organs; The mother who abuses her child incessantly; then the child itself, of course; the hair-otaku, a real pitiful psycho; the main character (kuriyama) who carries a heavy burden of the past; all these people who don't care at all where this hair is coming from; just focusing on their beauty .. and all these other side-characters who might also have some sort of a problem.

Well, why then the hair-horror-part? Isn't abuse horror enough? ... you might ask. Well, i was wondering myself a bit ;) I mean .. from my perspective it worked out pretty well! .. anxiety, fear, panic, anger, frustration and in the end some sort of relief. It was there! Maybe because the hair-horror part made it easier to grasp the part about abuse etc. In my opinion "Exte" is some sort of an homage and at the same time a critique, that most horror flicks tend to be very superficial and are not trying to imply more than pure scare; some thought-provoking stuff; for example abuse .. ? ;)

Anyway: Cast was great!! Especially Osugi was really amazing! Art/direction was also a real feat! The Soundtrack wasn't that impressive but however the sound-design was stunningly good!

All in all an amazing film! Especially for J-horror fans with a little bit of humor and for those who have an interest in social relevant topics.

Too bad that so many people have been irritated by it .. ;)

"Body Bags", a rather weak early 90's horror anthology promoted by John Carpenter, featured one segment with Stacy Keach replacing his balding head with a murderous hairdo. The little story was unbelievably stupid because human hair simply isn't the least bit scary. Sion Sono ("Suicide Club") also clearly realizes the concept of killing hair is goofy, but somehow his natural sense of creativity and knowledgeable approach of the genre resulted in a very entertaining horror/parody film. During his introduction of the movie – at the Belgium Horror Festival – Sion Sono vividly explained how he found his inspiration in observing young Japanese schoolgirls and their fascination for random and silly fashion trends. According to Sion Sono, the idea of braiding someone's real hair into your own without knowing exactly what happened to this person could lead to a terrifically tense horror formula. The person could be cursed, brutally murdered or be a psychopathic serial killer for all you know! Would you want to wear his/her hair in yours? Interesting idea, indeed, but it definitely raises a few plotting issues. How do you use ordinary human hair as an instrument of murder, for example, and how do you continuously maintain the link with the hair's original "carrier". Well, for all these questions – and many more – Sono came up with answers that balance perfectly between supernatural horror and plainly absurd comedy.

Custom agents discover the body of a dead girl whose eyes and organs were surgically removed, presumably by the organ mafia. Out of pure and furious anger, her restless spirit still causes the body hair to grow fast and in enormous proportions. The totally demented coroner sees a profitable business and starts selling the girl's hair to salons. Needless to say the extensions promptly take control over the victims, hair starts growing from all bodily openings and the fashionable girls die a very painful death. Most of the horrors take place inside the Gilles de Rais salon, where the ambitious Yuko struggles with work pressure as well as private problems. "Hair Extensions" is a wonderfully odd but original mixture of horror styles and – strangely enough – the contradictory themes never really collide with each other. The movie is successively scary, comical, gory, downright absurd and scary again and, as a viewer, you simply go with the flow. Still, the absolute greatest aspects in "Hair Extensions" – even greater than the unique sense of humor - are the literally stunning and fabulous make-up effects and imaginative visuals. The multiple images of eerie black hair growing out of eye sockets and infected cutting wounds are quite icky and the absolute highlight of the movie shows a girl's hair pinning itself like a spider's web onto the ceiling. Sion Sono clearly dedicated a lot of time and effort to his character drawings. Yuko, her obnoxious sister Kiyomi and her little niece Mami are properly elaborated characters and Gunji – the deranged coroner – is the most fascinatingly eccentric freak I've ever seen in an Asian horror movie. The lovely lead actress Chiaki Kuriyama continues her unstoppable series of success roles, as avid genre fanatics will definitely recognize her from highlights like "Battle Royale" and "Kill Bill".

A man with a hair fetish has been harvesting the locks of the recently deceased for his collection of award winning hair extensions. But things start to get weird when he takes the hair from the body of a woman that seems to be haunted...it just continues to grow...and grow...and grow...

So he begins lop off segments and give them to local hair salons as samples.

He's not in it for the money...he just wants to see a world full of people with beautiful hair.

However, something isn't right with this hair.

Those who dawn it, become consumed by it...quite literally...as hair begins growing from every pore...orifice...internal organ...etc...until they're dead.

And only someone who can truly understand the suffering that the hair woman went through- prior to her death- can break the curse.

This film is some kind of weird. The special effects (a combination of traditional and cgi) have their moments. It is both humorous and disturbing. And the ending is patently ridiculous...but at least it's patently ridiculous fun.

6 out of 10.