Akumu tantei

The premise of "Nightmare Detective" is very interesting:A Japanese detective investigates two mysterious and very bloody suicides,somehow connected as the two victims dialed "0" on their mobiles moments before their death.The detective comes to learn of a man who has the supposed ability to manipulate people's dreams and if the case is going to be solved the detective succumbs to the realization that she must dial the mysterious "0" herself..."Nightmare Detective" is the film about dreams,alternate realities and suicides in Japan.The viewer will be trapped in a myriad of dreams within dreams and alternating worlds.Too much shaky camera movements sometimes irritated me,but the visuals are splendid and the suicides are quite disturbing with lots of blood spilled.As a fan of Tsukamoto's unique visions I wasn't disappointed with "Nightmare Detective".

In Tokyo, Detective Sekiya (Ren Ôsugi) investigates the death of two suicides with Detective Wakamiya (Masanobu Ando) and the rookie Detective Keiko Kirishima (Hitomi). Both victims were stabbed while sleeping and the skeptical and experienced Sekiya concludes that they have committed suicide. However, Wakamiya discovers that both victims had dialed "0" on their cell-phones before their death and they recorded a weird message. The police officers believe that someone is inducing potential suicidal persons to kill themselves, but the chief of police decides to split the team and assigns Keiko to find a medium to help the police in the investigation. She meets Kyoichi Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), who is also a suicidal man with the ability to enter in the dreams, and tries to force the reluctant man to help her.

"Akumu Tantei", a.k.a. "Nightmare Detective", is a stylish thriller with a character that recalls Freddy Krueger since he attacks his victims in their dreams. The sexy Hitomi performs a detective that in a certain moment fights to stay awake, recalling for example, Kristen Parker in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise. Despite having a wonderful cinematography, the unoriginal screenplay is very confused and I expected much more from a movie directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Caçador de Pesadelos" ("Nightmare Hunter")

The premise caught me and I was on my way to watch it on DVD. It is haunting creepy and very violent. This violent thriller/fantasy had me stayed up for a night. The director had the story that looks like real. That scared me, pondering on the main theme of this, "suicide". After the thrilling violent suicides, you will find that violence is the least point you take note, it is the brutal violence, the idea on suicide when you just think about it. So it pretty got me like straight to the brain.

The story shows the first bloody suicide and Keiko (Hitomi), a cop transferred is discovering the first suicide. She realises that it is no ordinary suicide but the other police thinks the other way. Then it shows the second suicide, the non-stop stabbing on the neck, the dead man's wife told them that it is like that he was in a nightmare which is true. They found that "O" is the one who killed them. They want the mysterious guy who can go to people's dreams, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, but he says that he don't want to go to people's dreams anymore. Until when one of cop calls "O" and awaits for death. He can't be saved. Keiko calls "O" and wants to arrest him because she wants to save more victims falling into his hands. From there, the thrilling "race" of not sleeping starts. It may be confusing but I am able to understand it. Be warned of very shaky scenes where you can't even see what is happening.

Overall : It will seduce you to its dark mystery and from there, you will find it hard to take your eyes from the screen. The director did it with a sense of humour and dark mystery. It is very bloody but soon it is not the point.

The Singaporean DVD consists of TV spots, trailers and some boring stuff. There is not even a making of. The DVD is rated M-18.

You know a "horror" movie is just "ok", at best, when, an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie you start thinking, this movie would be a lot better with more character development. I know there are 2 sequels, so maybe the characters get a bit more "meat" on them in those sequels. But as for this one I found myself not caring about any of the characters. For me, in order for a horror movie to be good, you gotta care for at least one of the characters. Here, I just didn't. Even towards the end when they did decide to, barely, delve into the characters backstory, it was just too little to late. At first I was thinking maybe it was just bad subtitles. But after reading other reviews, it sounds like everything was translated just fine and the movie itself was, as I already said, just ok. If I'm not invested in your characters in the first part, you can guarantee I won't have any desire to see the sequels.

People are committing suicide in bloody, messy ways, and the police are at their wit's end as to why. The deaths are somehow connected to a mystery man on the victims' cell phones. Getting desperate, the cops decide to broaden their investigation, and enlist the services of the titular psychic.

NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE is yet one more example of inventive, bizarre horror from Japan. It starts out with some familiar cell phone insanity, quickly morphing into something completely different. Blurring the line between dreams and reality, ND pays homage to the classics while remaining original...