St. John's Wort (2001)

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Director: Ten Shimoyama

Screenplay: Goro Nakajima

Cast: Megumi Okina as Nami Kikushima; Yōichirō Saitō as Kōhei Matsudaira; Kōji Ōkura as Shinichi Ukita; Reiko Matsuo as Tōko Ozeki; Minoru as Soichi Kaizawa

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #127

[Warning: Major Plot Spoilers]

Something from the early 2000s, trying to embrace videogame aesthetics and culture. In fact it's based on an actual videogame, a visual novel for the SNES also called Otogirisō (the Japanese name for this film adaptation), thus proving a fascinating side note to this material¹.  A small, three person team of students are creating a horror game, one based on the memories of one of said staff's ex-girlfriend Nami (Megumi Okina). When her old family home is inherited, she goes to explore it with her ex-boyfriend Kōhei (Yōichirō Saitō) to dig up more material for the game, whilst the other two stay in communication at the office. The videogame aesthetic is only really embraced by the numerous colour filters that wash over your eyes. Very little of the film is actually based in stereotypical videogame styles, but instead as a low budget film with a tiny cast has everything filtered in digital effects, to the point that I even started to question what was a computer effect or actually real. The front courtyard covered in Saint John's Wort, a symbolic plant never really connected to the actual plot, up the main characters' knees? The house itself on the outside? The chandelier in the main half? It becomes absurd how many times during this film I was sure an object was cheap CGI only to realise it was a real prop.

It's reminiscent to a Japanese FMV videogame called The Fear (2001) in which a larger group of people are trapped in a gothic haunted house². Early into the story, its established the heroine's father was a legendary painter responsible for Francis Bacon like pictures, as depicted in (admittedly awesome) prop paintings. There's also the fact he tortured young boys to acquire the depictions of agony in these images, referring to a notion in horror from Edgar Allen Poe to even Herschell Gordon Lewis' Color Me Blood Red (1965) of the extremity of where art can be led to for inspiration. The notion of the extremes one would take to create art is something which feels more masochistic as a concept than sadistic for me, particularly as the extremes of performance art suggest otherwise, such as the elaborate cycles Matthew Barney went through to push his body before he even got to cinema and allowing elaborate movie quality prosthetics being attached to himself for onscreen. But it's a fascinating idea, sadly one which St. John's Wort barely covers.

It's a merely interesting film first but not a great one to ever want to have. I have considered acquiring and collecting as many Japanese horror films as possible, no matter how lacking in quality they could be. However even looking for second hand copies of VHS quality prints doesn't deal with the issue of something like St. John's Wort, that type of film worst than actually the worst films ever made because of its extreme averageness. Averageness doesn't compel one like the dire or the best does, lacking in even morbid qualities (like suffering through Ring 0: Birthday (2000)³). With a plot that consists of its two protagonists being stuck in the central location with the possibility of Nami having a twin, there's more of a curiosity in this film for its production value. The plot itself eventually becomes dull, a plot twist evoked where said twin (also played by Megumi Okina) reveals herself to actually be Nami's brother which feels like the deflating of a balloon in terms of my interest by then, the music at the worst possible timing immediately stopping when the twist is spoken aloud, as if to maximise the moment for an unintentional hilarity. It's a blank flat end for a film which ultimately wasn't successful completely, not even when they have the videogame multiple endings for a cheap shock, not even when its revealed the events were merely part of the videogame itself within the film and never happened at all, undermining the point of the whole film dramatically. As a result St. John's Wort is one of the significantly lesser J-horror films I've covered. One even as an obsessive collector, and cinematic masochist, would hesitate now to own on physical media due to its utterly blandness.

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1) A Japanese only title, where the console's called Super Famicom, what little bit I've seen for background for the review is a literal novel, text with images in the background. Whilst the film takes the heroine's first name Nami from the game, and pay cute tribute with a screen full of text boxes, this does take a drastic direction in terms of narrative beyond a two characters at a Western style haunted mansion. The game also had a PlayStation One re-release, spruced up, and a Wii re-release in 2007.

2) I've not been able to play The Fear, only see a Let's Play online. A game that was never released outside of Japan, it would've been difficult to acquire in any case, a shame as its actually a better work on a similar premise to St. John's Wort. Its ending, for a game or a film, is dumb but its softened (alongside multiple endings) by a considerably cooler aesthetic style. A later inclusion of the FMV (Full Motion Video) trend of nineties videogames which incorporated real video into interactive games, it's entirely done in live action with actors and some digital graphics to make this interaction possible. Entirely from the perspective of a faceless cameraman you play, its elaborate and over-the-top production style is worth witnessing even in a Let's Play clip alongside the performances, a fun and ghoulish campiness that would be fun to also play. It also deserves mention in this context too as the actor who plays Higuchi, a bald production crew member and horror enthusiast who gives quizzes to the player,  appears in Wild Zero (1999) [Reviewed HERE] with golden hot pants and military weaponry as a sleazy club owner.

3) Reviewed HERE. An obsessive desire to collect every Ring related film, Japanese and American (even Korean), has recently come over me. A franchise with enough fascination in the creative decisions and good entries is worth wasting shelf space for the bad sequels and spin-offs of.