Nightmare Detective

What a letdown. When I first heard about this film, the premise of a 'nightmare detective' battling a serial killer within the victims' dream state seemed immensely appealing. And it being directed by the man responsible for the brilliant Tetsuo sealed the deal!! How would he spin the concept differently than Wes Craven's Elm Street series? But then, the misgivings started to creep in. Its being released by Dimension EXTREME stateside. Ugh. Could a more trend pandering and generic name for a releasing company even be possible? And unfortunately, the film itself is just as trend pandering. Stylistically, Tsukamoto blends every flashy aesthetic technique that is currently trendy: desaturated colors mixed in with scenes filmed through saturated color filters that come and go at random, uninspired Paul Greengrass type shaky camera-work/zooming being just a few examples. Aesthetics aside, the narrative is depressingly conventional and straightforward for the likes of a Tsukamoto. An interesting connection between the state of dreaming and death arises but is treated superficially and seems thrown in just so the killer can make creepy and twisted little monologues. But the film's main weakness is in the casting. Matsuda's emo, brooding, hair in his face 'nightmare detective' aimlessly mopes around through the whole film in perpetual angst. Why so glum, chum? Angst does not equal profound. And newcomer hitomi, while very easy on the eyes, is just completely unconvincing as the star detective who elicits Matsuda's supernatural talents to track down the killer. I also tried to concoct some sort of profound metacommentary for Tsukamoto's self casting but failed. I give this 2 stars because, despite all I wrote above, there are a few genuinely startling and well shot moments that demonstrate Tsukamoto's reputation as one of the greats of J-horror. I hear that this was a "for hire" job for him and unfortunately, it shows.

Shinya Tsukamoto directs and plays the bad guy in this supernatural thriller, and even though I liked it pretty much, it doesn't stand up well against his other classics. People are dying horrible bloody suicides which seem connected to a recent cell phone conversation they had with a person identified as "O". A beautiful female detective takes over the case, and meets up with a guy that has the ability to enter other people's dreams. Not a novel or original story idea by Tsukamoto, but it's still pretty interesting. When the lady detective makes a call to "O" which dooms her, she calls upon the nightmare detective to enter her dreams and save her. I see a sequel to this movie is in post production, and I hope it's better than the original. Seems kind of funny to me that Tsukamoto is making a sequel to this one, but who knows? From any other director on this subject matter, the movie would probably be a flop, but being Tsukamoto, he adds enough suspense and some gory suicides to make it interesting.

For some reason I anticipated a noir work here or the perversion of it, a Lynchian narrative where dreams are the scene of the crime. It didn't bother me that it's not, but it did bother me that it's a hodge podge of ideas.

Most of all it stands out as a Paprika played out as a cop thriller, sometimes a J-horror, even rarely a Tsukamoto film. It's weird but half- or ill-formed, not in the sense that we're watching an elipsis where details are absent of explanation as part of a design, but in the sense that it wasn't really thought out or it was believed the concept of a serial killer visiting his victims in their sleep would carry it. We even get the mandatory scene where the cop heroine fights to stay awake and is terrified to realize she isn't. This is the first letdown, that Tsukamoto doesn't realize he's in a whole other league than Wes Craven.

Often with Tsukamoto the ideas he presents are largely frameworks, explorations in a general direction. He doesn't probe deeply but what appeals to me is the fascinating artifice of that exploration, the frame itself. This one has a cheap TV look and an annoying overabundance of whip zooms in and out of convalescent images, again for no apparent reason.

The ending, as with the parting shot of Vital, is rather marvellous though. Against a meaningless universe, lives without purpose or direction, Tsukamoto gives us a collage of small intimate moments. The bittersweet nature of this final hold against the existential void, is that what he offers us is memory, the empty shell of something come and gone played out for comfort in the mind.

Perhaps this reveals Tsukamoto's limitation as a filmmaker, in this and other films. It's great that he sees that far, into a vision of humanity which is further than most directors doing horror related work are capable of, it's a pity that he doesn't see further.

First of all, I've never seen a Shinya Tsukamoto movie before this. I read reviews commenting on how this is his most unoriginal work, and I really can't confirm or deny that. As a standalone piece, however, I can say this is completely unlike any other detective movie I've ever seen—and it does so without cheese. On a technical level, does that make it original? Not necessarily, but it certainly isn't unoriginal either. Either way, it's very entertaining and interesting, and as I just said, lacks the cheese that the majority of supernatural horror films have lately.

The reason it lacks cheese is because Nightmare Detective builds up layers of gritty reality through mainly being a comic (but not comical) detective mystery. This gives a lot more weight to the supernatural elements, and creates a lot cooler tone. I've seen people bash the detective elements of the story, but I personally thought they were genius. The idea of having two detectives, one a police detective and the other a dream detective working together was very cool. Like I said, the idea isn't wholesale original, but it's certainly different and very well done.

Shinya Tsukamoto's camera-work and cinematography left me in awe more than once. The man knows how to direct. The entire movie has the best production value I've ever seen in an Asian movie, and I've seen a lot of Asian movies. The detail is crisp, and sometimes with color washout that completed the gritty, dirty comic book tone. The dream sequences are not all-out surrealism as would be cliché, but have subtle nods at surrealism while being otherwise realistic. Once again, genius.

I've read reviews that trash this movie for not being scary. Simply put: what movie IS scary anymore? I've seen hundreds of horror movies, and I can count the ones that were honestly scary on one hand. I can't compare this to Shinya Tsukamoto's other works, as I said, but from what I take, this is a step down on the level of terror. Fine. Why is that bad? A movie that exists only to be scary is just like a movie that exists just to be gory—it's hallow. The Exorcist is quoted as "the scariest movie of all time", but when I watched it I wasn't scared once. The thing is, the level of terror in a movie is mainly relative. Is Nightmare Detective scary? Some will think so. Did I? To an extent, yes.

As far as the acting goes, I didn't notice it being good or bad. As for the level of boredom, it isn't very fast paced but it will keep your interest until the end, which is something I can't say about many movies. Dialogue is standard, and never too excessive, which is another plus. The music is unoffensive and unnoticeable, except where Shinya Tsukamoto uses some really cool mellow songs to underline the mood, and it works very well.

Overall, it's very much worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of mystery graphic novels, because it carries the same feel and flow. I'd even go as far as to say it's worth a buy. It did what it wanted to accomplish, and even if Shinya Tsukamoto's other works are better than this, I don't see how anyone would be disappointed.

4/10

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".