Art student Nami (Megumi Okina) and ex-boyfriend Kohei (Yoichiro Saito) are designers of computer games. When 'orphan' Nami inherits her reclusive father's mansion (a dusty, spooky place, it looks perfect for a picture dictionary definition of 'haunted house'), techie Kohei accompanies her for a 'going home' journey to the supposedly empty property, where ghastly horror paintings adorn every wall and a palpable sense of doom quickly descends upon Nami's tour of the premises. The eerie tune of a music box, a collection of 'antique' dolls, a hidden trapdoor, a photo suggesting that Nami had a twin sister, and her father's artist's studio with its unfinished masterpiece, are among the discoveries generating apprehension - but this turns to horror when the mummified bodies of children are found, and a newly hanged man in the kitchen sparks the couple's imaginations. When escape proves impossible, Nami becomes determined to uncover the secrets of her past...

St John's Wort (aka: Otogiriso) is shot on digital with lurid false colour evoking the unreality of video arcade imagery. The film's narrative mimics the interactive format of mystery games with vital dialogues being typed into animated boxes or menus. Freeze frames indicate items of significance, black and white CCTV views of the house interiors create suspense when a silhouetted figure appears in front of split-screen security monitors, childhood dream flashbacks reiterate plot clues like strobe-lit action replays and, back at the game designers' workshop, 3D maps of the house are formatted using footage downloaded from Kohei's handy camera. This last bit is a good example of the clever sleuthing methods perfectly suited to the film's cyber geek era, and keys to locked rooms recall the acquisition of items required to play PC 'detective' puzzlers. There's even a choice of endings for the film, with one of poetic tragedy and another inviting a sequel.

Mcguffin apart, gimmicks aside, St John's Wort is still a challenging, scary and brilliantly terrifying genre movie. The heroine is subjected to a vividly frantic variation of Psycho's famed shower scene. Nightmares about Nami's father Soichi are rendered on screen like illustrations from an aged book of dark fantasy fairy tales. Who is Naomi, and what's she got planned for Nami? Will Kohei figure out the truth in time to save her, or himself? Forget the clumsy British failure of My Little Eye, and the unrelenting tedium of Blair Witch Project, this is the foremost exploiter of new media we have yet seen.

Despite its dependence on genre conventions, the director's latest film, a sci-fi kung fu movie called Muscle Heat (2002), still sounds promising. Let's hope that Eastern Cult Cinema will pick up this one for UK distribution, too!

COMMENTS
I could have seen this film a long time ago, but I kept putting it off, because I heard a lot of mixed reviews and it just didn't really interest me too much, but in the end my curiousity got the best of me.

The plot is somewhat original, but also predictable in parts. It's about a girl who helps create art for a new video game. One day she and one of the other creators of the game decide to use an old house she inherited for the game, but before they can do that they have to go into the house and map it out. Once in there they discover more and more about the girl's past and secrets are revealed.

This movie is strange, but good. The directing is very original, using different colors for the background in the film and during scenes it feels as though you are playing a video game. Once they entered the house it reminded me of something like Resident Evil, with keys being left around the house that open locked doors and secret doors hidden behind objects. That gave it another video game feel.

In the movie they bring a home video camera, so we see what they see through the camera in parts as well. That made you feel as though you were there with them, which was another thing I liked. What I didn't like about the movie was the fact that it was predictable as time went on, but it's not as bad as other films, so that didn't bother me too much.

It had its share of decent chills and scares here and there, but nothing special. I would have given the movie a higher-rating, but I wasn't too into the twist towards the end of the film.

OVERALL
An interesting movie that has an original way of being directed. Predictable story, but worth a look once if you're used to strange Japanese horror films.

A prime example of this problem is Otogiriso (sometimes spelt Otogirisou or Otogiri-sou), adapted from a novel by Nagasaka Shukei and a video game based on the novel, released for Super Nintendo in 1992 (and PlayStation later, there was also a manga), a "sound novel" which "mimics the sensual feelings of someone reading a novel - seeing the text and spawning the scene at the background of it, except of course that the reader can make his/her own decisions for the main character."

Otogirisou readily accepts its origins, paving the way for self-referential cleverness by featuring a young video game programmer visiting the mansion in which her game is set with her ex-boyfriend; mysterious things start to happen, they are being watched etc., you know the game.

Digitally shot, full of color manipulation, wild cuts and Blair Witch Project -meets-MTV hand-held camerawork, Otogirisou does look quite impressive for a while, but after a time it becomes obvious that the filmmakers seem either uneasy or unable to tell the simplicistic plot, instead doing artful little dances around it and finally copping out altogether. What could have been a stylish, albeit conventional thriller, ends up being a hyper-stylish nothing: the ending Shimoyama saw fit to employ is likely to make you throw ashtrays at your TV set: it's worse than the old "oh, it's a dream"-gimmick. You have been warned.