Exte

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

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"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".

Hair Extensions works much better than expected. I mean, seriously, how much horror can one expect to come out of something as simple as hair? But the hair in this film is possessed, you see. It comes out through parts of the body once it attach's itself inside the host body: the person gets hair through fingernails, shooting up like weeds in a garden, through eyeballs, through a mouth, everywhere. And in this film, one of Sion Sono's better works for mainstream consumption, it's real success comes that it's not simply about a maniac guy who uses demon hair to kill people (he also sells hair extensions that have the roots that have Grudge-type problems, yes hair can remember). No, it's also a domestic drama involving a woman who works at a salon (the adorable Chiaki Kuriyama) whose sister is an abusive B-word to her daughter, who is traumatized for life at the age of four.

For a little while (maybe the first 45 minutes) it's a wonder how these two stories, one with these people being killed by hair and this wacky guy in his home made out of hair-locks (and of course it's all lit in darks and greens), and the other with the salon girls and the drama with the sister and the daughter, will intersect. Once it does, the movie gears into being totally absorbing, and Sono is very creative with how he stages his horror set pieces. There aren't *that* many kills, at least not as many as one might expect from the director of Suicide Club. It's more about staging a setting and place, how it's lit, how the person in the shot moves about. It's not about jump scares, and it's not about some of the simpler modes that sometimes happen in "grudge" movies. In this film, a seemingly dead body can still f*** with the living.

The acting is also quite good, which is important as a lot of the film's drama rests on the sister and daughter and how Chiaki's character has to try hard just to reach out to the little girl (even more difficult after a particularly traumatic scene she sees, which we wisely only see some of before the big reveal). It's gory, which is to be expected, but I was amazed by the suspense that Sono was able to draw out of scenes, even in the climax which veers into over-the-top territory with its antagonist. Oh, and the movie is surprisingly funny to boot, mostly involving a cat who suddenly appears in scenes posed next to a statue outside at night (or just, you know, around), or how the villain sidles his way into the salon with his precious hair extensions. Only one moment that should be painfully obvious to anyone but isn't seen by the protagonist makes on do a face palm. The rest of the film is fun, effective and leaves an impression as art merged with genre.

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.

A man with a hair fetish has been harvesting the locks of the recently deceased for his collection of award winning hair extensions. But things start to get weird when he takes the hair from the body of a woman that seems to be haunted...it just continues to grow...and grow...and grow...

So he begins lop off segments and give them to local hair salons as samples.

He's not in it for the money...he just wants to see a world full of people with beautiful hair.

However, something isn't right with this hair.

Those who dawn it, become consumed by it...quite literally...as hair begins growing from every pore...orifice...internal organ...etc...until they're dead.

And only someone who can truly understand the suffering that the hair woman went through- prior to her death- can break the curse.

This film is some kind of weird. The special effects (a combination of traditional and cgi) have their moments. It is both humorous and disturbing. And the ending is patently ridiculous...but at least it's patently ridiculous fun.

6 out of 10.