Exte: Hair Extensions

I have a good time watching works like this. Films like these use visual, and symbolic codes specifically directed to a certain dark piece of audience, who is willing to live a life in films outside the most widespread conventions, and accept what comes with that. One of the thing i like the most when watching such a piece in a public venue (usually crowded with the hard fans of these kinds of productions) is to observe how those fans respond to certain conventions inside the 'genre'. To me, because i only make occasional visits, it's something equivalent to visiting a foreign country, i observe how people behave, what's mood of the place i'm visiting.

Inside those alternative conventions, this is a good film, i suppose. At least it made it for me, to the point of wanting to know more work of this director. He has a vision, in the middle of this kind of capillary horror, he has an interesting concept which spreads clearly and embraces the film, as much as the hair embraces all the characters.

Hair as open channels. Hair as an element to connect people, to connect lives, and past lives. And to share death. It's an effective narrative device. The dead hair growing girl works as a kind of noir agent, someone who controls the action, but we are the whole time inside the device (we had to be to make the whole thing credible, and also because it was important for the creators and for the genre to explore the one-eyed dead girl). She manipulates through hair, and has a human puppet who delivers hair, and makes the whole thing work. That silly man is her hands in the street, giving death randomly. That agent believes all the way that he controls her, but we come to understand it's the other way around.

This clear storytelling strategy makes the film pleasant enough to me. It's a solid production work, the stop-motions were made with competence, and you will enjoy this if you like to explore interesting storytelling and if you're willing to accept, at least for 2 hours, the conventions of this corner in film universe (that if you're not already inside it).

My opinion: 3/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

This horror film is about cursed hair, that anyone who wears the hair extensions has something very bad happen to them. The hair is cursed because the women who had it were victims of organ harvesting. A morgue attendant brings a corpse which still grows hair and sells/gives the extensions. This is where the other part of the film comes in. Hair stylist apprentice Yuko (the pretty Chiaki Kuriyama) lives in a small apartment with a roommate Yuki. She also takes in her niece Mami (a very young girl played effectively by Miki Sato) who is suffering from abuse at the hands of Yuko's evil half sister. I like the way the film lives in two worlds and comes together. The special effects are pretty good and while there is violence there is little gore. This is a horror film with good production values and Ms. Kuriyama plays Yuko very well, very likable and sensible. If you like horror, especially J horror, you will like this film. While horror is not my favorite genre, I enjoyed this, it moved along well, never dragged and you care about Yuko and Mami. Thats enough of a ringing endorsement, and the film succeeds on many levels.

"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".

Now, doesn't the premise of this movie sounds just awesome and interesting? A movie in which hair extensions attack and kill those that wear them, how could this movie not be awesome? Well, for one because it picks a totally strange and wrong approach to its subject.

The movie is a horror but only with its main premise. The movie itself picks a more dramatic approach, while the horror moments are mostly being comical and over-the-top ones. It's such a weird mixture of different genres, that doesn't quite work out that great or ever becomes very interesting to watch.

At first I actually thought this was going to be a parody of the Japanese horror genre but then suddenly it started to take a very serious and more straightforward approach with all of its dramatic story elements. I just don't know how to take this movie and I wonder if the film-makers themselves knew what direction they were going for.

Because the movie is mostly being a drama, it also means that it has a slow pace and buildup to it. Nothing wrong with that, as long as there is something good or interesting going on in the story as well. And that really isn't always the case in this movie. As a matter of fact, even though this is a well under 2 hours short movie, it still feels like a much longer one.

I feel that the movie could had truly benefited more from its horror. It should had done more with it, since it actually was the horror that still made this movie somewhat worthwhile. Yes, it has a ridicules concept but that's why it also works and becomes an original and interesting one with its horror. Also the effects looked pretty decent and some more killings or gore could had really spiced up things for this movie. The potential and possibilities were all there but the movie never really fully uses any it.

A strange mixture of far too many genres. It's not all that bad but it still remains a just too big of a waste, of some fine potential.

6/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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.