Imprint

 

 

Masters of Horror was a short lived horror-based anthology TV series that ran for two seasons in 2005 and 2006. Each episode is, essentially, an hour-long horror film directed by a ‘master of horror’, a loose term that encompassed everything from actual masters of horror (like John Carpenter and Dario Argento), lower budget horror stars (Stuart Gordon and Don Coscarelli), those whose output is more varied (John Landis and Joe Dante), and some random hacks (like series creator Mick Garris). The directors were given a lot of freedom, with fewer restrictions than most, and allowed to craft short horror films of their choosing.

The series was actually pretty decent with some absolute gems in there (John Carpenter and Dario Argento’s episodes prove they still have it) and also some trash, but on the whole the series was a lot of fun with a (mostly) interesting selection of directors showing off their stuff. And perhaps the most interesting one of them all would be Takashi Miike’s inclusion in the list. Already a controversial director, one has to imagine what exactly they thought they’d be getting by tagging him for an episode.

Miike’s episode, titled ‘Imprint’, was apparently deemed too disturbing by producer Mick Garris and the TV network. They requested edits to tone it down, Miike obliged but it was still considered too much, with concerns over the disturbing, graphic content and as such they never aired it – to this day it is apparently banned and has not been shown on television. They even released it separately from the Masters of Horror DVD box set. Funnily enough, Miike didn’t think he had pushed any boundaries, thinking everything he was doing was perfectly fine and acceptable.

So the question now is, controversial or not, is it any good? Let’s take a look.

Christopher (Billy Drago), an American journalist, had once travelled to Japan and fallen in love with a prostitute named Komomo. He promised to return, buy her freedom and take her back with him to America. Having finally returned to Japan, he’s spent a long time fruitlessly searching for her, finally tracking her down to a brothel on an isolated island. She isn’t there, and those that run the brothel claim that she’d never been there. Dejected, he nonetheless has to stay the night, as the boat only leaves in the morning. Stuck there, he chooses to spend the night with a mysterious disfigured girl for company. Slightly deranged, speaking of ghosts and demons, she claims that Komomo had been on the island, but had died. Distraught and drunk, Christopher asks her to tell him her story, and so she does, telling of her childhood, how she became a prostitute and how Komomo died. Unsatisfied with the story, Christopher demands to know the truth, deducing that she’s lying and leaving things out, and so she tells the story again, this time a much darker, more complete version. Every time she tells the story, the details get darker and more disturbing.

So how disturbing is it? Pretty freaking disturbing. It is legitimately messed up. And it’s not just the violence and torture, nor the themes, but the subject matter and how it’s shown. The subject matter it deals with is grim, and some of the visuals and imagery are horrific and a more than a little distressing (the things floating down the river alone are disturbing). It’s a (short) movie that will make you uncomfortable. This is some truly horrific stuff here and it’s easy to see why it was controversial and why it was banned from being shown on television.

Now for the weakest point - the acting is pretty atrocious. Billy Drago is not a man known for his acting (if you do know him, it’d be for his villain roles and not speaking parts). Here his timing is way off and ridiculous, sometimes instantly reacting to other character’s lines before they’ve had a chance to say them, and other times not reacting at all. Sometimes it’s really difficult to tell what emotions he’s meant to be showing, though I guess ‘drunk and delirious’ would cut it for most of it. The disfigured girl is a little better, though her delivery is a bit too forceful. The rest of the limited cast have a few issues – it’s a Japanese cast in an English-language movie and most obviously don’t speak English, so their delivery is stilted and their pronunciation is off.

 

 

The filmmaking itself is pretty decent. While the budget was obviously low, they make it work with a surprising variety of locales (despite being mostly confined to a single brothel room, flashbacks take us to the Japanese countryside). Costumes and set design is nice, with some typical Miike weirdness (one of the brothel managers is a syphilis-ridden midget with a dead chicken weaved into his hair). The effects, while mostly low budget, are really quite effective and horrific. The violence is bloody and gruesome, while the physical make-up is mostly great. Some of it is a little too fake, and as it reaches its conclusion potentially silly, but it’s still pretty freaky stuff. There’s a horrific torture scene that is painful to watch (somewhat similar to Audition’s torture scene). It doesn’t so much push boundaries as it completely ignores them, with a lot of the themes, subject matter and violence being far beyond what you’d ever expect to see on television.

While largely a visceral experience, it does also play tricks on the viewer – Christopher gets increasingly drunk and angry as time passes, with the things he sees possibly either being hallucinations or hauntings. It’s also vaguely hinted to a sinister background for Christopher, and a grim reason as to why he’s infatuated with Komomo. The themes and ideas are also strange, with every well-meaning character in flashbacks being revealed as horrible and cruel in truth. In fact, it’s hard to tell what is happening with the characters, be it how sane Christopher is or the disfigured girl’s obsession with hell. The ending is really weird and unexplained, and certainly open to interpretation.

Imprint works, is the crux of all this, even despite some of its issues. It is a bit of a strange outlier in Miike’s filmography in terms of filmmaking; it fits with Miike’s warped sensibilities and controversial output, but it also feels like he adapted his free-form style to fit what he thinks American audiences expect from horror film with how it’s shot – not in a bad way, the film works, but it definitely has a different feel to Miike’s Japanese horror works, like Audition and One Missed Call. When compared to the other Master of Horror episodes it sits with the better ones, and is easily the most disturbing of the bunch (which is saying something since some of them are really quite great). I’ve got the DVD copy of it, and it’s interesting to see the interviews and making-of stuff that show Miike in action – the dude just gets on with it and films the thing, an attitude that seems to fit his massive output.