Starting the year with a J-horror hidden gem — Takashi Shimizu's 'Rinne' is a chiller grappling with the gruesome cycle of violence, a morbid headspace that spurs from 'Ju-On: The Grudge.'
This is the first FIELD NOTES FROM HELL I’ve sent in months. It feels like unearthing demons I’ve cast down their wistful slumber. It’s scary. Terrifying. And that’s why I’m doing it. This is an iteration of the format I used to run with — a main review, three capsules, and a notable ‘updates’ section.
I’ll be sending these again every week. The goal is to send all 52 dispatches (without fail), every week. If you keep on reading, maybe I’ll hit that goal.
Enjoy!
SOME TIME AFTER MAKING Ju-On: The Grudge (and shortly after remaking it for Western audiences), filmmaker Takashi Shimizu seemed beholden, still, to the idea of cycles, violence, and both. Ju-On centered around a curse that corroded those afflicted with gruesome misery, and it sprawled to others like a virus — a concept that, today, films like Smile put on. Maybe lesser known is his 2005 work, Rinne, a film that, like Ju-On, seems fixated on the horrors of perpetuating violence across various generations and mediums.
Rinne follows a film production about a horrendous real-life murder that happened in the ‘70s at a seedy hotel. The murderer — a professor obsessed with the idea of reincarnation, or ‘samsara,’ the Hinduist belief in the cycle between life and death — offs a total of eleven people, including his two young children. Eerily, there’s a snuff footage of it, although lost. And so, filmmaker Ikuo Matsumura, decides he will depict the spree himself on film, the scarier part being that he seems to know that professor Norihasa Omori’s theory has legs, and has unwittingly cast the reincarnations of those involved in the murder. Suspiciously, he overturns production plans (his production manager already made an intricate floor plan for the sets to be built on a soundstage) and decides to shoot the film at the same hotel, a derelict bed-and-breakfast destination in Kansai. And we know Oso Kanko hotel’s hella haunted; it’s got Kubrickian zoom-ins and everything.
Though riddled with Hollywood sensibilities, Rinne feels J-horror to the core: the droning hums of the city, entities lurking at the frames’ periphery, the fucking red ball bouncing creepily across a hallway — it’s all there. It’s part of Takahashi Ichise’s J-Horror Theater series after all, preceding Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s (also) excellent Retribution. And the doll is downright creepy, in a way that Annabelle will never be. That one scene was far too disturbing and (genuinely) scared me.
I quite like the meta aspect, too. The discourse on the role of film and television in perpetuating violence and exploitation of real-world crimes is topical — even twenty years later — in a post-Monster world. Nihilistically, the film tells us that gruesome horrors both on-screen and IRL are doomed to have a do-over… and over… and over. And that’s truly the scary part.
ABOUT THE FILM
✝️ Rinne dir. Takashi Shimizu | Horror | 🇯🇵
A Japanese actress begins having strange visions and experiences after landing a role in a horror film about a real-life murder spree that took place over forty years ago.
Horror recs this week
Every FIELD NOTES FROM HELL dispatch includes a three-pack of horror rec: 1.) recent horror, 2.) horror classic, and 3.) guilty pleasure/underrated horror.
Here are this week’s recommendations.
Recent horror — Heretic (2024, dir. Scott Beck, Bryan Woods)
I’M NOT SURE IF it’s just me approaching my thirties, but the past year put me in a most spiritual headspace. Not to the point of feeling hounded by religious curiosity per se, but surely there were moments that had me clung to my own belief system (an ever-evolving journey for me, as I’m sure is the same for anyone). So it was annoyingly good timing that Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ new film, Heretic, stir questions about faith and belief within me.
It’s gorgeously lensed, wonderfully acted (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as a pair of strong-willed Mormon missionaries and Hugh Grant as the neurotic know-it-all degen with evil designs), and genuinely provocative, without doing it at the expense of outward expression and intellectualizing of one’s beliefs. Along with The First Omen, it’s up there in my horror faves of the year.
Horror classic — Itim (eng. The Rites of May, 1976, dir. Mike De Leon)
THERE HAVE BEEN close to twenty Field Notes dispatches and I still haven’t recommended something from the Philippines, where I’m from. There’s no better film to start that off than with Mike De Leon’s Itim (eng. The Rites of May), a supernatural thriller set in a rural town where a city-based photographer (Tommy Abuel) engages in a summer fling with a clairvoyant (Charo Santos) who sees ominous visions of a brutal crime. There’s a scene where Abuel’s character gets a rather spooky visitation from religious saints. (If you’ve watched the film you’ll know exactly which scene I’m talking about — yeah, that scene is burned at the fore of my brain. Scary stuff.)
Itim isn’t available to stream on major platforms (as of writing). Somebody uploaded the full film restoration on YouTube, though.
Guilty pleasure — Maximum Overdrive (1986, dir. Stephen King)
I’ve watched Kyle Mooney’s Y2K late last year. An okay film, but nowhere near as bonkers as Stephen King’s sole directorial effort like it needed to be. Singularity horrors are as relevant as ever, and I feel like there’s smaller and smaller space to make ridiculous “moron movies” like Maximum Overdrive (King’s words, not mine). I mean, where else can you see everyday persons tote military-grade bazookas (AMERICAAAA!) to blow up sentient semi-trucks? Is it a good film? Definitively not. Is it a good time? Yes it is.
Every week, we’re listing down upcoming horror films and television. We’re also throwing in some notable horror news to keep you all looped in.
Here’s what’s new in horror this week.
Thordur Palsson’s English period horror The Damned hits VOD January 3rd.
Sophie Osbourne’s The Monster Beneath Us— also a period horror film — premieres on VOD platforms January 3rd.
The second season of Mayfair Witchesis premiering via AMC+ on January 5th.
Nosferatu, Robert Eggers’ take on the classic vampire tale, is **likely, my fingers are crossed!** hitting Philippine theaters January 8th.
Oz Perkins and NEON just dropped a teaser clip for The Monkey, and it looks bonkers — steer clear if you don’t want spoilers, though! The film opens sometime in February. (Source: FANGORIA)
This week on TERROR TRINKETS, let me put you on Puma’s line of Squid Game-inspired garments. The collab covers all major grounds, from backpacks to apparel to sneakers. But what’s gotten my eyes’ shine are the sneakers.
Here’s a look at all three sneakers. It’s all available for purchase on the Puma website (as of this writing). A pair will set you back approximately USD 100.
That’s it for this week’s digest! Thank you so much for reading through.
ABOUT FIELD NOTES FROM HELL
FIELD NOTES FROM HELL is Deep Cuts’ weekly email digest. Dispatches go out every weekend, with handpicked capsule reviews, news updates, and horror recommendations.
Cheers to you, ghoulies…and have a very happy New Year!
