Kuronezumi

The first fifteen to twenty minutes of this film were really promising, I enjoyed the fairytale-like explanation of all the different type of rats in the introductory sequence, for instance, because it was using the structure of a fable to represent the story's characters.

But the writing did not live up to the expectations established in the beginning. The story felt too generic, with the usual set of characters from the cool kids to the nerds.

As a horror film from a small film studio with what must have been a small budget, 'Black Rat' is not what I consider horrible by any means. It just falls short of the standards which its concept and interesting introduction establish. It end up being mediocre when it could have been so much better with more experienced writers.

Well, I was initially drawn in to pick up this movie given the somewhat unsual cover. And with "Kuronezumi" (aka "Black Rat") being a Japanese slasher horror movie that I hadn't already seen, nor heard about, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it.

The storyline in "Kuronezumi", as written by Futoshi Fujita, was somewhat generic, and it didn't really offer much of anything particularly exciting to the genre. Sure, "Kuronezumi" was watchable, but it was a rather bland and somewhat monotonous viewing experience. It was partly the somewhat generic script that was the cause of this, but most definitely also the character gallery in the movie. The characters in the movie had about as much appeal as wet cardboard, and I have to say that I didn't care an ounce about whether they died or lived as the story progressed.

Visually then "Kuronezumi" was nothing outstanding or noteworthy, as it was a movie that didn't really make a whole lot usage of special effects.

If you enjoy Asian horror movies, then there are far better movies out there. And even the Japanese horror cinema has an abundance of far better horror movies readily available.

My rating of director Kenta Fukasaku's 2010 movie "Kuronezumi" lands on a four out of ten stars.

This is a Japanese slasher film that doesn't focus in on the blood and gore but the twist and structure of the story. It gives quite a lot of flashback in order to get all the pieces together. I seen a lot of Asian films so this movie isn't anything new, besides the few twists which I didn't expect. For viewers that isn't use to Asian cinema this one might come off as a unique film or even a cult film. Personally for the low budget and low resources they had, this movie is actually alright. It's not really a thought-provoking movie either and isn't all that clever. But again for a low budget student film like flick, it's a alright watch.

5/10