This Man – Fantasia 2024

A series of deaths are tied to those who dream of an unusual man in This Man. A series of gruesome deaths have been piling up, with the connection between them visiting psychiatrists with reports that they dreamt of a strange man with a unibrow. This affliction soon affects Hana (Arisa Deguchi) and her husband Yoshio (Minehiro Kinomoto), when the former ends up dreaming of the man. Desperate, Hana seeks the help of a local sorcerer to rid herself of the affliction.

This Man Synopsis

The Man is a J-Horror film written and directed by Tomojirô Amano, loosely based on a real urban legend that circulated in Tokyo in the 1990s. The plot comes off as a combination of Ringu and last year’s Dream Scenario, as anyone who dreams of this strange man with a unibrow finds themselves doomed to die a horrific death. This affliction soon affects the protagonists of Hana and Yoshio, whose attempts to circumvent this curse have tragic consequences.

My Thoughts on This Man

On paper, The Man has a premise that could have made for a modern J-Horror classic. However, Tomojirô Amano opts to depict the events in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, with the villain having an incredibly goofy appearance and the reactions of the public to this epidemic of death becoming increasingly ridiculous. Even the use of extreme gore in some of the deaths comes off as incredibly disappointing. This Man is a completely skippable film, other than to mock while watching.

An art school is tormented by sentient killer clay in Vampire Clay. While preparing to open her new art prep school at a former sculpture’s studio, Ms Aina finds a buried box, containing a bag of very old clay. When class begins, latecomer Kaori finds that her clay was taken by newcomer Yuka, so she instead takes the clay that Ms Aina unearthed. However, it soon becomes apparent that the clay has a life of its own and it proceeds to attack and absorb the students of the school.

Best known for his work as a make-up artist, Vampire Clay marks the feature length debut for Japanese filmmaker Soîchi Umezawa (ABC’s of Death 2). The setting of the film is the Aina Academy, where Ms Aina desperately tries to prepare her students for the very competitive art schools in Tokyo. When student Kaori begins using the mysterious clay Ms Aina unearthed, she immediately notices something different about it. It soon becomes apparent that the clay is sentient and has a thirst for blood, as it proceeds to pick off the students one by one.

Vampire Clay is an an absolutely insane film, which can be described as a mix between The Blob, The Thing, and Evil Dead, except with sentient clay. I’m not sure if Vampire Clay is meant to be a horror-comedy, but the scenes of the killer clay attacking the students are often quite hilarious to watch. While the film does slow down in the third act to tell the clay’s backstory, as well as there being an unnecessarily long epilogue, Vampire Clay is still a quite enjoyable watch.

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Screenings

• Saturday, September 16, 11:59 PM – Ryerson Theatre
• Saturday, September 17, 6:00 PM – Scotiabank Theatre 13