Re/Member

After watching many Japanese horror films, I was hoping for better. If not for the childish and very unnecessary teen scenes, this movie would have been much better. This movie should have stuck to its plot line and stayed away from the random scenes. These scenes worked against the darkness of the movie and added a lighter element that totally made this movie feel cheap. This could have been so much better. I love Japanese horror movies and I was hoping to love this one too, but for me, Re/Member just fell short of what I have come to love about Japanese horror. With all that said, it was not horrible.

As this Japanese horror film begins a young girl is murdered. Decades later school girl Asuka hears the voice of the dead girl; she asks that the eight parts of her dismembered body be found. They are all on the grounds of the school Asuka attends. That night she, and five other students suddenly find themselves back in the school. A monster known to them as 'The Red Person' starts killing them in gory ways. When they wake up it is the previous morning. It soon becomes obvious that they are caught in a time loop. Each night they reappear in school and look for the body parts to return to a coffin in the school's chapel. Each day they become closer friends, bonded by the events of the night before and s desire to solve the mystery and end the cycle.

I thought this film opened fairly well with plenty of gore and an interesting set up. Unfortunately the sense of danger felt somewhat reduced when the time loop restarted and we learn that those who died have all returned and they seemed less traumatised than one might expect. Thankfully the plot manages to bring the sense of danger back later on. I wasn't surprised to learn that it was based on a manga as it reminded me somewhat of anime like 'Another', Angel Beats' and to a lesser extent 'Dusk Maiden of Amnesia'. The acting is solid enough and the school at night creates a suitably ominous atmosphere. Overall I'd say this is far from being a classic J-horror but it still manages to entertain so is worth a watch.

These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.

Sitting down to watch the 2022 Japanese horror movie "Re/Member" here in 2023, I did so without ever having heard about the movie. But the Japanese cinema have a long track record of making enjoyable and entertaining horror movies, so I figured that I would give it a go.

Writers Harumi Doki, Katsutoshi Murase and Welzard put together a fair enough script and storyline for director Eiichirô Hasumi to bring to the screen. The movie was watchable and entertaining for what it was, but it wasn't a groundbreaking story. And what really made the movie all the more watchable was the ferocity of the red creature. It is rare that you get to see that kind of rage and malevolence from creatures in movies, so that was quite enjoyable.

The acting performances in the movie were fair. I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, but they put on good performances.

Visually then "Re/Member" was fairly okay. The special effects were good enough for the movie, but hardly outstanding. But it was refreshing to have a Japanese 'ghost' movie without the traditional girl in white dress with long, black hair covering the face.

Something did puzzle me, though, as it was funny how there happened to be a coffin with the exact beveled shape of the corpse of the little girl whose body parts the students were searching for. It just made so little sense.

"Re/Member" was watchable for what it was, and it is suitable for a single viewing. However, there just wasn't sufficient contents to the storyline to support more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Re/Member" lands on a five out of ten stars.

My husband and I thought it was absolute pants, we both enjoy horror and the story line was intriguing, but my goodness was it so badly done! It barely kept your attention even during the "intense" scenes, the characters and dialogue were appalling "hey we're hiding from a monster who is close by and will rip us apart so now's the time to start laughing and chatting" there is no trauma or stress particularly during the day where you would expect them to be somewhat traumatised from the night before, but nope just laughter and friendly bonding. By the end you are indifferent if the monster wins due to the amount of cliched moves and illogical decisions done by the characters who you don't care about due to their lack of character development and unrealistic portrayal of 6 teens stuck in an endless loop of being killed.

Good, but most of the watch time I feel like my family was just yelling at the girl to HURRY. When you're handed something important as another character sacrifices themselves for it, you don't just stand there, watching for them to die! You be useful and RUN.

At the start, some of the violence felt a little comical to me. It slowly got a little more serious, but I didn't feel scared at all during this, neither did my 10-year-old sister.

However, it didn't quite make sense for the girl to be evil, because they were helping her find her body. Didn't she want to be found? I thought that was the whole point of the body find thing...

While this isn't the best movie ever, it was entertaining.