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31 DAYS OF HORROR Haze

Published on October 7th, 2013 | by Daniel Johnson

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Screen to Stage, Part Three

The waning sunlight of October is upon us; All Hallows Eve is nigh. And so, with the chilly, sober onset
of autumn, Cinespect is reflecting on all the nastiest, campiest, shit-your-pants scariest horror flicks
from the near and distant past that we think are worthy of a rewatch.
So as you await the premieres of the teen slasher flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (10/11), the
theme-park creepfest Escape from Tomorrow (10/11), and the talent-packed Carrie remake
(10/18), scare yourself stupid with Cinespects countdown to Halloween: 31 DAYS OF HORROR.
Yesterday, Paul Anthony Johnson made a house call on 1943s The Mysterious Doctor; today, Daniel
Johnson leads us back into Shinya Tsukamotos claustrophobic Haze.
***
In 2005, Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the cult hit Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), among other weird
wonders, shot his first digital video feature as part of the Jeonju International Film Festivals Digital
Project: Haze, a grueling and gruesome 50-minute nightmare.
An initial 25-minute incarnation of Haze premiered at JIFF, sandwiched between two other DV shorts,
including one from the meditative Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Following Weerasethakuls lyrical little
film about a spiritual tree with the brutal, perverse mania of Haze induced a cinematic whiplash that
must have left more than a few sore necks in the screening room.
To be sure, trying to fit a Tsukamoto film comfortably into any festival lineup poses a challengebut
even within Tsukamotos own body of work, Haze veers toward the extreme. A nameless man
played by the director himselfwakes up in a dark hole, dressed in nothing but briefs and a t-shirt,
bearing a deep wound in his side, with no memory of who he is and how he got there.
Is he a prisoner of war? The plaything of some rich pervert, he wonders aloud? Dont bother trying to
process this setup; Tsukamoto wastes no time before he plunges us further into the abyss, setting off
a frantic journey through a gauntlet of crude and bizarre torture devices built into a cramped labyrinth.
In a prime example of budgetary constraints necessitating resourcefulness and creativity, the films
set was built entirely in a tiny apartment rented expressly for the production. Indeed, its all about the

posted on June 25, 2012

claustrophobia here. The camera trembles, pushing in on Tsukamotos panicked face, the assault on
his fragile body rendered in graphic excess as hes assailed by spikes and hammers. For the majority
of the film, we are never shown more than a few feet of the dark environs in any frame.
Haze draws unmistakably from the same well of sadistic creativity as similarly depraved and kinky
shockers that deal with entrapment;Saw (2004) and Cube (1997) come to mind. Being
anonymously and diabolically ensnared has the power to turn us all into confused reptiles, but the
specific lack of context in Haze makes its amnesiacs existential plight all the more overt. A chance
glimpse through a slit in a wall reveals other poor souls writhing in agony, screaming into a black void
that recalls the soundstage hellscape of Nobuo Nakagawas graphic, infernal Jigoku (1960).
If this all sounds a little unbearable, dont give up too soonour hero eventually happens upon a
nameless female prisoner (Kaori Fujii), and together they try to unlock the mystery of their confinement
. Questions, dreams, and visions bubble up from the darkness, but in the absence of a clear answer,
and with strange sounds popping up all around them, the only thing to do is press on.
Fiendishly simple in concept and execution, Haze deftly combines abstract and concrete horror as
urgent questions are swept aside by even more urgent threats. The heart quivers and the skin crawls.
Even if you escape, it will stick with you.

Tags: 31 DAYS OF HORROR, All Hallows' Eve, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cinespect, Daniel Johnson,
film, Halloween, Haze, horror, Jeonju International Film Festival, movie, Paul Anthony Johnson, Shinya
Tsukamoto, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, The Mysterious Doctor

About the Author

Daniel Johnson is a filmmaker and editor living in NYC.

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One Response to 31 DAYS OF HORROR Haze

Nagisa Oshimas
Boy at Film Forum

Pingback: 31 DAYS OF HORROR - "Snow White: A Tale of Terror" - CINESPECT

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